Court Opinion

ID: 9498274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:13:12.535556+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:44.048743
License: Public Domain

POSNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree that the convictions should be affirmed, but only because the exclusion of evidence about the other bank robbery was a harmless error in view of all the other evidence of the defendants’ guilt. I don’t agree that the evidence was irrelevant. I also think that more needs to be said about “reverse 404(b) evidence” — an unhappy formula.
Within a two-week period two bank robberies were committed within 31 miles of each other in a rural area of southwestern Illinois. Besides proximity in time and space (31 miles and 2 weeks might be the perfect distance/interval between robberies by the same gang because immediately after an armed bank robbery other banks in the immediate vicinity would be worried and increase their protective measures) and the fact that the target in each robbery was a bank, both robberies took place in towns rather than cities (the robbery of which the defendants were accused took place in Cahokia, population 16,000, and the other in New Baden, population 3,000). Both involved several robbers rather than just one and in both the robbers were black and brandished guns and, though they were male, one robber was disguised as a woman (wearing either a woman’s wig or a dress). And on both occasions the robbers escaped in a recently stolen van. The defendants in our case wanted to introduce the evidence of the other robbery to show that the other gang might have perpetrated the robbery of which they were accused.
They were entitled to do this if the evidence was relevant, Fed.R.Evid. 402, unless its probative value was substantially outweighed by (so far as bears on this case) its propensity to confuse the jury or needlessly prolong the trial. Fed.R.Evid. 403. The district judge was wrong to think that the applicable standard was giv*611en not by Rule 403 but by Rule 404(b), which forbids placing the defendant’s prior crimes (or his other bad acts) in evidence in order to demonstrate that he has a propensity to commit crimes. United States v. Paladino, 401 F.3d 471, 474-75 (7th Cir.2005); United States v. Tse, 375 F.3d 148, 155 (1st Cir.2004); United States v. Stevens, 935 F.2d 1380, 1401-06 (3d Cir.1991). The defendants were trying to exculpate themselves by pinning the crimes of which they were accused on other criminals. Such a tactic is outside the scope of Rule 404(b) unless they are trying show that those they are accusing have a “propensity” to commit crimes, as demonstrated by their other crime or crimes- — ■ which is to say that they have a bad character and this is reason enough for the jury to deem them guilty of the present crime as well.
Rule 404(b) is not limited to the case in which the defendant seeks its protection, United States v. Della Rose, 403 F.3d 891, 901-02 (7th Cir.2005); Agushi v. Duerr, 196 F.3d 754, 760-61 (7th Cir.1999); United States v. Lucas, 357 F.3d 599, 604-05 (6th Cir.2001), though that is the usual case (hence our initial description of the rule). But its only purpose, whoever is invoking it, is to prevent the facile expedient of claiming that since X (whether the defendant or anyone else) committed crime a on some previous occasion, probably he committed crime b on this occasion, even if there is no reason to suppose this other than his having demonstrated by his previous crime a proclivity for committing criminal acts. Id. at 605-06. The defendants were not arguing that the New Baden robbers had shown by their criminal act a proclivity to commit robberies, such as the Cahokia robbery of which the defendants were accused. They were trying to show from the similarity of the two crimes that the New Baden robbers were likely to have committed the Cahokia robbery as well. Such a use of other-crimes evidence is allowed by the exception in Rule 404(b) for proof of identity (i.e., the identity of the Cahokia robbers). United States v. Puckett, 405 F.3d 589, 596 (7th Cir.2005); cf. United States v. Lawson, 410 F.3d 735, 741 (D.C.Cir.2005). Its admissibility is therefore governed by Rules 402 and 403; Rule 404(b) falls out.
