when agents decided to search her bag she helped them when after fifteen minutes of searching they found heroin she screamed no no no no she's a sixty four year old grandmother with no suspicious phone calls or texts no information about a drug drop no large sum of money no one testified that she knew there were drugs in her back and this record there just wasn't enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she knew about the heroin that someone else will approach or at the few she gets there should be give us some money right there's no test though either that the son bought the ticket or that she would be given a sum of money at the airport not reasonable ones what they cause that's not an appropriate became law i meant for of course but they need to be inference is that a reasonable from the evidence in the record and here one of their larger arguments is that it's common sense that someone who has drugs that are worth a lot of money half has to know about them the problem with this commonsense argument is that the government knows and we know that it's not true that drug organizations do in fact use people to deliver drugs aren't enough to meet the government's burden and what they don't show and i think your honor just said it at most they show that she knew that there was something going on that was wrong that she may have been involved in some criminal activity that her significant defense i mean  that she was bringing something into the country but she didn't know it was drugs this is what your defenses well that's the closest the government gets to proving her guilt and that's just not enough and this court has said that it's not enough in a whole line of cases this court has said that knowing that there is criminal activity isn't enough you need to know what it's about you need to know here that it's drugs so there are cases even with people swallowing diamonds cases somebody is following drugs and believing they were diamonds that was the defense case similarly with a modeling gold dust and then there are drug cases where the person just the defense is they didn't know it was drugs nothing the government has pointed to here indicates that ms amador this grand mother knew that she was taking in drugs in exceedingly well concealed in these dried fish and the fact that it's well concealed is important it takes these agents fifteen minutes of working through this bag and no dried fish may sound unusual here in america but it's a common good name product it's not and the government doesn't dispute that takes them fifteen minutes to get in with me seminar providing assistance so this isn't a situation where her just possession of the bag is enough and that's what the government's problem the problem of the government's argument is here that they haven't introduced anything to show that it was drugs and say going into my second point the way to fill that gap in her knowledge about drugs in particular is was for the government to argue that she had to know because the drugs were worth a lot of money that's this common sense argument that is in fact not true and the reason it's so dangerous here is because it it actually seems like it's common sense if you're a juror or just a regular person who hasn't read up on the law or the fact that drug organizations do take advantage of people who don't know that the drugs are in their possession it seems like common sense so why bother considering the other evidence if you're told by the government it's common sense drug organizations don't give drugs to people who don't know that's it case closed she's guilty but that's wrong and it was misleading for the government to say that the government told the jury that drug traffickers are in the business of making money not throwing it away it told the driver what drug trafficker would give five hundred thousand dollars worth of drugs to someone who didn't know and hope it got there it repeatedly made this argument that was not correct and that alone is a reason to reverse especially when the evidence aside from this conclusions on this very point right there a violation of that particular order during the course of the trial i believe there was the government summation saying those quotes i just quoted and others in the talked about generic drug trafficking organizations how drug organizations wouldn't give drugs to someone without telling them that it was the use the phrase a lottery ticket the queer prohibited the government from using any evidence about generic drug trafficking organizations never using drug traffickers and that's just what they did to the courts and you could talk about those same kinds of conclusions when you make it directly relevant to the facts of the case right right which is what the courts  happened here and why is that wrong that's not wrong i think the court's ruling was correct and to the extent the government said when the drugs are in a perishable food item you might make that inference that did not violate the ruling but the government didn't stop there at all the government broadened it to say that no drug organization would do this sort of thing and that's what was wrong with the project during the summit that's true this is a plain error situation because the court ruled on this issue because the government some ation clearly violated it by saying that no drug organization would do that and because this piece of misinformation filled exactly the gap in the me please the court mark being if united states the evidence was legally sufficient here as the district court observed the government's evidence as the defendant rose  included the heroin laden fish the testimony of six witnesses who are numerated in the district court's decision and quote along with aman o testimony in this is in the appendix at six o two was more than enough for the jury to convict on or importation possession of her with the intent to distribute as a court explained the defendant gave a quote start to finish account of the happenings the jury obviously found wholly implausible that was it with at odds with her own statements to investigating agency not help her cause the jury's rejection of ominous explanation is consistent with the towie of the trial evidence which  heroin or controlled substances as opposed to some other illegal contraband well first of all your honor there was no suggestion in this case the defendant took the stand and there was no suggestion at any point that there was some other criminality afoot and the drugs in fact were secreted in fish which is that's right there was no suggestion ever that there was diamonds or uranium or some other  and that bag in its contents were hers in a similar appeal of a conviction for heroin importation where airport customs officials discovered drugs in the defendant's luggage after he is sort of the luggage was his and here i'm referring to for  the court said that we need not pause long over the legal sufficiency of the evidence