Dowling v. United States

• Decision Date: 10 January 1990
• Docket Number: No. 88-6025,88-6025
• Citation: 493 U.S. 342,107 L.Ed.2d 708,110 S.Ct. 668
• Parties: Reuben DOWLING, Petitioner v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

493 U.S. 342

110 S.Ct. 668

107 L.Ed.2d 708

Reuben DOWLING, Petitioner

v UNITED STATES.

No. 88-6025.

Argued Oct. 4, 1989.

Decided Jan. 10, 1990.

Syllabus

Petitioner Dowling was convicted of robbing a Virgin Islands bank while wearing a ski mask and carrying a small pistol. Relying on Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b)—which provides that evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts may be admissible against a defendant for purposes other than character evidence—the Government introduced at trial the testimony of one Henry, who stated that a similarly masked and armed Dowling had been one of two intruders who had entered her home two weeks after the bank robbery. Although Dowling had been acquitted of charges in the Henry case, the Government believed that Henry's description of him strengthened its identification of him as the bank robber and that her testimony linked him to another individual thought to be implicated in the bank robbery. The District Court permitted the introduction of the testimony and twice instructed the jury about Dowling's acquittal and the limited purpose for which the testimony was being admitted. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, ruling that, although the Government was collaterally estopped by the acquittal from offering Henry's testimony at trial and the testimony was inadmissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence, its admission was harmless because it was highly probable that the error did not prejudice Dowling. The court declined to apply the more stringent standard of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 applicable to constitutional errors because the District Court's error was evidentiary and not of constitutional dimension.

Held:

1. The admission of the testimony did not violate the collateral-estoppel component of the Double Jeopardy Clause. The collateral-estoppel doctrine prohibits the Government from relitigating an issue of ultimate fact that has been determined by a valid and final judgment, Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 but does not bar in all circumstances the later use of evidence simply because it relates to alleged criminal conduct for which a defendant has been acquitted. Here, the prior acquittal did not determine the ultimate issue in the bank robbery case because in the second trial the Government was not required to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Dowling was the man who entered Henry's house. This decision is consistent with other cases where this Court has held that an acquittal in a criminal case does not preclude the Government from relitigating an issue when it is presented in a subsequent action governed by a lower standard of proof, United States v. One Assortment of 89 Firearms, 465 U.S. 354, 361-362, 104 S.Ct. 1099, 1104-1105, 79 L.Ed.2d 361; One Lot Emerald Cut Stones v. United States, 409 U.S. 232, 235, 93 S.Ct. 489, 492, 34 L.Ed.2d 438. Even if the lower burden of proof at the second trial did not serve to avoid the collateral-estoppel component of the Double Jeopardy Clause, Dowling failed to satisfy his burden of demonstrating that the first jury determined that he was not one of the men who entered Henry's home. Pp. 347-352.

2. The introduction of the evidence did not violate the due process test of "fundamental fairness." Especially in light of the trial judge's limiting instructions, the testimony was not fundamentally unfair, since the jury was free to assess the truthfulness and significance of the testimony, since the trial court's authority to exclude potentially prejudicial evidence adequately addresses the possibility that introduction of such evidence will create a risk that the jury will convict a defendant based on inferences drawn from the acquitted conduct, since inconsistent verdicts are constitutionally tolerable, and since the tradition that the Government may not force a person acquitted in one trial to defend against the same accusation in a subsequent proceeding is amply protected by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Pp. 352-354.

855 F.2d 114 (CA3 1988), affirmed.

WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and BLACKMUN, O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL and STEVENS, JJ., joined, post, p. 354.

Robert L. Tucker for petitioner.

Stephen L. Nightingale, Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

At petitioner's trial for various offenses arising out of a bank robbery, testimony was admitted under Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence, relating to an alleged crime that the defendant had previously been acquitted of committing. We conclude that neither the Double Jeopardy Clause nor the Due Process Clause barred the use of this testimony.

