Limited Utility of a Limiting Instruction

There's plenty of coverage of the mistrial in the Clemens perjury proceedings.  Based on what I've read so far, it appears the offending act was the introduction of inadmissible hearsay.  In a strict legalistic sense, the out-of-court statements by Mrs. Pettitte are relevant to Mr and Mrs. Andy Pettitte's state of mind--a type of evidence that is routinely admitted with simple limiting instructions.  But not so here.  In fact it seems to have drawn the ire of the Court.  Which seems to indicate some larger frustration by the Court with the Government's conduct / theory of the case.  I really haven't followed this case, so any input or correction is welcome, but I'll try to unpack my thoughts below.

The hearsay at issue is Mrs. Pettitte's testimony that her husband had two conversations with her about Clemens using HGH (used her as shorthand for HGH, steroids, or whatever else Clemens is accused of using), which could be multiple levels of hearsay.  On the first level, either Clemens told Andy he uses HGH and/or Andy observed Clemens using HGH.  Neither of those are hearsay as one is a party admission, the other is not an out of court statement.  At the second level, Andy told his wife about Clemens' HGH use on two separate occasions.  The second level are out of court statements, with apparently no applicable exception or exemption.   Thus, the Government cannot use Mrs. Pettitte to prove Clemens used HGH. 

Judge Walton appears to have ruled on a pre-trial motion in limine and excluded evidence relating to Mrs. Pettitte's testimony--though the reporting on this is a bit unclear.  Fair enough.  For the reasons mentioned above, the Government cannot use Mrs. Pettitte to prove that Clemens used HGH.  So when the Government played tapes of Congressional hearings that included statements relating to Mrs. Pettitte's affidavit, the Judge, sua sponte, called a side bar and eventually declared the mistrial.

But that all assumes that the Government was playing the video to prove that Clemens used HGH.  I don't think that's the case at all.  Furthermore, Mrs. Pettitte's testimony would be relevant evidence of both Mrs. Pettitte's and Andy Pettitte's state of mind that they believed Clemens used HGH.  This is fairly routine and courts regularly instruct the jury on the limited relevance of state of mind evidence.  Why didn't the Court do that here?

I suspect the Court had Rule 403 in mind when it declared a mistrial.  My suspicion is that Court's already leery of the Government's case and did not want the jury to conclude that Clemens used HGH based on discussions from the rumor mill.  At least that's how I read Judge Walton's comment that it's too late to "unring" the bell--meaning that even a limiting instruction would not ensure that the jury could use Mrs. Pettitte's testimony as only relevant to a state of mind and not at all relevant to Clemens use of HGH.  The Government just does not have iron-clad evidence that Clemens used HGH, so the danger of improper use of Mrs. Pettitte's testimony is fairly high.  Would the Court have made the same ruling if the Government had videotape of R. Kelly Roger Clemens shooting HGC with his grandma saying "That's my Roger"?  Doubt it.  This all points to an instance of an already weak case creating pressure on the Government to sneak in any evidence of HGH use by Clemens to bolster its case to the point of over-reaching and pissing off the Judge.   

For those studying for the bar, it's a great chance to think about baseball and claim to be learning the hearsay rule.