Court Opinion

ID: 9466423
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:15:09.274372+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:43.280093
License: Public Domain

KEITH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent on two grounds from the majority’s opinions affirming appellants’ convictions. First, the trial court failed to give a cautionary limiting instruction to the jury concerning the limited use of prejudicial “common pattern or scheme” evidence of defendants’ prior involvement in another bank robbery. Secondly, evidence unconnected to the offense for which defendants were being tried, and which had not been properly admitted into evidence, was permitted to remain in the courtroom during trial within the purview of the jury. These two errors, when taken together, were sufficiently prejudicial to defendants’ right to a fair trial that a reversal of defendants’ convictions is warranted.
I.
The first of these errors centers around a statement by the prosecutor in his opening remarks to the jury. The record reveals that in a pretrial conference, the prosecutor advised the court that defendants had participated in the robbery of the Consolidated Sales Company in Louisville and that, since the modus operandi of that robbery and the bank robbery in question were substantially the same, the prosecutor desired to introduce evidence of the other robbery to help *638identify defendants as the perpetrators of the bank robbery.1
After hearing arguments from counsel and reviewing case authorities, the district court ruled that the evidence of the prior robbery would be admitted for the purpose of corroborating other evidence on the question of defendants’ identity as the bank robbers. In conformity with this ruling, the prosecutor mentioned in his opening statement to the jury on the first day of trial that evidence regarding the Consolidated robbery would be introduced to help establish the identity of the bank robbers.
Prior to commencement of the second day of trial, defendants’ counsel prevailed upon the court to reconsider its prior ruling permitting introduction of the evidence of the other armed robbery. Upon reconsideration, the court decided to exclude this evidence. Thereupon, defendants’ counsel requested that the court either declare a mistrial or give a cautionary instruction regarding the prosecutor’s prior reference to the other robbery. The trial judge refused both requests, stating that he did not want to emphasize the remark and that defense counsel could argue against it in their summations to the jury.
A trial court is permitted to admit evidence of prior crimes to show motive, intent, absence of mistake or inadvertence, identity of the offender, or a common plan, pattern or scheme. F.R.Evid. 404(b). The court has wide-ranging discretion in determining which fact patterns constitute such exceptions to the general rule barring admission of evidence of a criminal defendant’s prior misconduct. See United States v. Nemeth, 430 F.2d 704 (6th Cir. 1970); United States v. Wells, 431 F.2d 432 (6th Cir. 1970); United States v. Birns, 395 F.2d 943 (6th Cir. 1968); United States v. Neal, 344 F.2d 254 (6th Cir. 1965).2
Assuming that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that a jumpsuit, ski mask, goggles and stolen vehicle constituted a signature and therefore properly admitted evidence concerning the Consolidated robbery, error was committed by the trial court’s failure to give limiting instructions concerning such evidence to the jury. The majority ignores established authority in our Circuit that when prior crimes evidence is admitted, a limiting instruction must be given:
“The exceptions, when properly applied, are justified by a legitimate need for the evidence that outweighs the perils of undue prejudice to the accused. In reaching this accommodation the law naturally seeks to shield the accused from unnecessary prejudice. Accordingly, the admission of evidence of a defendant’s prior acts of bad conduct, under the specified exceptions, requires limiting instructions cautioning the jury not to consider the evidence for improper purposes. United States v. Nemeth, supra; United States v. Sims, 430 F.2d 1089, 1092 (6th Cir.). United States v. Ring, 513 F.2d 1001 (6th Cir. 1975).” United States v. Yopp, 577 F.2d 362, 365 (6th Cir. 1978) (reversing defendants’ convictions on grounds that it was error for judge to fail to admonish jury that they could only take the evidence admitted of a related crime into account in determining the existence of a common plan, and not to prove that defendant Yopp had acted on it in relation to the counts on which he was charged.)
See also Dawson v. Cowan, 531 F.2d 1374 (6th Cir. 1976) (failure of a trial *639judge to give cautionary instruction to the jury on the limited use to which they could put evidence of a prior felony conviction was held to constitute plain error, and warranted reversal of defendants’ conviction.)
While I sympathize with the district court’s concern not to unduly emphasize the prosecutor’s statement regarding the Consolidated robbery, I am of the view that curative steps in the form of a cautionary instruction, either immediately or in the court’s final instructions to the jury, were necessary and appropriate in the circumstances of this case. For unlike the situation in United States v. Andrea, 538 F.2d 1255 (6th Cir. 1976), the statement involved here was ambiguous and had tremendous potential for adversely affecting substantial rights. In Awkard v. United States, 122 U.S.App.D.C. 165, 352 F.2d 641 (D.C. Cir. 1965) the D.C. Circuit commented strongly on this issue:
“Intimations of past crimes, especially crimes similar to the crime charged, are extremely damaging to an accused. . . ” (The Court went on to reverse appellant’s conviction, stating that even “[cjautionary instructions, copiously provided by the trial judge in this case, do not give the accused adequate protection. They cannot prevent the jury from considering prior actions in deciding whether appellant has committed the crime charged.”) 122 U.S.App.D.C. at 169-170, 352 F.2d at 645-646.
And as the admissibility of this evidence in the first instance would have been conditioned on the presence of appropriate cautionary instructions, United States v. Nemeth, 430 F.2d 704-705 (6th Cir. 1970), the need for a cautionary instruction here appears all the more clearly.
II.
I am also persuaded that defendants’ trial was unfairly tainted by the prosecutor’s deliberate injection of inadmissible and highly prejudicial evidence. The record shows that the prosecution brought three hand guns and a shotgun into the courtroom when only one was definitely linked up with the robbery.3 Ammunition retrieved from the guns was marked for identification before the jury although it was never admitted into evidence.4 Additionally, the prosecutor tried to link the bullets and shotgun shells retrieved from the guns with bullets found in the bank parking lot through testimony of an F.B.I. expert on lead analysis.
Finally, the prosecutor exhibited the jumpsuit seized during the search of Underwood’s residence even though one defendant had confessed to having burned the clothing used in the robbery and the prosecution’s photo expert testified that he could not say positively that this jumpsuit was one of those pictured in photos of the robbery taken by the bank’s scanning camera. The jumpsuit was paraded before the jury even though the prosecuton himself did not believe that it was used in the robbery.5
*640This court has often expressed its concern about the practice of some prosecutors of deliberately injecting prejudicial evidence not properly admitted into criminal trials and thereby jeopardizing otherwise strong cases. See United States v. Millen, 594 F.2d 1085 (6th Cir. 1979); United States v. O’Donnell, 510 F.2d 1190, (6th Cir. 1975) cert. denied, 421 U.S. 1001, 95 S.Ct. 2400, 44 L.Ed.2d 668 (1975) (concurring opinion); United States v. Smith, 500 F.2d 293 (6th Cir. 1974); United States v. Calvert, 498 F.2d 409 (6th Cir. 1974); United States v. Nemeth, 430 F.2d 704 (6th Cir. 1970); United States v. King, 378 F.2d 359 (6th Cir. 1967) cert. denied, 396 U.S. 974, 90 S.Ct. 465, 24 L.Ed.2d 443 (1969); United States v. Benson, 369 F.2d 569 (6th Cir. 1966). I believe that the prosecutor in this case engaged in improper over-kill and that this tactic created an atmosphere in the courtroom wherein it was impossible for the defendants to receive a fair trial. See Calvert, supra; Nemeth, supra.
While defendants made a motion for a mistrial on the basis of this conduct, at no time did either request a cautionary instruction. Relying on Rule 52(b) F.R.Cr.Pro., defendant Woods contends that, in light of the prosecution’s improper over-kill with the introduction of the guns and ammunition, the court should have instructed the jury on what it could properly consider as evidence in deciding the case and that the court’s failure to so instruct the jury constituted plain error.
The majority, did not find plain error here, see Smith, supra, 500 F.2d at 297, Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764-765, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1945), see also Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). However, it should have, at the very least, recognized that this failure had the clear potential to affect substantial rights and that, given the confusing circumstances surrounding the evidence exhibited at this trial (the large quantity of evidence and the fact that some items were admitted and some rejected while all were marked for identification in the presence of the jury), the judge should have provided a clarifying instruction as to what the jury might properly consider as evidence in the case, even absent a request.
As this court stated in Smith, supra, “This is not a case involving merely the prejudice that might be expected to result from improper admission of ‘cumulative’ evidence of appellant’s guilt, e. g., United States v. Haskins, 345 F.2d 111, 116 (6th Cir. 1945), but instead involves evidence of ‘the type which infuriates or inflames a jury.’ ” (Citations omitted) 500 F.2d at 297. Whether the prosecutorial over-kill would have been made harmless by a cautionary instruction from the court I need not decide. See Smith, supra at 296-297.
III.
The trial judge’s failure to take curative action regarding the prosecutor’s reference to the Consolidated Sales robbery in his opening statement, in conjunction with the prejudicial atmosphere created by deliberate “prosecutorial over-kill” and the judge’s failure to give clarifying instructions regarding what was to be considered by the jury as evidence in the case, resulted in an unfair trial.
I note that if I were considering any one of the misadventures occurring at trial in isolation, it might be possible to affirm these convictions. However, I am of the view that in combination, they created an atmosphere which tainted defendants’ right to receive a fair trial. Since proof of defendants’ guilt is not overwhelming, I would reverse their convictions.

