No. 1-40 / 00-961.Court of Appeals of Iowa.
Filed February 28, 2001.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County, TODD A. GEER, Judge.
Marlando A. Hoosman appeals the district court’s judgment and sentence, after jury trial, for going armed with intent and assault while participating in a felony. AFFIRMED.
David L. Leitner of Leitner Law Office, Johnston, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Richard J. Bennett, Assistant Attorney General, Thomas J. Ferguson, County Attorney, and D. Raymond Walton, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.
Heard by STREIT, P.J., and HECHT and VAITHESWARAN, JJ.
STREIT, P.J.
Marlando Hoosman was convicted of going armed with intent and assault while participating in a felony. He appeals, claming the trial court should not have allowed the State to present evidence of his involvement in a crime that occurred after the crime at issue in this case. We affirm.
I. Background Facts Proceedings.
Hoosman was charged for a shooting that occurred in June 1998 outside Club Thirty-Something in Waterloo. Shell casings at the scene were fired by a .40 caliber semi-automatic Glock handgun.
Before trial Hoosman brought a motion in limine asking the trial court to exclude evidence regarding a shooting that occurred in October 1998 at New World Lounge in Waterloo. That shooting involved the same Glock handgun that was used in the Club Thirty-Something incident four months earlier. Hoosman was convicted of the New World Lounge shooting two weeks before the trial in this case began.
The trial court allowed the State to present evidence regarding the New World Lounge shooting. Hoosman was convicted of both the going armed with intent charge and the assault while participating in a felony charge. He appeals.
II. The Merits.
Hoosman claims the evidence regarding his involvement in the New World Lounge shooting was inadmissible pursuant to Iowa Rule of Evidence 404(b). We review the trial court’s ruling on the admissibility of the evidence for an abuse of the court’s discretion. See State v. Sallis, 574 N.W.2d 15, 16 (Iowa 1998).
Rule 404(b) reads as follows:
Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake.
Iowa R. Evid. 404(b). We employ a tiered analysis to determine whether evidence of a defendant’s other crimes, wrongs, or acts fall within the rule’s “other purposes” exception. See State v. Uthe, 542 N.W.2d 810, 814 (Iowa 1996). The first tier requires the evidence be relevant for a purpose other than to show the general propensity of the defendant to commit wrongful acts. See id. If the evidence is relevant for a legitimate purpose, the second tier requires that the probative value of the evidence be “substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.” See id.; Iowa R. Evid. 403.
The evidence regarding Hoosman’s involvement in the New World Lounge shooting falls within rule 404(b)’s “other purposes” exception. The evidence that the same gun was used in both shootings is relevant to prove identity as it makes it more probable that Hoosman was the shooter at Club Thirty-Something. Moreover, the highly probative evidence does not pose a danger of unfair prejudice. This danger was sufficiently removed by a jury instruction stating the limited purpose for which the evidence could be used. See State v. Conner, 314 N.W.2d 427, 429 (Iowa 1982) (“Only in extreme cases will . . . a cautionary instruction be deemed insufficient to remove the danger of prejudice.”). The trial court did not abuse its discretion. We affirm.
AFFIRMED.