Shannon v. Koehler - Northern District of Iowa

There are two primary reasons why a judgment of acquittal is
not generally admissible to rebut inferences that may be drawn
from evidence that was the basis of a previous trial. First,
judgments of acquittal are hearsay. Second, judgments of
acquittal are not generally relevant, because they do not prove
innocence; they simply show that the government did not meet
its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
United States v. Wells, 347 F.3d 280, 286 (8th Cir. 2003) (quoting Prince v. Lockhart, 971
F.2d 118, 122 (8th Cir. 1992)).
In a § 1983 case for excessive force and arrest without probable cause, the Eighth
Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s exclusion of the plaintiff’s acquittal
on the charge for which he was arrested, despite the plaintiff’s assertion that evidence of
the acquittal was necessary “to prevent the jury’s assumption of a conviction” and to
support his argument that the police had no probable cause to arrest him. 11 Bey v.
Hamon, 977 F.2d 586, 1992 WL 279284 at *1-2 (8th Cir. Oct. 14, 1992) (unpublished
table decision) (finding that the acquittal had no probative value to show that the police did
not have probable cause and that the probative value of the acquittal was substantially
11 Similarly, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the dismissal of
charges for want of prosecution is not relevant to a subsequent § 1983 case. See Donald
v. Rast, 927 F.2d 379, 381 (8th Cir. 1991) (affirming district court’s decision to exclude
evidence of dismissal of DUI charges in § 1983 case for arrest without probable cause and
falsification of a breathalyzer test). Nevertheless, in a recent § 1983 case for an unlawful
search warrant, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri limited
Donald’s application to dismissals for want of prosecution and noted that there is no per
se prohibition on the admissibility of a dismissal of criminal charges in subsequent § 1983
cases. Ladd v. Pickering, ___ F. Supp. 2d ___, 2011 WL 1344569 at *3 & n.1 (E.D. Mo.
Mar. 30, 2011) (finding, on motion for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial, that
court’s decision to admit evidence that the criminal charge against the plaintiff was
dismissed was either not error or harmless error because the dismissal was only briefly
mentioned, and the judge issued a limiting instruction).
27