182183P.pdf   03/22/2019  United States  v.  Dashown Keys
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  18-2183
   U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota - Aberdeen   
   [PUBLISHED] [Loken, Author, with Erickson, Circuit Judge, and Magnuson, 
   District Judge] 
   Criminal case - Criminal law and Sentencing. In this prosecution for 
   aggravated sexual abuse of a child and two counts of abusive sexual 
   contact of a child, the district court did not abuse its discretion in 
   admitting evidence of another sexual assault of a minor as the act was 
   committed in a similar manner and during the same time period as the 
   charges; the probative value of the testimony outweighed the danger of 
   unfair prejudice and the evidence was properly admitted under Rules 403 
   and 413; the district court's comment to the child witness "to try to 
   answer the questions so that you can get off the stand" did not deprive 
   defendant of his right to a fair trial before a neutral and impartial 
   judicial officer; the court interjected itself only when the victim was 
   struggling to deal with the situation and no reasonable juror would 
   interpret the court's comment as favoring the prosecution; no error in 
   limiting the testimony of a defense witness regarding a financial dispute 
   between defendant and one victim's parents and his beliefs regarding 
   defendant's reasons for giving gifts to the victim; district court 
   adequately explained why it was denying defendant's motion for a variance 
   to avoid sentencing disparities; the court has repeatedly refused to 
   require district court judges to compare and contrast the defendant being 
   sentencing with allegedly similar prior offenders; here, the court's 
   justification for a 540-month sentence rests precisely on the kind of 
   defendant-specific determinations which are within the special competence 
   of sentencing courts.