then found its possession of the heroin concealed in his baggage coupled with his acknowledgement the baggage was his and that he own the contents and with his visible nervousness during the search were more than legally sufficient to establish his guilt and this case is on all fours without one and in addition guilty knowledge can be inferred from corroborating corroborating evidence such as nervousness a false statement or suspicious circumstances she admitted that the statements she made to the c b p officer were false she said that she admitted that she told him that she was coming in to visit her son for six months and that she said the bag and its contents were her she admitted that after the heroin was found was the first time that now she said that the bag was not hers she also admitted that her statement that she was coming to visit her son for six months was false she said that that was something that she said in order to pass through customs and in fact one of the other points of cross examination and something the district court pointed to in rejecting  the motion for a new trial was that plane on the face of the ticketing she had was that she had a three week trip to the united states and yet in her second and third iterations of why she was here in the united states she claimed she was going to babysit for a family for six months even those plane on the face of the ticketing she wasn't to be here for six months and cheap admitted that she did not know the names of the identities of these people she claimed she sent a visa for is there any name product the government believes that the fish was used on purpose to throw off drug sniffing dogs and one of the things that also came out during the case in this is that the appendix one seventy one the c officer who did the examination explained that ghana is one of the focus countries countries they focus on for narcotics export and that it's primarily known for heroin and that's exactly what happened here that becomes the link to heroin so what you're suggesting is that because she's coming from guyana and that is know as a supplier of heroin that that's an indication that in fact the contraband that she would've been bringing into the country more likely than not would have been heroin as opposed to diamonds yes your honor in the fact that it was in fish because again with diamonds you wouldn't need to beat smell but with heroin you have to be a drug dog and so that's another significant reason for that  your honor as to the defense counsel's argument of the government's comments violated the pretrial ruling i would just note that in fact is it as your honor suggested that the government in fact followed the pretrial ruling here as the in this is going to be at the special appendix of pages fourteen where responding to defense counsel's argument that testimony from expert witness would violate federal rule of evidence seven o four b the government argued your honor we think i am in or defense counsel is  misapplying the rule the rule is that you cannot have an expert testify as to someone's mental state we are having this expert testify as part of our evidence in the case and then certainly when you are marshalling the evidence the court you going to make the argument mr b yes your honor the court without a witness and so the value the value comes in and it would then from the value there then wanting to argue that for and it may strike a response of court to the jury that it was so valuable that ms aman or had to know what she was carrying mr camping and that's what we would object to because that goes to her mental state so we would ask for a limited instruction the court but no one is testifying they're going to argue you're going to say there's absolutely no evidence respect to her mental state right it's argument they're going to say look does it make sense to you that somebody has got a quarter million quarter of a million dollars of heroin in her bag and doesn't know it and your honor that's what the government did noting that the drug expert in the case said the value of these drugs on the street would be between three hundred thirty thousand and some or three hundred  thousand seven hundred twenty thousand dollars on the street it's a very valuable drugs and in fact that's consistent with the second circuit case law looking into this that when a member of the conspiracy is entrusted with something so valuable that  careers god you're suggesting in this particular case this is the value and isn't that crazy to give for this kind of drugs without telling her what it's involved yes or on a particular whereas here where it was in a perishable food item or otherwise if the person did not know what they were carrying they might discard it is still serving her term or supervise release your honor the defendant has completed her prison term just to start from the transcript the government just read it didn't continue till the end where the court said this is about the ruling about the argument we know that it is not universally correct he's referring to the fact that someone has a quarter of million dollars in her apparel in her bag and doesn't know it because it does in fact happen that someone doesn't know it and the court made it clear that the government had to be quote careful not to suggest that drug couriers drug organizations do not make this business decision without having trust in the courier the second circuit's case the andersen in that case a coconspirator testifies that in that particular case the drug organization only used trusted couriers that absent here his argument was misleading because it's just wrong drug or decisions to do this the government shouldn't have made this argument in the way that they did moving back to the first point about the sufficiency of the evidence it wasn't burden to prove that she thought the drugs weren't drugs but were something else it's the government's burden to prove that she knew that there were drugs the fact that she had the bags wasn't enough and if in four  government says on all fours here the second circuit in that case actually reversed they did say in very briefly there was enough for sufficiency but there was a summation misconduct issue and that went directly to the holes in the government's case once they moved on to the second point saying that the bag was hers and then saying the heroin wasn't hers that's not inconsistent it makes a lot of sense for somebody who doesn't know about heroin two other are said to those agents was corroborated in important respects she said bill thompson is picking me up at the airport the government when they spoke to him she said my son kofi he brought me to the airport in ghana the government talked to kopi she said i'm a child care provider she come to the u s for child care before as far as the fish the government didn't introduce evidence that this was the hide the snow this is dried fish it's not some fresh smelly fish there is no