abused its discretion in permitting extensive evidence about a prior stop in mr ramos just drug smuggling trial the second is whether the district court abused its discretion in allowing the government to produce extensive profiling testimony that basically equated mr ramos with the generic drug smuggler rather than permitting the jury to make a decision about whether  mr ramos had been stopped about six weeks before he was arrested on this drug offense he was stopped near round rock texas during the stop he consented to a search of his car that search eventually ended up back at the round stop round rock police station where the officers dismantled his truck and found a hidden compartment or new doll murdered the dog alerted before they went back to round rock so a dead dog alerted at the scene in his presence there is no evidence whether mr ramos was present at the time that the dog alerted however the dog is a passive alert dog so what that means is at that the dog stops when it smells drugs  attorney focused on changing of the license plates to show to try to hide dennehy of the car in fact nothing was said about bus possibility of drugs or hidden compartment the dog alerted to until the defense counsel brought it up in closing arguments so the us attorney seems to be consistent with using albertans of the changing the recent changing of of a license plate at the time of the stop and then another changing of the license plate prior to the arrest at the border why wouldn't that be probably tales of some kind of scheme or design so that the use of this vehicle wouldn't be detected so that the vehicle wouldn't be identified as a vehicle that that may have had a hidden compartment not that he is guilty of an offense in the past not a bad act to show that he's guilty of this act but evidence and behavior that suggests that he's trying to keep secretive this vehicle so that when he goes back and forth i live along the border  every time we go over you know they take your lashes plate number and they look at it when you come back what if your license plate number is changing they don't know it's the same truck if your license plate number is changing they may not know that you that you have a hidden compartment that was found in it previously why wouldn't that be relevant your honor as i said in my briefing it's possible that the changing of the plates was relevant it's possible that  agent could have gotten up and said we stopped this guy in round rock he has new plates since then right and then on cross examination we could have said did you arrest him did you blah blah blah and kind of limit that to what prior bad act evidence usually is which is a brief recap of prior conduct but there were a lot of moving pieces in this case and instead of looking at the other dense so that it was strictly confined to being relevant to the that he was charged with which is what this court has required the trial court just opened it all up and said you know i'm looking at this much more broadly and i think the whole shebang is relevant so what ended up coming in was not just evidence that mr ramos may have been trying to hide something it was three fact witnesses it was an hour well i don't know that was an hour the the the version i have it was a videotape of mr ramos being questioned and having his shoes taken off by the side of the road it was an officer who came in and was permitted to testify for the first time in mr ramos as a round rock case that his drug dog is infallible my drug dog never makes mistakes there had to be drugs there had to be government's attorney there their rejoinder to that well it shows the license plate changing and and all this stuff things that you yourself admitted were would be relevant would be was that his argument or did he say well we're beginning all the way through that he needed all of the evidence and including the discovery of the compartment he was very clear from the berry beginning that it was relevant to knowledge now if we look at the individual components of this and we changed those they brought up to him that those front seats had been moved doesn't that put him on notice that they're aware that those seats have been moved and it would take you know what i mean let's i guess is what i'm saying do they have to show that he knew about the finding of the compartment if i'm a bad guy and i get stopped for three hours and they asked me about those chairs and where they have been moot and it took hours to move them and i'm the owner of that car and they didn't give me that car and there and then they say well we know what was in it you know what was in it  and i'm involved in that kind of stuff don't i want to change the law you know doesn't that give me a reason and no other reason to change the life license plates and all those other things but let's compare judge smith the issue in that case was whether the defendant had on a prior opportunity harbored aliens at a prior occasion harbored aliens the evidence that the government had to show that he had in fact done so was opinion better than the government's evidence in this case the evidence was that that the individual stopped the officer leaned into the car and smelled a strong so what smelled of human sweat which according to his testimony w indicative of human trafficking there was a woman lying in the bottom back of the chair back of the car who the officer testified in his experience appeared to be hiding the defendant m that he had picked up the two women when he saw them standing in front of the church the officer said i've driven this highway you can't see that church from this highway at that point the defendant got angry and defensive and shut down so that was the circumstantial evidence regarding whether he had oh i'm sorry and finally the women admitted that they were aliens so that was the circum start central evidence in front of judge smith when he wrote the opinion in good yet as mendez and he said not good proof charge to franch and what is relevant not to show the commission of a charge offense but to put to show his efforts to conceal in your case