State v. Salou, 1 N.W.3d 602

Ibrahim Salou was charged with possession with intent to manufacture or deliver marijuana while in possession of a firearm, and unlawful possession of amphetamine in North Dakota.
The State sought to admit digital evidence (photos and texts) from Salou's phone, which referenced controlled substances nearly two months prior to the charged offenses.
At trial, Salou objected to this evidence on relevance and prejudice grounds, connecting his argument to the time-lapse and lack of direct connection to the charged offenses.
The district court admitted the evidence, finding it relevant and not unduly prejudicial; it did not consider it 404(b) evidence.
A jury convicted Salou of all charges, and he appealed, arguing evidentiary error and insufficiency of the evidence.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admission of evidence under Rule 404(b)	Evidence was direct/relevant	Evidence was inadmissible prior acts under 404(b)/irrelevant	404(b) not preserved for review; relevance decision affirmed
Relevance and prejudice of phone evidence	Evidence relevant to charged acts	Time lapse made it irrelevant and prejudicial	No abuse of discretion; evidence admissible
Sufficiency of the evidence for conviction	Evidence supports inference of guilt	Did not possess backpack; not aware of contents	Sufficient evidence to support conviction

State v. Thomas, 2019 ND 194 (objection needed to preserve evidentiary issue for appeal)
State v. Smith, 2019 ND 239 (proper preservation and review standards for evidentiary rulings)
State v. Yousif, 2022 ND 234 (abuse of discretion standard for evidentiary rulings)
State v. Noble, 2023 ND 119 (standard for review of sufficiency of criminal conviction evidence)
State v. Dahl, 2022 ND 212 (will not reweigh conflicting evidence or credibility on appeal)