United States v. Armajo, 21-8021

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (10th Circuit)
• Citation: 38 F.4th 80
• Docket Number: 21-8021
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Shayne Kyle ARMAJO, Defendant – Appellant.
• Decision Date: 23 June 2022

38 F.4th 80

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
Shayne Kyle ARMAJO, Defendant – Appellant.

No. 21-8021

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

FILED June 23, 2022

O. Dean Sanderford, Assistant Federal Public Defender (Virginia L. Grady, Federal Public Defender, with him on the briefs), Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant.

Timothy J. Forwood, Assistant United States Attorney (L. Robert Murray, Acting United States Attorney with him on the brief), Cheyenne, Wyoming, for the Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before HARTZ, SEYMOUR, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges.

SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge.

38 F.4th 82

Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, a party may introduce evidence of another's prior bad acts if it is presented for a proper purpose. See Fed. R. Evid. 404(b). Mr. Armajo, on trial for stabbing his uncle, sought to present evidence of his uncle's prior assaults in order to bolster a self-defense claim. We consider whether the district court abused its discretion when it ruled that this was a permissible use under Rule 404(b) but nevertheless excluded most of the proffered evidence under Rule 403 because its probative value was substantially outweighed by the risk of undue prejudice.

I

On the day of the stabbing, Shayne Armajo and his uncle, Eli Armajo, were headed to their shared home after a day spent drinking, smoking marijuana, and arguing. As they traveled down a country road in a remote portion of Wyoming's Wind River Indian Reservation, things came to a head when Eli declared he had "had enough" of his nephew and pulled the truck over so they could "duke it out."¹ Rec., vol. III at 696–97. What happened next is disputed.

At trial, Eli testified that he got out of the truck, met Shayne at the tailgate, and started swinging. Eli landed several blows, bloodying Shayne's face and breaking his glasses. Shayne then pulled out a buck knife and began slashing. Eli tried to fend him off, but Shayne knocked Eli to the ground and stabbed him twice in the leg. According to Eli, Shayne then returned to the truck and drove away, leaving Eli bleeding by the side of the road. Fortunately, a passerby spotted him, and authorities were able to get him to a hospital. He was treated and released the next day.

The jury never heard directly from Shayne regarding his version of events. In the aftermath of the stabbing, he told investigators he had no memory of what happened, and he did not testify at trial. Nevertheless, his counsel tried to cast the stabbing as self-defense. Counsel suggested Shayne had good reason to fear his uncle. Although Eli was older, he was substantially heavier and still vigorous, bragging at trial that he could lift a 700-pound log. And Eli had shown himself capable of doing Shayne serious harm in the past. A Bureau of Indian Affairs officer testified that he arrived at the scene of a reported fight between the two in 2018 and found Shayne covered in his own blood, having been beaten by his uncle, who was drunk. Shayne was sent to the hospital in an ambulance, and Eli was charged with battery and taken to jail.

Shayne's attorneys also highlighted evidence that it was Eli, not Shayne, who was the aggressor on this occasion. Eli had, by his own admission, instigated the fight and landed several blows on Shayne. Investigators found Shayne's broken glasses at the scene, stained with his blood, and they found more blood spattered across the steering wheel of Eli's truck. When Shayne awoke from his stupor, he had a bloody cut across his torso and a hole slashed through the chest of his sweatshirt. Moreover, although authorities found Shayne's knife near his mattress, forensic

38 F.4th 83

examination of the blade showed no signs of human blood. Taken together, the defense argued, the evidence showed that it was Eli, not Shayne, who escalated the fight by drawing a knife, and that Shayne had only stabbed Eli because he reasonably believed his life to be in danger.

The jurors were apparently not convinced, at least not fully. After deliberating for five hours, they returned a mixed verdict: guilty on a charge of assault resulting in serious bodily injury, not guilty on a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do bodily harm.

II

"A person may resort to self-defense if he reasonably believes that he is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, thus necessitating an in-kind response." United States v. Toledo, 739 F.3d 562, 567 (10th Cir. 2014). A defendant's "burden of production to warrant a self-defense instruction is not onerous." Id. at 568 (internal quotation marks omitted). It requires only that there be "evidence sufficient for a reasonable jury to find in his favor." Id. at 567.

United States v. Barrett , 797 F.3d 1207, 1218 (10th Cir. 2015). Because Shayne clearly met this burden, the crux of this appeal concerns evidence the jury never heard. To make its case, the government was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the stabbing was not an act of self-defense, i.e., that Shayne lacked a genuine and reasonable belief that he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that his use of force was necessary. See id. (citing Toledo, 739 F.3d at 567 ).

Hoping to stymie the government on this point, Shayne filed notice before trial that he intended to present evidence not only of the beating he took from his uncle in 2018, but of an alleged assault by Eli on his disabled brother in 2014 and several alleged assaults on a girlfriend, including a physical assault in 2015 and a sexual assault in 2017. Shayne argued that this evidence was admissible under Rule 404(b) because evidence that Eli had attacked people in the past, together with evidence that Shayne had known of the attacks, would tend to show that Shayne had good reason to fear Eli and therefore to believe it necessary to meet force with force.

During a hearing on the matter, the district court ruled that Shayne would be allowed to present evidence of Eli's 2018 assault on him, but the court barred evidence of the other alleged assaults. The court agreed that the evidence served a valid purpose...