Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-03019/USCOURTS-caDC-13-03019-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Henry Brandon Williams
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 11, 2016 Decided July 8, 2016 

No. 13-3019 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

v. 

HENRY BRANDON WILLIAMS, 

APPELLANT

Consolidated with 13-3035, 14-3012 

Appeals from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:11-cr-00129-11) 

(No. 1:11-cr-00129-2) 

(No. 1:11-cr-00129-1) 

Stephen C. Leckar, Edward C. Sussman, and Julian S. 

Greenspun, all appointed by the court, argued the causes and 

filed the joint briefs for appellants. 

Nicholas P. Coleman, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued 

the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Elizabeth 

Trosman and Zia Faruqui, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

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Elizabeth H. Danello, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an 

appearance. 

Before: ROGERS, PILLARD and WILKINS, Circuit 

Judges. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction ............................................................................. 2

I. Facts and Prior Proceedings ............................................. 4

II. Wiretap Issues ................................................................ 13

III. Lay Opinion Testimony ................................................. 32

IV. Wired Plea Agreement ................................................... 50

V. Acquitted Conduct in Sentencing .................................. 53

Conclusion ............................................................................ 54

Introduction 

PER CURIAM: Henry Williams, Gezo Edwards, and 

William Bowman appeal their convictions by a jury of 

participation in a cocaine distribution scheme between 

January 2009 and April 2011. Following a multiyear 

investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation (“FBI”) and local police, Appellants and eleven 

other individuals were indicted on various federal drug 

offenses. Williams, Edwards, and Bowman were indicted for 

conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 

cocaine. Bowman and Edwards also were indicted for 

multiple counts of using, carrying, and possessing a firearm 

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during a drug trafficking offense. And Bowman was indicted 

for several counts of distribution of cocaine. Of the fourteen 

individuals named in the original indictment, only Williams, 

Edwards, and Bowman went to trial. The jury found all three 

Appellants guilty of drug conspiracy, found Bowman guilty 

of two firearms possession charges and three cocaine 

distribution charges, and acquitted Edwards of the firearms 

charges. Williams was sentenced to fifty-one months in 

prison, Bowman to forty-five years in prison, and Edwards to 

life imprisonment. 

Appellants challenge their convictions on multiple 

grounds: 

(1) They contend that a series of wiretaps used by the 

Government to uncover the criminal scheme at issue 

here were attained improperly, in violation of both the 

Fourth Amendment and relevant statutes, and that the 

district court erred in refusing to suppress all 

evidence gained from those wiretaps. 

(2) Williams contends that the district court erred in 

admitting portions of the lay opinion testimony 

provided by FBI Special Agent John Bevington, who 

was involved in the underlying investigation. 

(3) Williams argues that the district court improperly 

denied his motion for a judgment of acquittal, 

because there was insufficient evidence to support his 

conviction. 

(4) Williams challenges the district court’s denial of 

requests to instruct the jury on multiple conspiracies 

and to give a limiting instruction concerning 

Bowman’s and Edwards’s bad acts. 

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(5) Williams also contends that the district court erred in 

denying his motion to sever his trial from that of 

Bowman and Edwards. 

(6) Bowman contends that the Government violated his 

Fifth Amendment due process rights by improperly 

“wiring” his plea agreement to a plea by Williams. 

(7) Edwards contends that the district court violated his 

Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights by increasing his 

sentence based on his possession of a firearm even 

though the jury had acquitted him of that conduct. 

 We affirm the judgments of conviction, with one 

exception. We hold that the district court erred in admitting 

portions of Agent Bevington’s lay opinion testimony and that 

this error was not harmless. Therefore, we reverse Williams’s 

conviction and remand his case to the district court for further 

proceedings. We do not reach Williams’s other challenges to 

his conviction other than to hold that the district court did not 

err in denying his motion for a judgment of acquittal. 

I. Facts and Prior Proceedings 

A. 

