January 7, 1996
Supreme Court Limits Unfair Prejudice in Gun Cases
However, in these types of firearms cases, prosecutors were using the unfair and highly
prejudicial tactic of introducing the prior felony as a pretext for conveying to the jury what a
"bad person" the defendant was. By including dramatic or lurid details of the alleged prior
offense, prosecutors sought to convict defendants not on admissible evidence, but on character
evidence which would have been inadmissible in almost any other type of case. With today's
decision in Old Chief v. United States, defendants with prior felony convictions may stipulate --
simply admit -- that fact, and prosecutors will be confined to presenting evidence as to whether
the defendant actually possessed a gun rather than unfairly shifting the focus of the case to past
conduct. Justice David Souter wrote the majority opinion.
"There's no way that jurors--human beings--are going to hear such prejudicial evidence
and not have it affect their judgment," said Albuquerque attorney and NACDL Board member
Tova Indritz, who co-authored the Association's amicus curiae brief with University of New
Mexico Law Professor Barbara Bergman, also an NACDL member. "They're going to see the
defendant as tainted by his past. Our system is set up to avoid convicting citizens just because
they may seem like "bad persons."
The petitioner in the case, Johnny Lynn Old Chief, was arrested after a fracas involving at
least one gunshot, according to the evidence at trial. Old Chief was charged not just with assault
and using a firearm in a crime of violence, but also with being a felon in possession of a firearm
-- a federal crime. Old Chief's prior conviction was for assault causing serious bodily injury, a
felony. Because of the danger that the jury would see him as a "bad person," especially because
of his prior assault conviction, Old Chief offered to stipulate to the prior conviction, which the
trial court rejected. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that allowing jurors to hear the
prosecutor's evidence of the prior assault could have unfairly prejudiced them.
The majority opinion also noted that instructing the jury not to hold the defendant's prior
assault against him was little more than wishful thinking.
"Justice Souter shows he knows about presenting a case to a jury," Indritz said in a
statement today. "He recognizes that a jury instruction doesn't automatically wipe what the jury
has heard from their minds.
"Had Mr. Old Chief been tried on the new assault charge alone, prosecutors wouldn't
have been able to present the prior assault to the jury. But because they added the gun charge,
the court abused its discretion by letting the jury hear explicit details of his prior conviction,"
Indritz said.
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National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)