they don't have anything about efforts to conceal it has to do with he's had these people in there he should have known that there were aliens the court said well there's nothing to show that he should that he would have known that there are aliens therefore we can't use that evidence to prove that he has now knew about in this circuit and in the present case well that's not this case they're not relying in fact they didn't even argue that the dog ha sniffed he didn't argue that there he had had drugs before in his closing arguments he says you know he knew about the chairs had been moved to change the license plates he did this this is all you know and it was used to show that somebody wanted to hide in your case they were trying to hide the existence of a van which they were trying him this case or trying to show that this van and to hide the existence that this truck that it had a license for that he did all these things consistent with keeping it secret not don't you think there is some kind of distinction there i think that there is some kind of relevance assuming it survives for us and so the license plate changing i  do i don't i dealt think i have a principled argument that there isn't i could not disagree more about that finding of a compartment and that and especially the dogs that if i know i mean one thing i have if i don't know she answered if don't know that the cops have stopped me and i got the chairs have been moved and they've told me and they asked me about when did you move to cure and do i have to know that they found the a hidden compartment maybe had a joint under us under as thing maybe he just didn't like the fact that he had been stopped for three hours he'd been asked to give up names of his friends he didn't want to get stopped again so i think the answer to your question is yes he does have to know what exactly it dipped the prior bad act is especially when under this court's precedent probative ness is a function of similarity right and so what this court requires in knowledge cases is that the defendant had been gauged in exactly the same state of mind on the prior occasion well you don't know that unless you know that mr ramos knew about that compartment and i take  point but you know the other point here is that the recently found the compartment was that there were anomalies in the floor it looked as if it had been tampered with and which were surely as visible to him as they were to the officers number one and number two part of the strength of the prior the evidence was that he was giving incredible not credible conflict internally conflicting stories about where he had been where you'd stayed and asked that because i don't want to and without addressing his statements at the stop and the condition of his car he was bearing salvage plates it wasn't of it the truck was not in good shape it had been by definition taken apart so the officers knew he was driving the salvage truck so how probative is it that there were new screws or that the seats had been moved and in fact mr ramos all mr ramos told the officers was that he had not moved the seats that could very well have been a true fact and the anomaly is could have been result of this being a salvage vehicle now after his statements i really encourage you to read government exhibit sixteen a it is a transcript of this stop the government has used hyperbolic language to describe mr ramos statements at the scene and they simply are not borne out by the record what mr ramos sad is that he had come from mexico to fort worth it seems clear to me that he stayed on the way up and then drove the rest of the way into fort worth he was asked where he stayed he said here at a ramada he was on i age thirty five i did a brief google search yesterday and i'm telling you there are a is in between austin and fort worth on i age thirty five now he did use the word here and i really want to almost out of time i really want to emphasize look at his legs or another man ok look at his answer when he asks where he where he had come from like the second question he was asked on page one of the exhibit he says here at fort worth the use of the word here in mr is not very significant because he was not in fort worth he was miles from fort worth and yet he said here in fort worth it's not true that he didn't have a change of clothes it's certainly true that he didn't have luggage it was an overnight trip he may not have wanted to give up his friend's name but it's not true that he could and remember it when he was asked he said carlos for me it has encouraged you to look at the fort worth directory for mexican restaurants that serve tacos the number of restaurants to start with an l or a lowe's and then a word that began with the word letter am is immense and mr ramos told the officers he could not remember the name of the restaurant he thought it was a lowe's i'm going to  screw it mess it up so i'm not going to say he thought he gave a name that he thought it was so again i'm not saying that the officers didn't have some reason to look into mr ramos what i'm saying is that when you are using a prior bad act to help prove bolster a case on knowledge that is not the best case on knowledge that's out there you have to be really careful of the word that the words of this court is used is strictly relevant to the purpose for which you  admitting it and that is not the case here in essence mr ramos was tried for two offenses the rock evidence took an entire half of a day he was tried for two offenses at his trial and the rule doesn't permit that a lot of time and show that you rely on your brief for your starting point i do and i don't want you to think by not addressing it first that that's not an issue i'm committed to i i very much i think that the question of whether there is a plane is in play but i very much believe that there was a grievous error committed in the profiling area good afternoon ted three for the government to please accord despite what ms coulter just said the appellant in this case was not tried for two separate offenses the evidence of the round rock star the traffic stop