Evidence is relevant, and therefore not barred by Rule 402, if it increases the strength of the case of the party who wishes to present the evidence at trial. Fed.R.Evid. 401; Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 178-79, 117 S.Ct. 644, 136 L.Ed.2d 574 (1997); United States v. Hodges, 315 F.3d 794, 800 (7th Cir.2003); United States v. Stevens, supra, 935 F.2d at 1401-06. That criterion is satisfied here, my colleagues to the contrary notwithstanding. If believed, evidence that the New Baden robbers committed the Cahokia robbery as well would be evidence that would help the party that wants to present it and would therefore be relevant. United States v. Bedonie, 913 F.2d 782, 801 (10th Cir.1990); United States v. Day, 591 F.2d 861, 880-81 (D.C.Cir.1978). The similarity between the robberies suggested that they might have been committed by the same gang, and as it was conceded that the defendants had not committed the New Baden robbery (those robbers were caught; the conviction of one of them was affirmed in United States v. Donaby, 349 F.3d 1046, 1047 (7th Cir.2003)), it followed that if the robberies were committed by the same gang the defendants were innocent of the Cahokia robbery. The police report on that robbery described the robbers’ modus operandi as similar to that of the New Baden robbers. Had the evidence of the New Baden robbery been admitted, it would have strengthened the case for an acquittal. It was therefore relevant. United States v. Green, 786 *612F.2d 247, 252 (7th Cir.1986); United States v. Crosby, 75 F.3d 1343, 1347 (9th Cir.1996); United States v. Stevens, supra, 935 F.2d at 1401-06; United States v. Armstrong, 621 F.2d 951, 953 (9th Cir.1980).
No single one of the similarities between the two robberies (the race of the perpetrators, the use of a stolen van as a getaway vehicle, etc.) established a high likelihood that the same gang committed both. But to the extent that the similarities were independent of each other, the probability that all were coincidences was much smaller than the probability that each one, taken separately, was. The probability that a series of independent observations are all false is the multiple of the probability that each is. Suppose the probability that each of five similarities between the two robberies was not due to the robbers being the identical people was 90 percent; nevertheless the probability that all five similarities were not due to their being identical would be only 50 percent. The numbers are arbitrary; the principle is not: a number of weak similarities if they point in the same direction can constitute respectable evidence. The majority’s reason for denying the “relevance” of the evidence in this case — that the similarities between the New Baden robbery and the Cahokia robbery are “generic” — has to do not with relevance but with the probative value of the evidence.
By making relevant evidence excludable only if its probative value is substantially outweighed by competing considerations such as the risk that the evidence will confuse the jury, Rule 403 establishes a presumption in favor of the admissibility of relevant evidence. E.g., United States v. Krenzelok, 874 F.2d 480, 482-83 (7th Cir.1989); Rubert-Torres v. Hospital San Pablo, Inc., 205 F.3d 472, 478-80 (1st Cir.2000); United States v. Terzado-Madruga, 897 F.2d 1099, 1117 (11th Cir.1990). The district judge did not rule that the presumption was rebutted; misled by Rule 404(b), he never mentioned Rule 403. I find nothing to indicate that the presumption was rebutted. The jury could no more have been confused by the evidence concerning the New Baden robbery than it could have been confused by an alibi witness who testified that the defendants were somewhere else when the Cahokia bank was robbed. The evidence that the defendants wanted to present was similar to alibi evidence; it tended to show that they were somewhere else when the bank was robbed because the robbery was committed by another gang. That is better evidence than an alibi; if believed, it solves the crime.
Of course at some point the resemblance between two crimes becomes so attenuated that a jury would scratch its collective head in puzzlement were it given evidence of a second crime to cogitate over — suppose the defendants had argued that the modus operandi of the Cahokia robbers was identical to that of the robbery of a bank in Yokohama in 1946. But the proximity and resemblance of the two crimes were sufficiently close that a jury would have realized why the New Baden crime was being injected into the case and would have weighed it rationally against the other evidence. E.g., United States v. Crosby, supra, 75 F.3d at 1348-49. It is shortsighted of the government to deny this, since if the defendants had committed the New Baden robbery the government would undoubtedly be arguing that the evidence of that robbery should be admissible in the present case to prove the defendants guilty of the Cahokia heist, under the identity and modus operandi exceptions to Rule 404(b)’s exclusion of prior-crimes evidence when offered to show guilt rather than innocence. E.g., United States v. Robinson, 161 F.3d 463, 466-68 (7th Cir.1998); United States v. Moore, *613115 F.3d 1348, 1353-56 (7th Cir.1997); United States v. Smith, 103 F.3d 600, 602-04 (7th Cir.1996); United States v. Almendares, 397 F.3d 653, 661-63 (8th Cir.2005). What is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. Evidence admissible under Rule 404(b) to establish modus operandi should be admissible under Rule 403 to show that another set of criminals employed the same modus operandi that was used in the crime of which the defendants are accused.