In late 2009, a joint task force of the FBI and the District 

of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department began 

investigating a suspected cocaine distribution operation based 

in Washington, D.C. In an effort to uncover the nature, scope, 

and membership of that operation, investigating agents 

reviewed pen registers of telephone calls, arranged 

undercover drug buys, obtained information from confidential 

sources, and conducted extensive physical surveillance. After 

concluding that traditional methods alone were insufficient to 

investigate the operation, the Government sought, and 

eventually obtained, judicial authorization for wiretaps on 

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three separate phone numbers associated with Bowman, who 

the Government suspected was a ringleader of the drug 

trafficking. See United States v. Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 2d 1, 

5-6 (D.D.C. 2012). 

 The first of those wiretaps, which the Government 

obtained on December 7, 2010, authorized the interception of 

wire communications over Target Telephone 1 (“TT1”). See 

id. at 5. Just a few weeks later, however, the Government 

terminated that wiretap due to lack of activity on the TT1 

phone line. See id. The Government did not seek 

reauthorization of the TT1 wiretap. Instead, it applied for a 

separate wiretap on Target Telephone 2 (“TT2”). See id. at 5-

6. Special Agent Timothy Pak submitted an affidavit in 

support of the TT2 wiretap, averring that Bowman was 

utilizing the TT2 phone line “to discuss and facilitate drug 

trafficking in the Washington, D.C. area.” Gov’t’s Jan. 13, 

2011, TT2 Wiretap Affidavit (“Jan. 13 TT2 Aff.”) ¶ 7. Agent 

Pak’s affidavit asserted that the TT2 wiretap was necessary 

because the Government’s “[n]ormal investigative 

procedures,” id. ¶ 35 – including the use of confidential 

sources and undercover officers, physical surveillance, trash 

covers, and pen registers – had failed to reveal the full scope 

and nature of the drug trafficking operation. See id. ¶¶ 35-48. 

On January 13, 2011, the district court authorized the TT2 

wiretap for an initial thirty days. See Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 

2d at 6.

 At the Government’s requests, the district court granted 

three extensions of the TT2 wiretap. See id. The Government 

sought the first extension on February 14, 2011, relying on an 

updated affidavit from Agent Pak. That affidavit emphasized 

that reauthorization of the TT2 wiretap was necessary 

because, even after using the TT2 wiretap for a month 

alongside traditional investigative tools, agents had yet to 

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uncover the full scope and membership of the drug trafficking 

operation. See Gov’t’s Feb. 14, 2011, TT2 Wiretap Affidavit 

(“Feb. 14 TT2 Aff.”) ¶¶ 34-55. The district court agreed and 

promptly reauthorized the TT2 wiretap for an additional thirty 

days. See Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 2d at 6. 

On March 11, 2011, the Government requested another 

extension of the TT2 wiretap. Agent Pak’s March 11, 2011, 

affidavit did not name Edwards – another suspected leader of 

the drug trafficking operation – as a potential target of the 

TT2 wiretap reauthorization. In that affidavit, Agent Pak 

reiterated his belief that the TT2 wiretap remained necessary 

to fill evidentiary gaps left by normal investigative 

procedures. See Gov’t’s March 11, 2011, TT2 Wiretap 

Application (“Mar. 11 TT2 Aff.”) ¶¶ 25-41. The district court 

obliged and, on March 11, 2011, reauthorized the TT2 wiretap 

for another thirty-day period. See Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 2d 

at 6. 

The Government then sought and obtained a third and 

final thirty-day reauthorization of the TT2 wiretap on April 8, 

2011, again based on Agent Pak’s view that the TT2 wiretap 

was necessary to investigate the full scope of the drug 

trafficking operation. See id.; Gov’t’s April 8, 2011, TT2 

Wiretap Affidavit (“Apr. 8 TT2 Aff.”) ¶¶ 31-50. 

 On March 21, 2011, while the TT2 wiretap was still 

operational on its second extension, the Government sought 

an order authorizing the interception of wire communications 

to and from Target Telephone 3 (“TT3”), another phone 

number associated with Bowman. See Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 

2d at 6. As in his other affidavits, Agent Pak attested that the 

TT3 wiretap was necessary to determine the full nature and 

scope of the conspiracy, which called for further investigation 

notwithstanding the TT2 wiretap. See Gov’t’s Mar. 21, 2011, 

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TT3 Wiretap Affidavit (“Mar. 21 TT3 Aff.”) ¶¶ 27-43. 

