Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Tre C. James was tried in the District of Arizona for murdering his romantic partner, Jamie Yazzie, along with separate domestic violence counts. As the Ninth Circuit summarized the trial evidence, the night before Yazzie disappeared she and James hosted her brother at the house where James lived. She told her brother that James had shot a gun at her before, and James showed the brother a loaded handgun and a homemade shotgun. By the next day Yazzie was missing, and James was the last person known to have seen her alive. He then texted other women that he needed to clean his house.
A week later, officers found stale bloodstains throughout the house, an empty ammunition box, spent shell casings, and signs of an attempt to burn the mattress and wipe blood from the walls. Nearly every stain tested matched Yazzie's DNA by enormous margins. She was later found dead of a gunshot to the head in a remote area familiar to James. His fingerprints were on the ammunition box, and he told the FBI he never owned a firearm before changing his account of how Yazzie left.
The district court admitted evidence of James's domestic violence against other women to show intent or motive to control romantic partners through violence, denied severance of the murder count, and gave an other-acts instruction. James challenged each ruling on appeal.
The Court’s Holding
The court affirmed. It did not decide whether admitting the domestic violence evidence violated Rule 404(b), because any error was harmless. Given the blood and DNA evidence, the attempted cleanup, the fingerprints and the false exculpatory statements, it was more probable than not that the evidence did not materially affect the verdict. Reviewing the forfeited due process claim for plain error, the court found no clear or obvious error because circuit authority has equivocated on whether due process bars propensity evidence, and the overwhelming evidence meant substantial rights were unaffected.
Applying the four Fernandez factors, the court found no abuse of discretion in denying severance. The general risk that joinder colors jurors' views arises in every joint trial, and James identified no prosecution effort to blur the evidence. The court had instructed jurors that each count was a separate crime and that the verdict on one should not control another. On his claimed need to testify, James never made the showing Nolan requires of important testimony on some counts and a strong need to refrain on others, and he mischaracterized the district court, which had invited him to elaborate. Finally, the murder evidence was itself overwhelming, inflammatory potential alone does not compel severance, and the incidents occurred separately over several years, so jurors could compartmentalize them.
The court declined to review the other-acts instruction challenge because James waived it by jointly proposing and stipulating to the instructions and raising no substantive objection at trial. His argument that he could not know his future appellate arguments was "no answer," since the model instruction and supporting case law already existed. A pretrial objection to admitting evidence did not preserve an objection to the limiting instruction, distinguishing Varela-Rivera. The court added that the instruction was not plain error.
Key Takeaways
- Where evidence of guilt is overwhelming, the Ninth Circuit may skip the question whether other-act evidence was admissible and affirm because any Rule 404(b) error was harmless.
- False exculpatory statements are treated as evidence of consciousness of guilt, which the court described as second only to a confession in probative value.
- A severance claim resting on generalized joinder prejudice fails, and a defendant who wants to testify on some counts but not others must show important testimony and a strong need to remain silent on the rest.
- Jointly proposing or stipulating to a jury instruction waives appellate review, and a pretrial objection to evidence does not preserve an objection to a limiting instruction.
- Because circuit authority on whether due process bars propensity evidence is unsettled, an unpreserved constitutional claim of that kind is unlikely to show plain error.
Why It Matters
This is an unpublished memorandum that is not precedent except as allowed by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3, so it binds no future panel. It affirms the judgment in full. It does not resolve whether the domestic violence evidence was admissible under Rule 404(b) or whether due process prohibits propensity evidence, and both questions remain open.
The memorandum illustrates the preservation lessons in joined murder and domestic violence prosecutions: stipulating to instructions forecloses review, and objections must target the specific ruling challenged. It also shows that harmlessness can dispose of an evidentiary claim when forensic and consciousness-of-guilt evidence is strong.