In United States v. Charley, --- F.3d ---, No. 19-10133 (9th Cir. 2021), the Court affirmed Charley’s conviction on one count of making false statements to a government official, but vacated her convictions on two counts of assault within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
As to the false statements, the case is interesting because "[t]he district court instructed the jury, in relevant part, that the Government carried the burden to prove that Charley 'acted deliberately and with knowledge both that the statement was untrue and that her conduct was unlawful.'"
Although "the 'willfulness' standard in this instruction 'arguably requires more than necessary under § 1001,' [the government] concedes that 'it is bound by' the standard because the instruction was given to the jury."
[This could be helpful for other cases].
As to the assault convictions, the Court vacated them on the basis of improperly admitted Rule-404(b) evidence. And there is lots of very good language on both Rule 404(b) and 405(b). Here is some of it:
- Rule 404 of the Federal Rules of Evidence prohibits evidence about a defendant’s character trait to prove that the defendant committed the charged crime when he acted in accordance with that character trait. The rule is rooted in the “basic premise of our criminal justice system” that “[o]ur law punishes people for what they do, not who they are.” Buck v. Davis, 137 S. Ct. 759, 778 (2017) (Roberts, C.J.). Courts, as gatekeepers of evidence, are tasked with ensuring that a jury convicts a defendant based only on his alleged conduct and mental state underlying the charged crime, not based on his generalized disposition or tendency to act in a particular way—however offensive his behavior may have been in the past.
- Charley’s propensity for violence is not dispositive to the success of her self-defense claim; it therefore fails to constitute “an essential element” under Rule 405(b).
- Specific instances of prior conduct offered to prove one’s character “possesses the greatest capacity to arouse prejudice, to confuse, to surprise, and to consume time,” so “the rule confines the use of evidence of this kind to cases in which character is, in the strict sense, in issue and hence deserving of a searching inquiry.” Advisory Committee Notes, Fed. R. Evid. 405. Although Charley’s testimony about Begay may have opened the door to general reputation or opinion testimony about her propensity for violence under Rule 405(a), she did not open the door to detailed descriptions of “specific instances of conduct” that were completely unrelated to Begay to show that she has a propensity for violence under Rule 405(b).
- It is well-established that evidence of a prior crime, wrong, or incident “is not admissible to prove a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character.” Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1). “The rule is designed to avoid a danger that the jury will punish the defendant for offenses other than those charged, or at least that it will convict when unsure of guilt, because it is convinced that the defendant is a bad man deserving of punishment.”
- “Courts must be extremely careful to guard against the danger that defendants will be convicted because they have previously committed a [prior] serious criminal offense rather than because the Government has introduced evidence sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they are guilty of the offense for which they are being tried.”
- [T]here is no logical connection between those prior incidents and the charged assault other than the implication that Charley has a propensity for violence and was therefore the aggressor on the occasion here—an impermissible inference under Rule 404(b) and an improper consideration when determining whether self-defense was established.
- “[P]rior bad act evidence is allowed to show motive only when motive is in turn relevant to establish an element of the offense that is a material issue.” Brown, 880 F.2d at 1014. But “[t]he prior wrongful acts must establish a motive to commit the crime charged, not simply a propensity to engage in [violence].”
- Even where evidence of other acts is admissible, it is impermissible for the Government to argue that such evidence reflects the defendant’s character
