United States v. Robert Thomas

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that the burden is on the government to show that the error did not affect the outcome of the proceedings
• holding that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of the defen dant’s tattoo of a revolver, because it merely showed that the defendant was “the kind of person who would have possessed the revolver as charged in the indictment .... ”
• vacating a conviction, in part because the admission of a photo of a gun tattoo could only have been intended as propensity evidence in the defendant’s conviction for possession of firearms by a felon
• “If a pattern so generic can establish modus operandi this fairly limited exception to Rule 404(b) would gut the Rule, rendering it useless as a check on character evidence that would otherwise be inadmissible.”
• constructive possession exists where one has “the power and the intention at a given time to exercise dominion and control over an object, either directly or through others” (quotation omitted)
• where defendant was charged with possession of a firearm (a .357 revolver

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).