Notably, the Government’s TT3 wiretap application was the 

first to name Edwards as a possible target of the wiretap. See 

id. ¶ 10(c). The district court authorized the TT3 wiretap, 

and, on April 15, 2011, reauthorized it for an additional thirty 

days. See Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 2d at 6.

 Between January and April 2011, investigating agents 

employed the TT2 and TT3 wiretaps to intercept numerous 

telephone calls between Bowman, Edwards, Williams, and 

several other members of the suspected drug trafficking 

operation. Toward the end of the investigation, agents 

executed search warrants on a storage unit and various 

residences connected to Bowman and Edwards and seized 

cocaine, drug paraphernalia, several firearms, and 

ammunition.

B. 

 The Government arrested Williams, Edwards, and 

Bowman along with several other individuals and indicted 

them for various drug-related offenses. The operative 

superseding indictment charged Williams, Edwards, Bowman, 

and several other men with conspiracy to distribute and 

possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of 

cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. The superseding 

indictment also charged Bowman and Edwards with two 

counts of using, carrying, and possessing a firearm during a 

drug trafficking offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 924(c)(1).1

 It charged Bowman with an additional count of 

firearm possession and three counts of unlawful distribution 

 

1

 Those two firearm possession counts were later merged into one 

before the case was submitted to the jury. 

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of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 

841(b)(1)(C).2

 

 Appellants filed several pretrial motions during the early 

stages of the case. Williams moved to sever his trial from that 

of his co-defendants. Williams insisted that trying him 

alongside co-defendants facing much more serious charges 

would risk prejudicial spillover and allow the prosecution to 

benefit from guilt by association. The district court denied 

that motion, concluding that Williams failed to show a serious 

risk that a joint trial would prevent the jury from making a 

reliable judgment about his guilt or innocence. Around the 

same time, Bowman and Edwards moved to suppress 

evidence obtained from the TT2 and TT3 wiretaps on the 

ground that, in obtaining judicial approval of the wiretaps, the 

Government failed to satisfy the requirements of the Fourth 

Amendment and Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and 

Safe Streets Act of 1968 (“Title III”), 18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq. 

See Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 2d at 4-5.3

 The district court 

denied those suppression motions. Id. at 18. It held that the 

TT2 and TT3 wiretaps, and all subsequent reauthorizations, 

satisfied Title III’s “necessity” requirement because 

traditional investigative techniques were insufficient to reveal 

the full scope of the suspected drug trafficking operation. Id. 

at 8-13. The district court further concluded that Appellants 

were not entitled to a hearing under Franks v. Delaware, 438 

U.S. 154 (1978), because they failed to make a substantial 

showing that the purported omissions in the Government’s 

 

2

 The superseding indictment also charged Bowman with two 

counts of unlawful distribution of five grams or more of cocaine 

base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(B)(iii), 

but the Government later dismissed those counts. 

3

 Williams filed a notice to adopt those motions. 

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wiretap applications were material. Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 2d 

at 14-18. Edwards filed more motions, some counseled and 

some pro se, reiterating his earlier claims and also arguing 

that agents violated Title III’s “naming” and “prior 

applications” provisions. The district court denied each of 

those motions in a series of written memoranda and orders. 

See, e.g., Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 2d at 18-23 (D.D.C. Sept. 

16, 2012) (denying pre-trial motion for reconsideration); id. at 

23-29 (D.D.C. Oct. 23, 2012) (same); United States v. 

