is substantial legal error to allow officer hamilton to narrate his interpretations of what was seen and sat on the recordings when the jury could make those determinations based on the recordings alone objections to officer hamilton narration and interpretation of those recordings should have been sustained in thomas and i quote the trial judge most of us could i just ask you right starting out assuming you're right about all of your arguments it just seems like what's left is just overwhelming evidence in this case how do you overcome your honor if i may i realize that our brief was ambiguous as to officer adkins having been qualified as an expert witness i'd like to straighten  out i'm thankful for and appreciate the opportunity to be able to do that today in fact officer acton's was qualified as an expert witness specifically asked if i arms from drugs however his testimony given prior to his being qualified as an expert i believe it was objected to several different times at trial an ongoing objections were made the same as they were made during officer hamilton's testimony the difference in looks so you throw all that throw that out too although i don't know why the tape that spoke for itself about everything they found in the house  again i believe find lots of drugs they find they find guns it alls cooperated by what everybody everybody says i just don't i'm missing something as far as the evidence shows you are yes they did find drugs they did find you know some firearms is far as the crab aeration of those items that could not be quote crab rated by anyone except for the confidential informant who again had some serious issues and the search would not have been valid without the confidential informant so my point in with the confidential informant would be that he was a known drug addict he was charged currently during his testimony with a felony he admitted admittedly was medicated during his testimony it's more than obvious that to me anyway that the comment that the confidential informants testimony standing alone was not credible would not have cared as much weight with the jury without the perceived interpretation of what was happening and what was being said by both officers in this case likely a different outcome would have been reached by the jury but for that which would be our position on the situation of any authority for that  you court in thomas specifically states in the rule as four out in thomas but specifically states that the trial judge must ensure that any and all testimony and or evidence it made it is not only relevant but reliable and i believe the court on it on its own here by its admonishment to the jury during officer action says to moni and it's instruction to the jury in jury instruction number twenty cautionary instruction over officer akon says to moni shows that the court did not really rely on that testimony wholly and perhaps should have on its own according to thomas made sure that that evidence was reliable before allowing the jury to hear it there was no expert testimony qualifications for officer hamilton at all and week it is far as officer actions is concerned the only qualifications that he was specifically qualified to testify about were again the guns and and the dr can you point to a single thing that either these officers testified to that wasn't true well i can i can point to specific things that these officers testified to that should have been spoken for themselves as far as the tape is concerned now i aspire the tape is concerned i do believe the tape as the court themselves states  they bear out the facts that officer hamilton was testifying to so why officer hamilton would be giving a lay person testimony about a tape that a layperson can supposedly perceive for themself is beyond me if a person testif something and they don't have the qualifications or they testify falsely in some way that all having allowed them to testify is obviously a significant problem but if somebody testifies as a lay witness that perhaps should have been qualified as an expert and there's no dispute as to what they said is accurate i'm having trouble finding trouble following the why that would constitute a reversible or well i would say that b if there was portions of the tapes that were not clear or there were portions of the tapes that were clear in either situation an officer telling the jury what was being said and what was being done specially on an audio tape and something that can't be seen  prejudicial i mean in other words you don't dispute that it's accurate you haven't said a single thing in your brief or today that says that anything he said was in a curate i'm not sure if they are on that point you are i cannot be specific on whether or not what he says was accurate or not what i can say is that things that like this then i believe you hear the informant say hello patti i mean he says yes why are why are these things being more out to to a jury that is supposedly able to perceive it for themselves these types of things i feel like the officer pointed out and made clear because they were not they were not accurate on tape and perhaps i was trying to sway the jury you know to perceive things and interpret things his way and that happened again with officer adkins only officer adkins got a cautionary you know instruction and as far as that goes i mean the rule does say the rule does say that that the  officers allowed to testify as to matters that are relevant and scuse me relevant and helpful in the helping t of fact to come to a conclusion about something you know that they're looking at that might not be clear i don't think that's what was happening in this case no no juror the questions were extremely leading  didn't really answer questions with his own words he just answered yes or no to things that mr pat or mister the prosecutor was saying and  did not in officer hamilton's testimony and why they would do that makes no sense unless they weren't really weren't relying heavily on his testimony during the narration interpretation of that of the tapes s pecifically what i can say what i can say as far as truthfulness and not truthfulness is that the tape itself should've is the best evidence it should have spoke for itself had two officers narrating and interpret what it meant more over the only goal there i suppose would be for the prosecutor to be able to call two officers versus a drug addict who was charged with a felony and was high while he was giving his testimony i mean it makes sense that he