Unted States v. Smith, No. 12-1516 (3d Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseAn FBI Agent and others were in an unmarked car with tinted windows, at a Newark intersection, as part of a drug investigation. People scattered when the vehicle arrived, but the agent saw Smith across the street, staring into the vehicle. Smith disappeared, but returned a minute later. As Smith passed under a light, the agent saw a handgun. As Smith approached, the agent called out that he had a gun. Smith was arrested. Officers recovered a semi-automatic handgun, but no drugs were found on Smith. Smith confessed that he had been on the corner and that he had a gun, but claimed that he retrieved the gun in self-defense because there had been a shooting nearby two weeks earlier involving a similar car. Smith was indicted for threatening a federal officer, 18 U.S.C. 111(a)(1) & (b); possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(1)(A)(ii); and possession of a firearm by a felon, 18 U.S.C. 922(g). The court admitted evidence under Rule 404(b) that, two years earlier, Smith had engaged in a drug transaction at the same corner. The Third Circuit vacated the convictions, holding that admission of the prior conviction violated the requirement that the proponent of such admission set forth a chain of logical inferences, no link of which can be the inference that because the defendant committed offenses before, he is more likely to have committed this one.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on August 12, 2013.
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