Edwards, 904 F. Supp. 2d 7, 9-11 (D.D.C. 2012) (denying pro 

se motion for reconsideration); United States v. Edwards, 943 

F. Supp. 2d 125, 127-29 (D.D.C. 2013) (denying pro se 

motion for new trial and other post-trial motions); United 

States v. Edwards, 994 F. Supp. 2d 1, 4-7 (D.D.C. 2013) 

(denying pro se post-trial motions); United States v. Edwards, 

994 F. Supp. 2d 7, 9-10 (D.D.C. 2014) (same). 

In the months leading up to trial, Bowman entered into 

plea negotiations. The Government offered Bowman a 

“wired” plea deal. Under the initial version of that deal, 

Bowman could plead guilty, and the Government would 

recommend a prison sentence capped at twenty-three years, 

but only if Williams also pleaded guilty to the drug 

conspiracy charge. If Williams pleaded guilty, he, in turn, 

would face no mandatory minimum and likely would face a 

guidelines sentencing range of twenty-seven to thirty-three 

months imprisonment. Bowman’s counsel told the court that 

Bowman was willing to accept his half of the deal but “would 

hope that [the Government] would unwire it” from the 

condition that Williams also plead guilty. Status Hr’g Tr. 75 

(Sept. 7, 2012). A month later, during jury selection, the 

Government offered a revised plea agreement to Bowman. 

Under that revised agreement, Bowman could plead guilty to 

a sentence of twenty-five years imprisonment, contingent 

upon Williams’s acceptance of a plea offer of a thirty to 

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thirty-seven month prison sentence. On the eve of trial, 

Bowman’s counsel notified the district court that his client did 

“not wish to engage in any discussions with the Government 

and does not wish to plead guilty based upon the offer that has 

been made to him.” Trial Tr. 7 (Oct. 22, 2012). Williams, for 

his part, stated on the record that he also would not accept the 

Government’s plea offer. 

C. 

 All three Appellants proceeded to trial. During its casein-chief, the Government played audio recordings of phone 

calls obtained from the wiretaps, showed numerous 

surveillance videos, and presented testimony from 

investigating agents, narcotics experts, and cooperating 

witnesses. The Government offered evidence to show that 

Edwards and Bowman were the leaders of a cocainetrafficking network in the Washington, D.C., area. According 

to one of the prosecution’s cooperating witnesses, Edwards 

and Bowman repeatedly acquired large quantities of cocaine 

from California and used cross-country shipping pods to 

transport it to the Washington, D.C., area. The evidence 

suggested that they stored the cocaine in various locations, 

including an apartment in Capitol Heights, Maryland, and 

storage facilities in Hyattsville, Maryland. The Government 

adduced testimony that Edwards processed, weighed, and 

repackaged the cocaine into smaller blocks for resale to midlevel drug dealers. Bowman, in turn, distributed the 

repackaged cocaine to those mid-level dealers, usually on 

consignment. Another cooperating witness testified that 

Bowman typically would give the drugs to him “on 

consignment,” and that he later would pay Bowman back with 

the proceeds earned from selling the drugs to individual 

customers. Trial Tr. 9, 21 (Nov. 5, 2012, p.m. session). The 

prosecution’s evidence, including wiretap recordings and 

surveillance videos, also showed that Williams interacted with 

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the other defendants during the early half of 2011. Williams 

repeatedly called Bowman between January and March 2011, 

and met with Bowman on several occasions in mid-March 

2011, including on March 12, March 15, and March 23, 

shortly after Bowman and Edwards, on or before March 10, 

had received a large shipment of cocaine. 

 The Government also presented the testimony of FBI 

Special Agent John Bevington, one of the lead investigating 

officers. On the second day of trial, the district court granted 

the Government’s motion to qualify Agent Bevington as an 

expert witness “in the interpretation of words and phrases 

used by drug traffickers in this particular case.” Trial Tr. 67 

(Oct. 24, 2012, a.m. session). In his capacity as an expert on 

narcotics terminology, Agent Bevington translated many 

“coded” words that appeared in conversations between 

Bowman and other members of the alleged drug conspiracy. 

Over defense counsel’s objections, the district court also 

permitted Agent Bevington to provide lay opinion testimony 

interpreting recorded calls between Bowman, Williams, and 

other co-conspirators. 

D. 