I

On the afternoon of July 8, 1985, a man wearing a ski mask and armed with a small pistol robbed the First Pennsylvania Bank in Frederiksted, St. Croix, Virgin Islands, taking over $7,000 in cash from a bank teller, approximately $5,000 in cash from a customer, and various personal and travelers' checks. The culprit ran from the bank, scurried around in the street momentarily, and then commandeered a passing taxi van. While driving away from the scene, the robber pulled off his ski mask. An eyewitness, who had slipped out of the bank while the robbery was taking place, saw the maskless man and at trial identified him as petitioner, Reuben Dowling. Other witnesses testified that they had seen Dowling driving the hijacked taxi van outside of Frederiksted shortly after the bank robbery.

Following his arrest, Dowling was charged with the federal crimes of bank robbery, 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), and armed robbery, § 2113(d), and with various crimes under Virgin Islands law. Dowling pleaded not guilty to all charges. Dowling's first trial ended with a hung jury. He was tried again and convicted, but the Third Circuit reversed this conviction on appeal. Government of Virgin Islands v. Dowling, 814 F.2d 134 (1987). After a third trial, Dowling was convicted on most of the counts; the trial judge sentenced him to 70 years' imprisonment.

During petitioner's third trial, the Government, over petitioner's objection, called a woman named Vena Henry to the stand. Ms. Henry testified that a man wearing a knitted mask with cutout eyes and carrying a small handgun had, together with a man named Delroy Christian, entered her home in Frederiksted approximately two weeks after the First Pennsylvania Bank robbery. Ms. Henry testified that a struggle ensued and that she unmasked the intruder, whom she identified as Dowling. Based on this incident, Dowling had been charged under Virgin Islands law with burglary, attempted robbery, assault, and weapons offenses, but had been acquitted after a trial held before his third trial in the bank robbery case.

The Government assertedly elicited Henry's testimony for two purposes. First, it believed that Henry's description of Dowling as wearing a mask and carrying a gun similar to the mask worn and the gun carried by the robber of the First Pennsylvania Bank strengthened the Government's identification of Dowling as the bank robber. Second, the Government sought to link Dowling with Delroy Christian, the other man who entered Henry's home. The day before the bank robbery, Dowling had borrowed a white Volkswagen from a friend. At Dowling's trial for the First Pennsylvania Bank robbery, a police officer testified that, shortly before the bank robbery, she and her partner had come upon Christian and another man parked in a white Volkswagen in front of the bank with the car door open into the street; Christian was in the backseat. The officers told the two men to close the door, and the men drove away to the north. The police followed the Volkswagen for about a mile and, shortly thereafter, received a radio message that the bank had been robbed. The Government's theory was that Christian and his friend were to drive the getaway car after Dowling robbed the bank.

Before opening statements, the Government disclosed its intention to call Ms. Henry and explained its rationale for doing so, relying on Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which provides that evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts may be admissible against a defendant for purposes other than character evidence. After a hearing, the District Court characterized the testimony as highly probative circumstantial evidence and ruled that it was admissible under Rule 404(b). App. 24-25. When Henry left the stand, the District Court instructed the jury that petitioner had been acquitted of robbing Henry, and emphasized the limited purpose for which Henry's testimony was being offered. Id., at 28. The court reiterated that admonition in its final charge to the jury. Id., at 29.

On appeal, the Third Circuit determined that the District Court should not have admitted Henry's testimony, but nevertheless affirmed Dowling's conviction. 855 F.2d 114 (1988). Relying on its decision in United States v. Keller, 624 F.2d 1154 (1980), the court held that petitioner's acquittal of the charges arising out of the incident at Henry's home collaterally estopped the Government from offering evidence of that incident at petitioner's trial for the First Pennsylvania Bank robbery.

Alternatively, the Court of Appeals ruled that the evidence was inadmissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence. The court noted that we had recently held in Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681, 108 S.Ct. 1496, 99 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988), that "[i]n the Rule 404(b) context, similar act evidence is relevant only if the jury can reasonably conclude that the act occurred and that the defendant was the actor." Id., at 689, 108 S.Ct. at 1501. The Third Circuit found Henry's testimony inadmissible under Rule 404(b) because "when the prior act sought to be introduced was the subject of an acquittal by a jury, a second jury should not be...