Court Opinion

ID: 9465945
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:00:58.511102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:27.847980
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent.
It seems to me that it was an abuse of discretion for the trial judge to decline to inquire as to prospective jurors’ “community” or neighborhood of residence. While it is true that here the jurors’ names were disclosed as well as the jurors’, town of residence (if outside New York City) or borough of residence (if inside New York City), some of those towns and four of those boroughs are rather large; knowing that someone is from Manhattan does not give counsel contemplating a peremptory challenge the same insight as knowing he is from midtown Manhattan, Murray Hill, Kips Bay, the East Village, Chelsea, the Lower East Side, Yorkville, Soho, etc. Furthermore, I must reluctantly disagree with Judge Meskill that “[w]ith a minimum of effort he [Perry] would likely have secured the specific addresses of the prospective juror.” It is not the case that addresses of the vast majority of people residing in the New York City area can be discovered merely by searching the appropriate phone book. Many people are unlisted, many people have common names, and many people have telephones listed under names, including last names, other than their own. I suppose that there are even some people who do not have telephones. Knowing where the prospective juror is from is of no little importance.1
I also think that admission of evidence of Perry’s possession of cocaine subsequent to the conspiracy was erroneous and that error was harmful. It was erroneous because it was irrelevant to any disputed issue. Perry’s defense was that he did not know that the transaction in the barber shop involved the sale of mannite, which is used as “cut” for heroin. I do not know how it may be maintained that evidence of subsequent possession of cocaine, which is apparently *1054always “cut,” had any bearing on this defense. Perry did not deny knowing what “cut” was. Even if he had done so I do not see how his possession of cut cocaine would have any bearing upon such a denial. One may know that certain illicit drugs are cut without having knowledge that mannite is a cutting substance. In any event, proof that Perry later possessed cut cocaine or knew what “cut” was does not make it more likely that he had knowledge about the true nature of the transaction which had occurred in the barber shop over four months earlier. Surely the probative value of this evidence was so marginal — to show, as Judge Gurfein puts it, that Perry was “streetwise” — and its prejudicial impact so great that the evidence must have been inadmissible under Fed.R.Evid. 404(b). See 22 Wright & Graham, Federal Practice and Procedure: Evidence § 5245 at 504-08 (1978). “The court has not only the discretion but also the duty to exclude evidence of little or no relevance or probative value which might have a prejudicial effect.” Security State Bank v. Baty, 439 F.2d 910, 913 (10th Cir. 1971). I therefore dissent.

. Babcock, Voir Dire: Preserving “Its Wonderful Power,” 27 Stan.L.Rev. 545 (1975).