The less probative a piece of evidence is, and thus the less the benefit to the truth-determining function of the jury of admitting it at trial, and the more trial time the presentation of the evidence would consume and the likelier the evidence would be to confuse the jurors by distracting them from more probative evidence, the stronger the argument for exclusion. United States v. Urfer, 287 F.3d 663, 665 (7th Cir.2002); Coleman v. Home Depot, Inc., 306 F.3d 1333, 1343-47 (3d Cir.2002); 22 Charles Alan Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., Federal Practice and Procedure: Evidence § 5216 (1978 ed. & 2004 supp.). Evidence that takes time to present and digest but contributes little to the jurors’ understanding of the real issues in the case is a kind of noise, obstructing rather than advancing understanding. Manuel v. City of Chicago, 335 F.3d 592, 596-97 (7th Cir.2003); United States v. Reed, 259 F.3d 631, 634-35 (7th Cir.2001); United States v. Johnson, 605 F.2d 1025, 1030 (7th Cir.1979); United States v. Layton, 767 F.2d 549, 551, 556 (9th Cir.1985). It should be kept out. But the trial in this case lasted only four days and the evidence concerning the New Baden robbery would have required only an hour or two to put before the jury.
Preventing a defendant from offering relevant evidence on the basis of vague and implausible concerns with jury confusion and the burden of a longer trial violates Rule 403. The error is especially clear when the balance required by Rule 403 is struck by the court of appeals without the benefit of the district judge’s view of the matter; review of district judges’ rulings on the admissibility of evidence is deferential precisely because the trial judge has a better opportunity to assess the particular jury’s ability to assimilate particular types of evidence. United States v. Van Dreel, 155 F.3d 902, 905-06 (7th Cir.1998); United States v. Russell, 971 F.2d 1098, 1104 (4th Cir.1992). For appellate judges to exercise discretion vested in district judges is particularly gratuitous when as in this case there is a perfectly adequate alternative ground of decision: the error in excluding the New Baden evidence was harmless because the evidence of the defendants’ guilt was crushing. The two other members of the gang that robbed the Cahokia bank, Paschal and Townsend, pleaded guilty and testified against our two defendants, Seals and Johnson, furnishing detailed accounts of the role each of the two had played in the offense. A relative of Paschal testified that on the day of the robbery she had seen all four leaving her house together carrying guns and wearing fatigues (the attire of the Cahokia robbers), that Paschal had told her they planned to rob a bank, and that he had returned to the house later with wads of cash. Seals and Johnson bought ears for cash shortly after the robbery and neither of them offered a plausible alternative explanation for where they’d gotten the cash. Seals’s mother testified that she had bought one of the cars as a present for her son, but on cross-examination admitted to earning only $8 an hour, and though the sales invoices listed her as the purchaser of the car the salesman testified that the actual purchaser had been a young black male.
*614All this evidence of guilt means that the defendants’ evidence concerning the other gang of robbers was unlikely to be believed. That is relevant to harmlessness but is not the test of relevance; the test of relevance is whether, if believed, the evidence would help the party that wants to present it. United States v. Bedonie, 913 F.2d 782, 801 (10th Cir.1990); United States v. Day, supra, 591 F.2d at 880-81. “The judge cannot make decisions as to the weight of the evidence under the guise of determining relevance.” 22 Wright & Graham, supra, § 5165; see also United States v. Hubbard, 61 F.3d 1261, 1274 (7th Cir.1995); Robinson v. Runyon, 149 F.3d 507, 512-13 (6th Cir.1998). The judge can and indeed must make such a decision when a serious Rule 403 issue is raised, but it wasn’t here; as I said, there was no danger that evidence of the New Baden robbery would confuse the jury or protract the trial unreasonably, unless the judge allowed the evidence to be presented in tedious detail, which he need not and would not have done.