United States v. Curley, 639 F.3d 50

Curley was convicted of interstate stalking and related offenses for 2006 conduct against Linda under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2261A, 2262(a)(1).
The district court admitted evidence of Curley’s prior abuse of Linda, and excluded evidence of his brother Michael’s abuse and a January 2008 traffic stop with firearms and a will.
Linda testified to multiple prior abuses and a fear that Curley would kill her; the government sought to tie fear and intent to the charged acts.
The government sought admission of Michael’s 1990 abuse and a 1994 perjury scheme by Linda against police, arguing relevance to fear and intent.
A handwritten will found after the 2008 stop and the 2006 firearms-related items were admitted as evidence of Curley’s intent to kill and survive, then escalated the risk of prejudice.
The court gave limiting instructions, but the jury initially heard extensive testimony about Michael and the traffic stop, and the conviction was ultimately vacated on appeal for evidentiary errors.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of Curley’s prior abuse evidence	Prior acts show intent and fear, proper under 404(b).	Some acts are unfairly prejudicial and not sufficiently similar.	Admissible; probative and not unduly prejudicial
Admissibility of Michael's 1990 abuse and 1994 perjury evidence	Demonstrates pattern of fear and climate of intimidation; relevant to intent.	Not sufficiently similar; risks prejudice; irrelevant to charged acts.	Abuse of discretion; error; inadmissible
Admissibility of the January 2008 traffic stop evidence	Shows ongoing intent to harm and fear induced in 2006; probative state of mind.	Temporal gap and tenuous link to 2006 acts; highly prejudicial.	Abuse of discretion; error; inadmissible
Limiting instructions and their effectiveness	Limiting instructions adequately cured potential prejudice.	Instructions were insufficient given the evidence’s prejudicial power.	Insufficient; did not cure error
Harmless error versus reversible error	The evidence corroborated the core threats and fear; not outcome-determinative.	Any error was harmless in light of the overall case.	Not harmless; substantial rights affected; conviction vacated

Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681 (1988) (establishes standard for evaluating Rule 404(b) evidence)
McCallum, 584 F.3d 471 (2d Cir. 2009) (weighs probative value against unfair prejudice and need for limiting instruction)
Pitre, 960 F.2d 1112 (2d Cir. 1992) (limits on prejudice; proper use of 404(b) to show state of mind)
Gordon, 987 F.2d 902 (2d Cir. 1993) (probative value depends on similarity; avoid undue prejudice)
Massino, 546 F.3d 123 (2d Cir. 2008) (unfair prejudice threshold for 404(b) evidence)
Roldan-Zapata, 916 F.2d 795 (2d Cir. 1990) (limits on introducing sensational testimony)
Peterson, 808 F.2d 969 (2d Cir. 1987) (sufficient similarity required for state-of-mind inference)
Larson, 112 F.3d 600 (2d Cir. 1997) (attenuation and remoteness of prior acts in relevance analysis)