United States v. Morgan, No. 12-3231 (2d Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed his conviction for drug-related offenses, arguing that the district court abused its discretion by admitting highly prejudicial evidence of his alleged threats to kill a government informant. The district court admitted the evidence, concluding that it was harmless. The court concluded, however, that the district court failed to make the careful assessment required for death threat evidence; admission of this evidence was an abuse of discretion; and the error was not harmless. In this case, the testimony was highly charged, the letter read into the record was graphic and profane, and the proposed crime was unrelated to the charged offenses, and far more terrible. The evidence at trial was not so overwhelming as to alleviate the danger that the jury was influenced by the death threat evidence in a significant way. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for a new trial.
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