 At the close of all the evidence, Williams moved for a 

judgment of acquittal, chiefly on the ground that the evidence 

was insufficient to prove his participation in the charged drug 

conspiracy. Drawing all inferences in favor of the 

prosecution, the district court orally denied the motion and 

found that a reasonable jury could find that Williams 

participated in the alleged conspiracy based on the nature and 

frequency of his contacts with Bowman. See Trial Tr. 96-97 

(Nov. 13, 2012, p.m. session). During the final days of the 

trial, Edwards and Williams asked the district court to give a 

“multiple conspiracies instruction” to the jury, arguing that 

the prosecution’s evidence, at most, established their 

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involvement in a different drug conspiracy from the one 

alleged in the superseding indictment. The district court 

rejected that request and declined to give the proposed 

instruction. See generally Final Jury Instructions, United 

States v. Edwards, No. 11-cr-129 (D.D.C.), ECF No. 591. 

After resolving other pending trial motions and hearing the 

parties’ closing statements, the district court instructed the 

jury and then submitted the case to the jury for deliberation. 

On November 16, 2012, the jury began its deliberations 

and delivered verdicts four days later. The jury found 

Bowman, Edwards, and Williams guilty of the drug 

conspiracy charge. On that charge, the jury held Bowman and 

Edwards responsible for five kilograms or more of cocaine 

and held Williams responsible for an amount less than 500 

grams. The jury also found Bowman guilty of two firearm 

possession charges and all three remaining cocaine 

distribution charges. The jury acquitted Edwards on the 

firearm possession charge. 

During Edwards’s sentencing hearing, the district court 

granted the Government’s request for a two-level increase in 

Edwards’s guidelines calculation for possession of a 

dangerous weapon, pursuant to U.S. Sentencing Guideline 

§ 2D1.1(b)(1). Even though the jury had acquitted him on the 

firearm possession count, the district court found by a 

preponderance of the evidence that Edwards possessed a 

firearm in furtherance of the drug trafficking conspiracy. The 

district court sentenced Edwards to life imprisonment, 

Williams to fifty-one months in prison for the conspiracy 

charge, and Bowman to an aggregate prison term of forty-five 

years in prison for his offenses. Appellants timely appealed. 

 

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II. Wiretap Issues 

Appellants’ first challenge to their convictions rests on 

their contention that many of the Government’s wiretap 

applications were flawed, requiring the suppression of all 

evidence gained from those wiretaps. They rest that challenge 

on four grounds. First, they argue that the district court erred 

by refusing to hold a hearing, pursuant to Franks v. Delaware, 

438 U.S. 154, to determine whether the Government omitted 

material information from its wiretap applications. Second, 

they claim that by omitting that information, the Government 

violated the necessity requirement of Title III. Third, they 

argue that the information the Government did disclose was 

insufficient to establish the necessity of the wiretaps. And 

fourth, Edwards asserts that the Government unlawfully failed 

to name him in its March 11, 2011, wiretap affidavit. After 

setting forth the governing legal principles, we address each 

of these contentions in turn. 

A. 

A defendant may seek to suppress the evidence gathered 

as a result of wiretap surveillance under two different legal 

theories: she can argue that the wiretap violated her rights 

under the Fourth Amendment, or that the wiretap failed to 

comply with the requirements of Title III. Appellants argue 

both here. 

1. Appellants’ Fourth Amendment claim is based on the 

Supreme Court’s decision in Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 

154. Franks involved a defendant’s challenge to a warrant 

affidavit that, according to the defendant, contained false 

statements. Id. at 157-58. The Court held that “where the 

defendant makes a substantial preliminary showing that a 

false statement knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless 

disregard for the truth, was included by the affiant in the 

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warrant affidavit, and if the allegedly false statement is 

necessary to the finding of probable cause, the Fourth 

Amendment requires that a hearing be held at the defendant’s 

request.” Id. at 155-56. This court has thereafter referred to 

such hearings as “Franks hearings.” See, e.g., United States 

v. Maynard, 615 F.3d 544, 550-51 (D.C. Cir. 2010); United 

States v. Becton, 601 F.3d 588, 594 (D.C. Cir. 2010). To 

obtain a Franks hearing, a movant “must show that (1) the 

affidavit contained false statements; (2) the statements were 

material to the issue of probable cause; and (3) the false 

statements were made knowingly and intentionally, or with 

reckless disregard for the truth.” Becton, 601 F.3d at 594 

(internal quotation marks omitted). 

