US v. Christopher Erick Haney

Filing

UNPUBLISHED PER CURIAM OPINION filed. Originating case number: 1:15-cr-00278-NCT-1 Copies to all parties and the district court/agency. [1000122735].. [16-4342]

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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-4342

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
CHRISTOPHER ERICK HANEY,
Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina, at Greensboro.
N. Carlton Tilley,
Jr., Senior District Judge. (1:15-cr-00278-NCT-1)

Submitted:

February 2, 2017

Decided:

July 21, 2017

Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and WYNN and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Louis C. Allen, Federal Public Defender, Eric D. Placke, First
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Greensboro, North Carolina,
for Appellant.
Ripley Rand, United States Attorney, Eric L.
Iverson, Assistant United States Attorney, Greensboro, North
Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Christopher

Erick

Haney

appeals

his

conviction

after

a

bench trial for possession of child pornography after a prior
conviction

for

sexual

§ 2252A(a)(5)(B),

abuse,

(b)(2)

in

(2012).

violation
At

of
the

trial,

18

U.S.C.

Government

introduced evidence of Haney’s 2005 North Carolina conviction
for taking indecent liberties with a child, N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann.
§ 14-202.1 (2015).
admitted

the

Over Haney’s objection, the district court

evidence,

finding

that

the

conviction

was

admissible under Fed. R. Evid. 414 and that, applying the fivefactor test in United States v. Kelly, 510 F.3d 433 (4th Cir.
2007),

the

probative

value

of

the

prior

outweighed by a risk of unfair prejudice.

conviction

was

not

The court found Haney

guilty and sentenced him to 210 months in prison.
On appeal, Haney challenges the district court’s decision
to admit his prior conviction.

“We review evidentiary rulings

for abuse of discretion and will not reverse a district court’s
decision to admit prior acts evidence unless it was arbitrary or
irrational.”
Cir.

2016)

United States v. Faulls, 821 F.3d 502, 508 (4th
(citation

and

internal

quotation

marks

omitted).

Additionally, we review evidentiary rulings for harmless error,
which requires that we determine “with fair assurance, after
pondering

all

that

happened

without

stripping

the

erroneous

action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially
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swayed by the error.”

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United States v. Cloud, 680 F.3d 396, 401

(4th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Fed. R.
Crim. P. 52(a).
When

it

Congress’s
relevant

comes

view

and

that

to
.

sexual
.

probative.”

.

offenses,

propensity

Kelly,

510

quotation marks and footnote omitted).

“Rule

evidence
F.3d

at

414

reflects

is

typically

437

(internal

Although admission of

evidence of prior child molestation is prejudicial, “it [is]
prejudicial for the same reason it is probative — it tends to
prove the defendant’s propensity to molest . . . children.”
at 438 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).

Id.

Only if

such evidence is unfairly prejudicial may it be excluded under
Fed. R. Evid. 403.

Id. at 437-38.

In applying Rule 403’s

balancing test, a district court should consider the following
factors: “(i) the similarity between the previous offense and
the charged crime, (ii) the temporal proximity between the two
crimes, (iii) the frequency of the prior acts, (iv) the presence
or absence of any intervening acts, and (v) the reliability of
the evidence of the past offense.”

Id. at 437.

Our review of the record reveals that the district court
committed no abuse of discretion in assessing the Kelly factors
and admitting Haney’s prior North Carolina conviction for taking
indecent liberties with a child.
district

court’s

judgment.

We
3

Accordingly, we affirm the
dispense

with

oral

argument

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because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented
in the materials before this court and argument would not aid
the decisional process.
AFFIRMED

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