In Cronick v. City of Colorado Springs, No. 25-1235 (10th Cir. Aug. 28, 2026), the Tenth Circuit holds that cross-examining a plaintiff for about her “cop-watching” social media videos, in which she’s shown in police and security guard “encounters unrelated to the arrest at issue” in the case, was unduly prejudicial to the plaintiff under Fed. R. Evid. 403. The panel tosses a defense verdict and remands for a new trial.
The case concerns a woman who called 911 after a neighbor showed signs of overdosing. The police who arrived at the scene attempted to interview her, but she was uncooperative. This led to an escalation of tensions, culminating in her arrest (for “failure to desist or disperse”). She was later acquitted of the charge at a bench trial. She sued the two officers involved in the arrest, and the jury found in favor of the defendants.
“But a specter haunts the jury’s verdict: the specter of character evidence. That specter, and its troublesome sidekick, propensity reasoning, warped Sasha Cronick’s trial. The issue was meant to be, ‘Did the officers illegally arrest and search Cronick under § 1983?’ It became, ‘Is Sasha Cronick a bad person?’”
“It all started with social media. After Cronick’s allegedly unlawful arrest, she posted videos, messages, and comments about the incident. In the years after, she posted and deleted several unrelated videos of her encounters with the police.” Nevertheless, defense counsel was able to recover many of the supposedly deleted video clips. (The district court also “levied a fine of $18,680.25 against Cronick and her lawyers” as a sanction for alleging withholding such evidence; the Tenth Circuit affirms this sanction.)
“At trial, over Cronick’s objection, the district court let the officers play more than twenty clips from the videos,” in which the plaintiff called police names, threatened lawsuits, and documented events far afield from the original incident. The district court held that Cronick’s “demeanor” and “conduct in the videos” were relevant to her “claim of emotional distress damages and to her credibility.” Additionally, “the court gave an adverse-inference instruction [to the jury] that implied that Cronick regularly disrupts police officers.”
In closing argument, “[t]he officers’ lawyer emphasized the videos,” stating among other things that if Cronick “was so damaged by what [defendants]” had done, then she wouldn’t have continued to “put herself in the middle of” altercations with other police. “The jury deliberated for less than an hour and a half before returning a verdict for the officers.”
The Tenth Circuit reverses the admission of the evidence and the instruction, vacates the judgment, and remands for a new trial.
Under Rule 403, the proponent of evidence must first establish that it is admissible. The panel rejects several theories of admissibility for the “cop-watch” videos, including impeachment (defendants did not lay a proper foundation, and also noting Fed. R. Evid. 608(b)) and showing an alleged “pattern of behavior” (effectively propensity evidence, barred by Fed. R. Evid. 404(a)(1)).
The panel recognizes that the videos might have slight probative value on the issue of emotional distress. “[O]ther courts have held evidence of § 1983 plaintiffs’ unrelated police encounters to be of ‘miniscule’ probative value or ‘irrelevant to damages’ . . . . We join them. Cronick’s later police encounters had little probative value to her emotional damages underlying her § 1983 claims.”
“On the other side of the scale, the videos risked tremendous unfair prejudice. They presented to the jury three improper temptations: (1) using propensity reasoning, (2) issuing a verdict notwithstanding liability, and (3) letting salacious details overshadow the case.”
Thus, “[a]s explained, the officers have argued only one permissible theory of the videos’ probative value: the clips speak to Cronick’s emotional damages. But even when we give that theory its maximum reasonable probative weight, it’s insubstantial. And even when we assign the video clips their minimum reasonable risk of unfair prejudice, it’s intolerable. So the videos were inadmissible under Rule 403.”
The prejudice was amplified by the fact that the video presentation took an afternoon, and part of the next morning, during a three-day trial. “[T]he district court permitted extrinsic evidence. And it did so by admitting a barrage of visceral videos showing Cronick’s bad behavior, which dominated the trial” and figure heavily in the closing argument. The panel also notes that the district court compounded the unfairness by charging the jury to find that plaintiff “routinely committed essentially the crime she was wrongly accused of committing.” The instruction itself was error.
“The officers argue that they only used ‘15 minutes and 57 seconds of clips’ . . . . But playing the clips took up much of the afternoon on the trial’s second day and the morning on the third. Plus, in the minutes between clips, the officers’ lawyer asked Cronick ‘multiple and inflammatory’ questions . . . . On redirect, Cronick’s lawyer understandably tried to contextualize the clips by playing parts from the same videos and asking Cronick to explain her behavior. In sum, the clips weren’t forgettable backdrop; they were marquee moments.”
Finally, the errors were not harmless. “At bottom, this was a close case. Cronick’s version of what happened wasn’t blatantly contradicted by the video” of events at the scene. “A reasonable jury could have found (1) that Pryor’s statement wasn’t an order, or (2) even if it was, Cronick was complying with it despite her verbal protests, meaning the officers lacked probable cause to arrest her . . . . Those questions required the jury’s attention. That attention was unfortunately swept away by tidal waves of character evidence and propensity reasoning.”
“In sum, admitting the unrelated videos and issuing the instruction that Cronick disrupts police business ensured that she didn’t receive a fair trial. We reverse and remand for a new one.”
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