United States v. Jeremy Bohlman ( 2018 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 4 2018
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 17-30020
Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No.
2:15-cr-00279-EJL-1
v.
JEREMY J. BOHLMAN, AKA Jeremy MEMORANDUM*
Joseph Bottleman,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Idaho
Edward J. Lodge, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted February 7, 2018
Seattle, Washington
Before: M. SMITH and MURGUIA, Circuit Judges, and ROBRENO,** District
Judge.
Jeremy Bohlman (“Bohlman”) appeals his jury conviction of one count of
aggravated sexual abuse in Indian Country and one count of sexual abuse in Indian
Country for the rape of his adult half-sister. Bohlman argues on appeal that the
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Eduardo C. Robreno, United States District Judge for
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.
district court abused its discretion when it (1) allowed the Government to introduce
at trial the fact of Bohlman’s prior conviction for sexual abuse of a minor pursuant
to Federal Rules of Evidence 401, 402, 403 and 413; and (2) precluded evidence of
the victim’s consensual sexual activity with a third party within twenty-four hours
after the alleged rape pursuant to Federal Rules of Evidence 403 and 412. We
have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
1. We review a district court’s evidentiary rulings for abuse of
discretion. United States v. Hayat, 710 F.3d 875, 893 (9th Cir. 2013). Rule 413
provides that “[i]n a criminal case in which a defendant is accused of a sexual
assault, the court may admit evidence that the defendant committed any other
sexual assault.” Fed. R. Evid. 413(a). We have explained that a district court
deciding whether to admit evidence under the related Rule 414 should consider:
(1) “the similarity of the prior acts to the acts charged,”
(2) the “closeness in time of the prior acts to the acts
charged,” (3) “the frequency of the prior acts,” (4) the
“presence or lack of intervening circumstances,” and (5)
“the necessity of [the] evidence beyond the testimonies
already offered at trial.”
United States v. LeMay, 260 F.3d 1018, 1028 (9th Cir. 2001) (quoting Doe ex rel.
Rudy-Glanzer v. Glanzer, 232 F.3d 1258, 1268 (9th Cir. 2000)). We follow
decisions interpreting Rule 414 in cases interpreting Rule 413. United States v.
Sioux, 362 F.3d 1241, 1244 n.4 (9th Cir. 2004).
Here, the district court found that Bohlman’s instant charges and prior
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conviction both fell within the definition of “sexual assault” for purposes of Rule
413 because both offenses involved contact “without consent.” Although
Bohlman’s prior conviction for sexual abuse of a minor in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 2243(a) did not include lack of consent as an element of the offense, the district
court found that the prior conviction was without consent because it involved a
minor victim who was fifteen years old at the time of the offense and therefore
unable to consent as a matter of law. The court then concluded that the fact of
Bohlman’s prior conviction was relevant under Rule 401, and that its probative
value was not outweighed by any undue prejudice under Rules 402 and 403
because the prior conviction was probative of Bohlman’s disposition to commit the
instant sexual assault offenses.
Although the district court cited LeMay in its analysis, the district court did
not engage in a discussion of the LeMay factors. Instead, the court focused on
whether the admission of Bohlman’s prior conviction satisfied the Rule 403
balancing test. The court erred by failing to engage in a fulsome discussion of
each of the LeMay factors prior to admitting the fact of the prior conviction,
including by performing a side-by-side comparison of the two offenses. However,
when the entire record is considered in light of the LeMay factors, the court’s
decision to admit the fact of the prior conviction did not constitute an abuse of
discretion: both offenses involved an imbalance of power between Bohlman and
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the victim; the time period between offenses was shorter than in LeMay; Bohlman
was incarcerated for the majority of the time between the two offenses; and the
evidence was necessary to bolster the credibility of the victim given the lack of
other evidence corroborating her testimony.1 See LeMay, 260 F.3d at 1028.
Further, unlike LeMay, where the district court had permitted the mother of the
victims of the prior offense to testify at trial regarding their abuse, the district court
here denied the Government’s request to introduce the underlying facts of the prior
conviction and provided a limiting instruction to the jury regarding its
consideration of the fact of Bohlman’s prior conviction.
2. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Bohlman’s
motion in limine to admit evidence of the victim’s subsequent consensual sexual
activity with a third party pursuant to Rule 412. Under Rule 412, in a “criminal
proceeding involving alleged sexual misconduct,” evidence is not admissible if
“offered to prove that a victim engaged in other sexual behavior.” Fed. R. Evid.
412(a). The district court correctly found that the evidence Bohlman sought to
admit was inadmissible under the plain language of Rule 412. The district court
1
The Government argued in its briefing in the district court that the prior
offense was also non-consensual based upon factual circumstances aside from the
victim’s age. However, the facts the Government identified were not included in
the indictment, the guilty plea agreement, or the judgment, and instead appear to be
based on the unsworn statement of the victim, whom Bohlman never had the
opportunity to cross-examine. Therefore, the district court properly declined to
consider these facts.
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also did not abuse its discretion in finding that excluding evidence of the victim’s
consensual sexual activity with a third party did not violate Bohlman’s
constitutional rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. See
Fed. R. Evid. 412(b)(1)(C) (providing an exception for “evidence whose exclusion
would violate the defendant’s constitutional rights”); see also Wood v. Alaska, 957
F.2d 1544, 1549-50 (9th Cir. 1992) (affirming the exclusion of evidence regarding
the victim’s activity in the adult film industry and holding that exclusion of such
evidence under Rule 412 does not violate a defendant’s rights under the
Confrontation Clause). Although Bohlman was not permitted to introduce
evidence of the sexual activity itself, the court permitted the defense to attack the
victim’s credibility by introducing testimony from the same third party regarding
her activities and behavior in the hours after the alleged rape occurred, including
evidence that she slept in his car the following night. Therefore, Bohlman was
able to cross-examine the victim sufficiently, and the district court did not abuse its
discretion in finding no violation of Bohlman’s confrontation clause rights. See
Wood, 957 F.2d at 1550 (“A trial court does not abuse its discretion so long as the
jury has sufficient information upon which to assess the credibility of witnesses.”)
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
AFFIRMED.
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