United States v. Lundy

Steven Lundy and Timothy Robinson (defendants), private investigators who co-owned a business, were federally charged with conspiracy, making false statements, and entering an airport area in violation of security regulations. The prosecution (plaintiff) alleged that Lundy and Robinson tried to bring licensed, loaded handguns through airport security by claiming to be police officers. The prosecution filed two motions in limine. The first motion in limine sought to cross-examine Lundy and Robinson about alleged misconduct that the prosecution argued was probative of untruthfulness. Some of the incidents included: (1) Lundy’s and Robinson’s arrests in 2002 for pretending to be law-enforcement officers to attempt to repossess appliances; (2) Lundy’s 1994 perjury charge for testifying that he worked for a private-detective agency when he actually worked as a prison guard; (3) Lundy and Robinson’s failure to pay federal taxes on their business since at least 2002; and (4) Lundy’s lie to federal agents during a 2005 interview that Lundy had been fired from the prison-guard job because his employer had caught him moonlighting (i.e., working another job), even though he was truly fired because of the perjury charge. None of this misconduct resulted in convictions: the prosecution dismissed Robinson’s 2002 charges for lack of evidence; a judge acquitted Lundy of the 2002 charges after a bench—or non-jury—trial; and Lundy’s 1994 perjury charge was dismissed after Lundy completed a pretrial intervention (PTI) program. Lundy and Robinson intended to present character witnesses to testify regarding Lundy’s and Robinson’s good character; the second motion in limine sought to cross-examine each character witness about the witness’s knowledge of the defendants’ past arrests or convictions. Aside from the 2002 and 1994 charges, Lundy had convictions for illegally possessing mace in 1984 and ammunition in 1997. All potential character witnesses had met Lundy and Robinson after 1997. The district court evaluated whether each example of misconduct was admissible.