In United States v. McGregor, No. 19-10163 (June 3,
2020) (Marcus, Wilson, Thapar), the Court affirmed the defendant’s identity
theft convictions.
On appeal, the defendant argued that the district court
abused its discretion by admitting evidence of the defendant’s possession of a
firearm. Rejecting that argument, the
Court emphasized that the firearm was highly relevant because that firearm was
found in the same closet with PII, thus indicating that the defendant (as
opposed to his co-defendant) possessed the PII.
(The Court declined to opine on the alternative relevance theory that guns
were “tools of the trade” in fraud cases).
And the government limited the prejudicial impact of the firearm by not
telling the jury that the firearm possession was unlawful or that the defendant
had prior convictions. The Court found
that possession of a firearm today is not so inherently prejudicial as to
necessarily outweigh its probative value.