would want to is commonly known to do this with the are i think you have an ongoing objection to june i don't know if it was specific to the june ninth video however i think he had and i know he had ongoing objection from the from the time leading up to  this specific objection on page twenty if it wasn't accurate that it was an objected to he was attracted to on several situations as far as the videos are concerned and questions whether there was an objection is it couldn't be an ongoing objection you could object to what actually occurred while there was an ongoing objection to perception we'll go with that that will take note of the ongoing objection so and it was specifically objected to the narration at line twenty four judge there up the other issues i have or that this officer narrated what was said what was happening and i think the video itself and the audio from the video will be the best evidence without its interpretations that's fine twenty officer  me please the court john grant for the united states if i could just clear up a few things quickly the minds that she's reading from that's after the first tape was played and before the first tape was played the objection was strictly the au ity there was no objection and then the officer hamilton gave the testimony that they now jack to get on appeal and then near the conclusion actually actor all the narration of the second video was done that's when the objection that she just now is talking about was raised so there was no contemporaneous contemporaneous objection that parallels what there are in their brief so it would be a player or a view but just to clarify a couple of other things she talks about officer actions there's nothing there's no issue on the appeal really in the officer actions in his testimony so that would be barred for consideration they say also fall the court failing to give a cautionary instruction for officer hamilton as the court did for officer adkins they never asked for a cautionary instruction and when the final jury instructions were tendered to the parties the judge asked for any objections and those instructions did have the instruction for the second officer with no mention of officer hamilton they didn't ask for at the end not only that they said that the instructions were fine so they've waived any argument because they they told the judge they were fine so they've waive that perhaps the most important point  judge mckeague as you've brought up is the is the evidence indeed was overwhelming the jury deliberated for a little bit over an hour and you had two officers who testified that the videos were played and the informants when and even if we didn't have any videos they searched the car they gave the bomb money to the informants they informants went to the location they the transactions came back out gave the drugs to the o are you had this search that occurred after these transactions these controlled happened and there was hundreds of pills that were found in the defendant's bedroom was padlocked room they were believe thirteen firearms that were found near the stash of the pills one of the informants had testified that he had witnessed that if in it one night when a customer came to the house passed the time that the defendant permitted people to come in by drugs and he told the the defendant to trade firearms for pills so indeed the evidence was overwhelming i don't even think the court really would need to address the error because it would really it's really a moot point given how the evidence was so overwhelming that th error wouldn't could not possibly have affected the jury's determination in this case if there are no further questions the united states would deal with its time thank you very up as far as responding to the court not being responsible for giving instruction in thomas as i stated the court is responsible for not allowing the jury to hear unreliable evidence and the court gave made their point that they did not feel like the evidence was reliable when they admonished the officer adkins and gave an instruction for off officer ak it's who in fact gave the same type of testimony that officer hamilton did only they did not  specifically i do not feel like it was like the argument was articulated well enough i do feel like that it should have been articulated a little better as far as yes officer akron's was qualified as an expert it just was a little ambiguous as to the fact that officer akron's was not qualified as an expert to testify to videotape or audiotape recordings just looking at the table of contents in your brief issues want it's just that the court showed their their willingness to not rely on that testimony wholly by giving cautionary instruction and with mr hamilton should have given a cautionary instruction there's well in my opinion due to the fact that thomas not only tells the court you have to you can't give unreliable evidence to injury where you stand up not you but your client's lawyer and says the instructions are satisfactory i mean you then waved any argument about failure to give an instruction the one you didn't ask or into you you said the rest of the instructions are fine i'd say technically but look at boarding so what we do here well yes sir but according to precedent the court does have a duty to keep on reliable evidence from the jury and in this case i feel like they did not fulfill that d d how was giving a cautionary instruction keeping unreliable evidence from a jury they did not give your didn't are waiting two things they did not give the cautionary and shock for officer hamilton but giving a cautionary instruction doesn't keep something that's unreliable from a jury that's an admission ability question the cautionary judge it just tells the jury what to do or not to do with that that unreliable information in my opinion i bring in the last thing i had to say are was the credibility of the witness is not does not create a harmless error here harmless error that that the united states speaks about you know if all we have is a drug addict is charge of the felony in giving these testimonies which should have been what yes it's not just the drug at it it's also the tapes which the jury would have interpreted for themselves but i do believe that the tapes were prejudiced by the top officers lay person testimony and not expert testimony because she testified to the factual circumstances inside these tapes which were supposedly able to bear out for you know court into the court the tapes bared out the facts