in the hidden compartment was properly admitted under four or b because it served three legitimate purposes it was used to prove the appellant's knowledge it was used to prove planning and it was used to prove preparation these are legitimate purposes and they were counsel has referenced the case from this york were aliens were found in a person's van there is no doubt that there were agents there was no doubt that he was driving and there wasn't any evidence that he knew that they hadn't just he hadn't just picked him up along the highway and we suspect that there was a lack of evidence to show that he knew that there were  if they didn't even find if they if the draw of drugs and there wasn't anything there and in the other case they actually found the aliens and in the case that they found it is recent there's nothing to show that was how does how does the compartment be in there prove that he mean just the fact of the police found it and show that he knew that they found that's a very good question  there are all kinds of there's all kinds of evidence that shows that he had some circumstantial knowledge one is the extensive inconsistent and odd statements that he gave during a stop those kind of statements can be used to infer knowledge and they were you know point take it out here point taken your honor there is there is there is much more to his inconsistent statements that he had he gave this shifting timeline as he spoke to officer morale this when he was stopped he told officer morale is that off from that and said actually in fact i want to work worth and met for tacos i met a friend for some tacos but when he was promised he couldn't the first woman ever to talk to ria he couldn't there was friend and he didn't have any contact information for this brand or any way to that drug addled or he did he did it while he was out there and it's actually it's on one of the videos i didn't play in our video a trial i played maybe ten minutes in italy during that video he  an officer mounts testimony and there was the issue of the lovely couple surmounts one of the officers in round rock and he said that as soon as he started searching the truckie touched the cup holder and sort of moved it wobble he was able to just pick it up and set it aside and when you look down in that cup holder you look straight down to the trap door where the hidden compartment was the officer at the port of entry on the day of the defendant came through in the same truck said the same thing that this couple was wobbling move really quickly so not the fact that he had a reason to believe that his car got caught gotten suspicious but it also shows planning and preparation and in fact there was no evidence at trial to show that the old license plates on the car were salvaged plates and fact he told us  was that was his own statement he left back to mexico he came back into the united states he had the new license get replaced a new license plates with new or new license plates and without the  new license plate and you know that he got arrested as very minimal relevance but when you consider it in the context of that round rock star and everything that transpired his inconsistent statements the dog to learn everything else it very clearly i compartment evidence that there was no convincing reason to exclude that it was clearly relevant highly probative and if if that evidence if there was a feeling of knowledge in that case to suggest this is relevant program i would submit to you that here where we have a much stronger showing of knowledge through the inconsistent statements through the modifications everything else plus the planning and preparation that it's exceptionally relevant here and i'd like to turn up a man although he didn't have a chance to address that nor argument she mentioned that our expert testimony was faulty if i can turn the court's attention to that i would just mention that ask all the questions of why evidence in this case and says what does that mean means he's guilty that's what your expert said i don't know why you alice i will still get away with a word i don't know who it is on a court that you find that it's the functional equivalent you go through every single thing and say you test these people do this he did it he's testified the people he did then you go through all this list of he meets all the tests of this profile point's well taken i would i would suggest that in closing i can make arguments and resemblances based on the evidence and all i was attempting to do in my closing argument was presenting the evidence in the strongest and appropriate strongest and do i think for instance run a good deal as far as barry it is very useful to us here in that that was a case where the expert testimony was disallowed but in that case the the expert testimony that was just directly concretely profile evidence and we don't have anything similar to getting a difference in the facts in that case and in the facts of your examination here the difference and it has photos is that the government the witness for the government in that case said most people hired to smuggle drugs know that there are drugs in the car so the inference is most people know this guy had drugs in his car  he would classify most people who get arrested out or patrol checkpoint as modelers we don't have any sort of classification evidence like that or even more rain in that case the experts watched a video of the defendant i think engaged in drug dealers something at a gas station or engaged in something at a gas station and said is an expert well as an expert that looks like a drug deal to me we don't have anything like that we don't have an expert getting testify to at least one or two for instance in my next x years of experience the they often change from license plates right who would object to admitting it's not it's and i understand i understand your honor and judgment here just to follow up on that i have my my my and my hope when i introduced as evidence and i believe as i stand here before you as the prejudice was the good legitimate kind of prejudice that i try to get to brought