United States v. Monds, No. 18-3000 (8th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this CaseThe Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence for possession with intent to distribute cocaine and cocaine base. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence of prior convictions, because they were probative on the questions of knowledge and intent; the district court's decision to limit the evidence and to provide a cautionary instruction justified its conclusion that the probative value of the evidence on issues such as knowledge and intent was not substantially outweighed by its prejudicial effect; the district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing references to the fact that he was serving terms of supervised release and probation at the time of his arrest under Federal Rule of Evidence 403; and the district court did not err by denying a two-level, acceptance-of-responsibility sentence reduction under USSG 3E1.1(a).
Court Description: Colloton, Author, with Loken and Kobes, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. No error in admitting evidence of defendant's three prior felony drug convictions as the convictions were probative on the questions of knowledge and intent; the court's decision to admit only the judgments of prior convictions, without details, and give a cautionary instruction justified its conclusion that the probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by its prejudicial effect; admission of testimony of police officer that he was present to arrest defendant for violating conditions of supervised release did not violate Rule 403, and the testimony was admissible to explain the circumstances surrounding the event; further,the jury, which was already of aware of defendant's prior convictions, also received a cautionary instruction concerning use of the testimony; the district court did not err in denying defendant a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility where defendant went to trial and denied factual guilt.
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