Court Opinion

ID: 9835844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 02:44:18.683211+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:09.693166
License: Public Domain

SANDSTROM,
Justice, dissenting.
[¶ 22] I respectfully dissent.
[¶ 23], The majority reverses on the basis of the district court’s not acting on an objection never made before or at trial and on the basis of the district court’s not giving a limiting instruction that was never requested. The majority says there must be a new trial, even though the claimed “errors” made no difference.
[¶ 24] My premise is rather simple and is what the State argues. If the defense believes certain evidence is “prior bad acts” evidence and should be excluded ber cause its-probative value is exceeded by the danger of unfair prejudice, then it should clearly and explicitly- object at the time. And if the defense wants a limiting instruction as to the use of some evidence, it should ask for it at the time.
I
[¶ 25] The evening of the murder, Shaw and three others were at a bar when they received a call warning that Shaw and two others were going to be killed because of a burglary they had committed four *896days before. Shaw and Marcel Welch decided they were going to take care of it. They went to the apartment building where they had committed the burglary. They had burglarized apartment 301 but went to apartment 201 by mistake. At apartment 201, they killed Jose Lopez.
' [¶ 26] Evidence 'of the burglary helped establish the credibility of the threat and thus the motive “to take care of it.” Others who were present when the threat was received testified to it. Welch, yho participated in the killing, testified to the burglary leading to the threat leading to the murder. Others corroborated the threat received,
II ’
[¶27] -The majority, does not assert that the testimony should not have come in at trial, only that the district court without request should have verbalized on the record why it would come in. The majority does not contend the result of the trial would have been any different had this unrequested verbalization taken place. It is as if we have traveled back more than a hundred years, before the time when it became the rule that an error had to make a difference if a new trial was to be ordered. The now nearly universal idea that an error — if it was an error-had to make a difference before there ■ were consequences had its origin with a judge in North Dakota. Ardell Tharaldson, in his book Patronage:- Histories and, Biographies of North Dakota’s Federal Judges, writes- of Judge Charles Amidon:
Judge Amidon gave a speech to the Minnesota Bar in 1906, wherein he was critical of the existing common practice of the appeals courts reversing a lower trial court decision because of a technical error that did not affect the outcome. The speech came to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt who wrote Amidon and asked for a copy.. Roosevelt then advocated this reform in his next speech to Congress and had a bill introduced to accomplish it. President Roosevelt was so impressed that he invited Amidon to visit him at his home On Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. The American Bar Association also be- ' gan to advocate the reform and the idea eventually became law. Today the “harmless error” rule is steadfastly applied by appeals courts and the decision of a lower court is not reversed unless any error is material to the outcome.
Ardell Tharaldson, Patronage: Histories and Biographies of North Dakota’s Federal Judges 21 (2002) (footnote omitted).
III
[¶ 28] The majority may think it is establishing a “bright line” regarding other bad acts for which it thinks a trial court must spontaneously engage in an on-the-record verbalization of its thought process, but the line is amorphous. Speeding? Littering? A rolling stop at a stop sign?
[¶29] The true bright line would be that if a party thinks the probative value of evidence of a prior bad act is exceeded by the risk of unfair prejudice, the party should clearly object and the trial court should clearly rule. Then the outcome could be overturned on appeal if the trial court was wrong and the court’s error would have made a difference in the outcome of the trial.
IV
[¶ 30] Under appropriate analysis, Rule 404 does not even apply to the testimony about what happened four days previous at the apartment building, because the evidence was inextricably intertwined to the murder charge,
[¶ 31] The Seventh Circuit has stated:
*897As the government correctly argues, this circuit has a well-established line of precedent which allows evidence of uncharged acts to be introduced if the evidence is “intricately related” to the acts charged in the indictment. See, e.g., United States v. Ramirez, 45 F.3d 1096, 1102 (7th Cir.1995). Under this doctrine, evidence of uncharged criminal activity is admissible to provide the jury with a complete story of the crime on trial, to complete what would otherwise be a chronological or conceptual void in the story of the crime, or to explain the circumstances surrounding the charged crime. See id. and cases cited therein.
United States v. Spaeni, 60 F.3d 313, 316 (7th Cir.1995).
[¶ 32] The Eighth Circuit has stated: Our cases have firmly established that crimes or acts which are “inextricably intertwined” with the charged crime are not extrinsic and Rule 404(b) does not apply. See United States v. Severe, 29 F.3d 444, 447 (8th Cir.1994) (“[Wlhere the evidence of an act and the evidence of a crime charged are inextricably intertwined, the act is not extrinsic and Rule 404(b) is not implicated”).
United States v. O’Dell, 204 F.3d 829, 833-34 (8th Cir.2000).