up i brought up because i believe that the jury would not be able to understand the significance of them without an expert to talk about all these happen to be the issues that i talk to my closing arguments they happen because of the most important issues in my case that the but i i was a little reluctant to rely on you know the hope that everyone had seen as much when i went into trial the ways that these compartments are built was useful to me for instance because it showed that this is this is not just a compartment that happens in the car and this code doesn't get thrown in the back of a car in a duffel bag this is a compartment that takes months to build you have to find a separate truck each drum find people that know how to do this stuff well the two together and create this void i won't belabor each of those issues but each one of the points that i talked in that our a expert witness talked about points like that that i think very legitimately very properly benefited from an expert's elucidation so they can really understand the full significance of the issues and your honour's i believe i'm out of time all right miss thank you thank you not sure what this says about prosecutors and defense attorneys but i learned about bernie brick burning breaking bad that i wanted to do before i ran out of time talking about the profile statements i wanted to point the court and fortunately i don't have your pagination but it's on page one thirty four and one thirty five of the first volume of the day two and the record when officer go he is testifying about how his dog alerts he says that first of all the dog was inside of the car not outside of the car client is outside of the car the dog is inside of the car he said the dog alerted by putting his nose down into the cup holder ok so i i thought this is the first time in the record that the government has argued that my client necessarily knew of the dog alert i don't think the record supports it i think the best characterization of this record is that there's no evidence my client knew that the dog had overheard it that's how i've always stated it i believe that's the best characterization of the record as far as profiling i believe that the best case for this court is a case that was decided by a new judge finerty this and that's united states versus gonzales fall on the ok line these statements fall on the not ok line and what i find so helpful about that opinion is basically the court said when you can turn the statement into a way he did it he's guilty because he did x that's when you have impermissible profiling testimony so i think the burner phones are on the line i think the compartment is perfectly permissible profile expert testimony  there they're very cheap i think they're very cheap i've seen a lot of kids with them and i've often wondered whether kids use them so their parents don't know what they're doing on their phones but that's completely off the record but they are very cheap you're right your hon and while they're here they brought their phone and they buy this little chip and at last for a certain amount of time you know you can send text messages it's not what you mean by a burn phone are you talking about the whole phone apparatus itself it's the whole phone operate very simple very drilled down to the basics and they're usually used for single purposes and then thrown out they're cheap you can draw him out you know what you see all the detective shows exactly like list in the exactly or breaking bad where they hit it with a hammer  anyway and gonzales rodriguez this court called permissible statements like meth is produced in mexico drug organizations use couriers couriers normally don't handle drugs why are those statements permissible because they help to lose today the case for the jury they help the jury understand something that it might not understand here are some statements that the court in guns all this rhetoric is said m permissible couriers generally have no criminal history the court said that turned around all that means is mr gonzales is guilty because he has no criminal history couriers hide drugs in legitimate loads that kit in that case it was great fruits the court said all that statement said was mr gonzales in limine before trial that motion was limon it was their only litigated and it was denied in the interest of candor i want to tell you that the court did give the prosecutor a warning at that moment and said you cannot specifically equate your client with the court with a profile and islam am i not correct that even the don't you have to also object when the evidence comes in not under and new i call it new and old in two thousand i believe it's either nine hundred ninety nine or two thousand that one of three was amended will let me just ask you this because it does seem to me that you are breaking this agent's testimony down into a bunch of component parts some of which you knowledge sure are ok and so how does your global objects in that testimony preserve an objection to the separate talking about preservation of beer because you have to i don't think they change the rule that you still have to object distinctly to what you're what you find objectionable or missing what the rule now say is that if your argument is that that you're fine with the written motion if you're argument i know this because i've had to i've had to fess up before if your argument is that the other side exceeded the scope of the court ruling then you have to make a separate exception i would argue and again i can see that's a close case that in this case our argument was that the court's ruling in the beginning was improper because what the court said was you cannot let your witness explicitly equate well that's not the law implicit equation is good is is bad enough and we started the cases that hold that proposition in our motion in limine it's a fine point but i think it's a point worth considering especially given that on a case that was i'm not saying he would a lost but he had a so so ok so on knowledge he tried a prior offense and he gave extensive expert testimony that