United States v. Vaca, No. 20-2651 (8th Cir. 2022)
Annotate this CaseDefendant-appellant Caesar Vaca lied to detectives when he told them he had never possessed a gun. He had pleaded guilty to a crime more than 20 years earlier that involved the use of one. The issue presented for the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals was whether evidence of the prior conviction was admissible. The district court said yes, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed.
Court Description: [Stras, Author, with Loken and Shepherd, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. Where defendant had told police that he had never possessed a firearm, the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence that defendant had been convicted 20 years earlier for shooting a pregnant woman, as it was permissible extrinsic evidence to show he had lied about ever possessing a gun; defendant's sentence, an upward variance, was not an abuse of the district court's discretion and was not substantively unreasonable.
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