U.S. v. O'Shea
| Decision Date | 13 February 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 82-8660,82-8660 |
| Citation | 724 F.2d 1514 |
| Parties | 14 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1548 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John Patrick O'SHEA, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Frank H. Childs, Jr., Macon, Ga., for defendant-appellant.
Edgar W. Ennis, Jr., Asst. U.S. Atty., Macon, Ga., for plaintiff-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.
Before GODBOLD, Chief Judge, RONEY and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges.
The appellant, John Patrick O'Shea, was convicted by a jury on five counts: being a convicted felon and transporting firearms in interstate commerce (18 U.S.C. Sec. 922(g)(1)); transporting a stolen motor vehicle in interstate commerce (18 U.S.C. Secs. 2312 and 2); concealing, storing, and disposing of a motor vehicle which has constituted interstate commerce, knowing the vehicle to have been stolen (18 U.S.C. Secs. 2313 and 2); being a convicted felon and receiving a firearm previously transported in interstate commerce (18 U.S.C. Sec. 922(h)(1)); and using a firearm to commit a felony for which he could be prosecuted in a United States Court (18 U.S.C. Secs. 924(c)(1) and 2).
The charges arose out of O'Shea's escape from federal custody while being transferred to Oregon under a writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum. At the time, O'Shea was serving a life sentence for murder in Massachusetts. With the help of confederates and in possession of two revolvers, O'Shea travelled in a stolen automobile to Georgia where he went into hiding. While in Georgia he was confronted by two deputies, whom he disarmed and handcuffed to a tree; he then stole their twelve gauge shotgun. O'Shea was eventually arrested in Oregon, eight months after his escape.
O'Shea's main contention on appeal is that the district court should have required the government to accept his proffered stipulation that he was a convicted felon for those charges that included a felony conviction as an element of the offense. As part of the stipulation, O'Shea requested that reference to his murder conviction be deleted from the indictment and not be mentioned during the trial. O'Shea argues that because the stipulation was refused, he was unduly prejudiced and denied a fair and impartial trial once the jury learned from the indictment that he was a convicted murderer.
When O'Shea's counsel first made the proffered stipulation at a pre-trial hearing, the trial judge questioned the government's attorney and other defense counsel on their willingness to stipulate. The government's attorney objected to the stipulation but the lawyers for the other defendants indicated that they were willing to agree and several stated that they would like a similar stipulation for their clients. At this stage, the judge indicated that it was "his inclination to grant the motion."
Upon further discussion, however, various problems with the proposed stipulations began to emerge. When the government indicated that it intended to call as a witness one of the defendants who had pleaded guilty, and to whose prior convictions one of the remaining defendants had requested a stipulation, a codefendant's lawyer reserved the right to bring out past convictions for impeachment. The lawyer proceeded to state that she also intended to introduce a newspaper article concerning O'Shea to show when her client first learned of his escape, and she thought it might contain a reference to O'Shea's murder conviction. The government's attorney also indicated that he was calling a number of O'Shea's acquaintances as witnesses, and that he doubted that O'Shea's past could be completely kept out. In light of these problems, the judge denied the stipulations, noting "it sounds like that on both sides, the background of these two individuals [O'Shea and a codefendant] is going to be brought out by somebody at some time and it may be an exercise in futility to start out withholding part of it from the jury, knowing it will unfold anyway." O'Shea's lawyer objected to the court's ruling and renewed his objection later when a summary of the indictment that included a reference to O'Shea's murder conviction was given to the jury.
As a general rule, a party may not preclude his adversary's offer of proof by admission or stipulation. Parr v. United States, 255 F.2d 86, 88 (5th Cir.1958), 1 cert. denied, 358 U.S. 824, 79 S.Ct. 40, 3 L.Ed.2d 64 (1958). This proposition, however, is qualified by Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, 2 which requires that evidence be excluded if its potential for unfair prejudice is substantially outweighed by its probative value. The ultimate decision to exclude evidence under Rule 403 is "committed to the sound discretion of the trial court, tempered by the particular facts presented." United States v. Grassi, 602 F.2d 1192, 1197 (5th Cir.1979), vacated and remanded on other grounds, 448 U.S. 902, 100 S.Ct. 3041, 65 L.Ed.2d 1131 (1980). An offer to stipulate is one factor that the trial court should consider in making a determination under Rule 403. United States v. Bizzard, 674 F.2d 1382, 1388 (11th Cir.1982); United States v. Grassi, supra; see also United States v. Thomas, 676 F.2d 531, 537 n. 4 (11th Cir.1982).
Unlike other courts, our circuit has declined to adopt a per se rule either for or against admission of evidence where the defendant offers to stipulate to an element of the offense. Grassi, 602 F.2d at 1197. Compare United States v. Poore, 594 F.2d 39 (4th Cir.1979) () with United States v. Williams, 612 F.2d 735 (3d Cir.1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 934, 100 S.Ct. 1328, 63 L.Ed.2d 770 (1980) (). We have recognized, however, that where a prior conviction is part of an offense and the defendant offers to stipulate to the prior...
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