[¶ 33] The Tenth Circuit has stated:
“Rule 404(b) only applies to evidence of acts extrinsic to the charged crime.” United States v. Pace, 981 F.2d 1123, 1135 (10th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 966, 113 S.Ct. 1401, 122 L.Ed.2d 774 (1993). “Other act -evidence is intrinsic when the evidence of the other act and the evidence of the crime charged are inextricably intertwined or both acts are part of a single criminal episode or the other acts were necessary preliminaries to the crime charged.” United States v. Williams, 900 F.2d 823, 825 (5th Cir.1990) (internal quotations omitted). Such intrinsic “other act” evidence, although not excluded by 404(b), is still subject to the requirement of Fed.R.Evid. 403 that its probative value is not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. United States v. Fortenberry) 971 F.2d 717, 721 (11th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1068, 113 S.Ct. 1020, 122 L.Ed.2d 166 (1993).
United States v. Lambert, 995 F.2d 1006, 1007-08 (10th Cir.1993).
[¶ 34] The Eleventh Circuit has stated: “Evidence of criminal activity other than the charged offense is not extrinsic under Rule 404(b) if it is (1) an uncharged offense which arose out of the same transaction or series of-transactions as the charged offense, (2) necessary to complete the story of the crime, or (3) inextricably intertwined with the evidence regarding the charged offense.” United States v. McLean, 138 F.3d 1398, 1403 (11th Cir.1998) (citing United States v. Ramsdale, 61 F.3d 825, 829 (11th Cir.1995)), Moreover, “[e]vidence, not part of the crime charged but pertaining to the chain of events explaining the context ... is properly admitted if linked in time and circumstances with the charged crime, or forms an integral and natural part of an account of the crime ... to complete the story of the crime for the jury.” McLean, 138 F.3d at 1403.
United States v. Wright, 392 F.3d 1269, 1276 (11th Cir.2004),
[¶35] This Court has also recognized that evidence about what is “inextricably intertwined” is not subject to Rule 404(b). See, e.g., State v. Michlitsch, 438 N.W.2d 175, 180 (N.D.1989). This Court concluded, “[u]nder the circumstances of this case, we do not believe that the challenged items constituted evidence of ‘other’ crimes, *898wrongs, or acts within the meaning of Rule 404(b).” Id. In State v. Alvarado, 2008 ND 203, ¶ 10, 757 N.W.2d 570, this Court said:
Rule 404(b), N.D.R.Ev., is an embodiment of the common law. [State v.] Christensen, 1997 ND 57, ¶ 8, 561 N.W.2d 631 (citing 22 Charles Alan Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., Federal Practice and Procedure § 5239 (1978)). “The longstanding common law rule on prior-act evidence is that it is inadmissible when it is evidence of ‘a wholly separate and independent crime’ and is used to show a propensity to commit such acts.” Id. (quoting 2 Charles Alan Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., Federal Practice and Procedure § 410 (1982)). This Court has held: “Rule 404(b) only excludes evidence of other acts and crimes committed by the defendant when they are independent of the charged crime, and do not fit into the rule’s exceptions.” Id.
[¶ 36] The evidence properly came in at trial.
V
[¶ 37] There was no limiting instruction here because the defendant did not ask for one even after the district court raised the issue.
[¶ 38] Our rule provides for a limiting instruction if the party asks for one. “If the court admits evidence that is admissible against a party or for a purpose, but not against another party or for another purpose, the court, on timely request, must restrict the evidence to its proper scope and instruct the jury accordingly.” N.D.R.Ev. 105 (emphasis added).
[¶ 39] It is “well-settled that where no limiting instruction is requested concerning evidence of other criminal acts, the failure of the trial court to give such an instruction sua sponte is not reversible error,” United States v. Multi-Management, Inc., 743 F.2d 1359, 1364 (9th Cir. 1984).
[¶40] “The defendant seems to argue that the district court should have, sua sponte, given the jury a limiting instruction at the point in the trial when the Rule 404(b) evidence was admitted, and that it was prejudicial error not to do so. We have never required a district court to do so. In fact, we have never found it to be plain error when a court does not give a limiting instruction of any kind sua sponte with respect to Rule 404(b) type evidence.” United States v. Perkins, 94 F.3d 429, 435-36 (8th Cir.1996).
[¶ 41] Requiring the court to give a limiting instruction only on request makes sense because a limiting instruction may serve to emphasize the evidence, which the defendant, as a matter of trial strategy, may prefer not to do.
[¶ 42] Indeed, the majority contends that testimony about any prior bad acts, no matter how trivial or insignificant, requires an unrequested limiting instruction. The effect may be to suggest to the jury that the evidence has greater significance than anyone had thought.
[¶43] Finally, there was no improper argument or suggestion by the State as to the purpose of the evidence about the burglary.
VI
[¶ 44] I would affirm.
[¶ 45] DALE V. SANDSTROM