Exclusion of Evidence

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Sarah M. Nixon

Case No.: 17-2132

Officials: BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and MANION, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Exclusion of Evidence

During contentious child custody proceedings, Sarah Nixon accused her former husband G.G. of physically and sexually assaulting their daughter S. N.-G. (We respect the parties’ convention of using initials to refer to Nixon’s ex-spouse, because revealing his name would enable readers to infer the identity of a minor. From now on we refer to the daughter simply as S.) A state judge in Illinois limited G.G.’s parental rights (visitation required the presence of another adult) while these allegations were being investigated. As the evidence in the custody proceedings wrapped up, Nixon concluded that, at the next scheduled court date, the judge would terminate her parental rights and give G.G. full custody of the child. The evening before the judge’s decision was to be announced Nixon left for Canada with S. and remained there even after learning that the judge had given G.G. sole custody. This led to Nixon’s conviction for international parental kidnapping. 18 U.S.C. §1204. She has been sentenced to 26 months in prison.

It is an affirmative defense that “the defendant was fleeing an incidence or pattern of domestic violence”. 18 U.S.C. §1204(c)(2). Nixon presented evidence that G.G. physically and sexually abused S. The prosecutor sought to demonstrate that Nixon had fabricated this evidence and coached S. to accuse her father of misconduct. On the stand at trial S. professed love for her father and fear of being alone with her mother. She expressed regret at having allowed her mother to persuade her to accuse her father falsely. The jury evidently believed S. The evidence was sufficient to find that Nixon had not carried her burden on this defense.

Nixon submits, however, that the judge made a legal error by limiting her to showing physical (including sexual) misconduct toward her or her daughter. She wanted to argue that both she and S. suffered emotional, psychological, and financial abuse from G.G.—or at least that she reasonably believed that she had suffered these kinds of abuse, even if objectively she had not. She wanted to argue, for example, that G.G. injured her emotionally by selling the house in which they had resided during their marriage and that G.G. often belittled her.

Nixon presents a number of additional arguments about the district court’s exclusion of some evidence she wanted to introduce. Most of these contentions fail in light of the three legal decisions covered in this opinion. The others need not be discussed separately; the district court did not abuse its discretion.

Affirmed

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