. It appears that modus operandi similar to that used in the bank robbery in question, was used in the robbery of the Consolidated Sales Company, 1407 West Jefferson, Louisville, Kentucky: four armed robbers wearing ski masks, goggles and jumpsuits. It also appears that the robbers used a stolen vehicle in each instance to get to and away from the place of the robbery.

. I believe that, in the circumstances of this case, the evidence regarding the Consolidated robbery was inadmissible and that the trial court was correct in so ruling on reconsideration. See United States v. Phillips, 599 F.2d 134 (6th Cir. 1979). In my judgment, a jumpsuit, ski mask and goggles are not sufficiently distinctive to constitute a “signature.” Neither is the act of using a stolen vehicle in the commission of a robbery unusual.

. It appears that two revolvers were recovered during the search of Underwood’s residence with a third revolver being obtained from the third co-defendant at the time of his arrest. While the third co-defendant stated that he carried a gun during the robbery, the gun in court was never proved to be the one he then carried. Further, while there were four guns in court, it appears that only two played a part in the robbery and none of the guns introduced in court were definitely shown to have been used in the robbery.

. The problem with the guns and ammunition apparently started when the prosecutor was permitted to retain in the courtroom during trial items which had been the subject of an in camera hearing as to their admissibility. It appears that these items might well have been retained in the courtroom only because the prosecutor suggested he had nowhere else to put them. While the Judge permitted him to retain only those items he intended to introduce, it is not clear that the prosecutor had any purpose here other than to capitalize on the prejudicial impact of having these items paraded before the jury.

. In his closing argument, the prosecutor stated:
“Now, Mr. McWade told you when Mr. Wood confessed that he said they burned the jumpsuits. Now, I do not believe that this is the same jumpsuit but it’s a similar jumpsuit and it establishes one more link, just one more link there.”