United States Second Circuit

Defendant's conviction for possession of a weapon by a person previously convicted of a felony is vacated and remanded where: 1) district courts may not presumptively exclude evidence of the government's charging decisions without an inquiry into its relevance and probative value to the respective case, where the exclusion of the evidence that the four women traveling with the defendant were initially charged with possession of the gun was not only relevant to defendant's defense, but also highly probative as to the credibility of officers' testimony; and 2) the district court's decision to exclude the prior adverse credibility finding with respect to a government witness cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions.

Appellate Information

• Decided 09/28/2012
• Published 09/28/2012

Judges

• Calabresi

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel