United States v. Bright

A jury convicted Edgar Lee Whitten and Louin Ray Bright (defendants) of mail fraud. At trial, Whitten, who was an attorney, presented another attorney as a character witness to testify to Whitten’s good reputation in the community for honesty and integrity. The government (plaintiff) cross-examined the character witness by asking three questions about whether the witness had heard that Judge Dick Thomas, the DeSoto County Bar Association, and the Mississippi State Bar Association reprimanded Whitten within the past year for unprofessional conduct. Whitten’s attorney objected to each question, the district court sustained each objection, and the character witness responded that he had not been aware of the disciplinary incidents. At the end of trial, Whitten’s attorney moved for a mistrial, noting that the government had failed to offer evidence that the DeSoto County Bar Association or the Mississippi State Bar Association had censured Whitten for unethical conduct. The government responded that it was prepared to present evidence to support its questions and offered to introduce the evidence by either reopening the case or through stipulation (i.e., the parties’ agreement). The trial court denied Whitten’s mistrial motion. Whitten appealed, arguing in relevant part that the trial court had erred by admitting questions about Whitten’s disciplinary history because the questions were substantially prejudicial, in violation of Federal Rule of Evidence 403.