This court has extended Franks to apply not only where 

the Government is alleged to have made false statements but 

also where a defendant alleges that the Government 

“knowingly and intentionally (or with reckless disregard) 

omitted a fact that would have defeated probable cause.” 

United States v. Glover, 681 F.3d 411, 419 (D.C. Cir. 2012); 

accord United States v. Spencer, 530 F.3d 1003, 1007 (D.C. 

Cir. 2008) (stating that “suppression also remains ‘an 

appropriate remedy if the magistrate or judge in issuing a 

warrant was misled by information in an affidavit,’” and 

noting that “[t]his latter exception also has been held to apply 

under certain circumstances to material omissions” (quoting 

United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 923 (1984))). Although 

Franks involved a probable cause determination concerning a 

warrant affidavit, this court has applied Franks in the wiretap 

context as well. See, e.g., Maynard, 615 F.3d at 550-51; 

Becton, 601 F.3d at 597-98. 

Yet not just any omission is enough. This court’s 

precedent is clear that to implicate the Fourth Amendment, 

and to require a Franks hearing, the omission alleged must be 

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such that, had the omitted information been provided to the 

authorizing court, it would have altered the court’s conclusion 

that the wiretap was necessary. See, e.g., Becton, 601 F.3d at 

597 (finding “the Government’s failure to disclose certain 

information bearing on the credibility of two confidential 

sources” unproblematic where the inclusion of that additional 

information “was [not] material” and “would not have 

defeat[ed] probable cause” (internal quotation marks 

omitted)). If a defendant makes such a showing, she would 

then be entitled to a hearing before the district court to 

determine whether suppression of that wiretap evidence is 

required under the Fourth Amendment. See Franks, 438 U.S. 

at 171-72. The court has not resolved whether a district 

court’s decision not to hold a Franks hearing is reviewed 

under the clearly erroneous or de novo standard of review. 

See Becton, 601 F.3d at 594. It is unnecessary to do so here 

because, under either standard of review, we would find no 

error by the district court. 

2. Appellants also contest the wiretaps at issue here by 

arguing that the Government failed to comply with the 

provisions of Title III in seeking the wiretap. 

To approve a wiretap, a judge must determine that the 

wiretap is supported by both probable cause and necessity. 18 

U.S.C. § 2518(3); Glover, 681 F.3d at 420. Appellants do not 

challenge the Government’s probable cause showing,4

 but 

 

4

 To demonstrate probable cause, the Government must show that 

there is probable cause for belief that: (1) “an individual is 

committing, has committed, or is about to commit a particular 

offense”; (2) “particular communications concerning that offense 

will be obtained through such interception”; and (3) “the facilities 

from which . . . the wire . . . communications are to be intercepted 

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instead argue that the affidavits the Government submitted to 

support its wiretap applications did not demonstrate that each 

wiretap was necessary. 

To demonstrate that a wiretap is necessary, Title III 

requires the Government to provide “a full and complete 

statement as to whether or not other investigative procedures 

have been tried and have failed or why they reasonably appear 

to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be too dangerous.” 18 

U.S.C. § 2518(1)(c). The authorizing court must then 

determine that “normal investigative procedures have been 

tried and have failed or reasonably appear to be unlikely to 

succeed if tried or to be too dangerous” on the basis of this 

statement. Id. § 2518(3)(c). This necessity requirement is 

satisfied when “traditional investigative techniques have 

proved inadequate to reveal the operation’s full nature and 

scope.” Becton, 601 F.3d at 596 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). In assessing the necessity of a wiretap application, 

courts must “giv[e] close scrutiny to applications challenged 

for noncompliance and . . . reject[] generalized and 

conclusory statements that other investigative procedures 

would prove unsuccessful.” United States v. Johnson, 696 

F.2d 115, 123 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (quoting United States v. 

Williams, 580 F.2d 578, 588 (D.C. Cir. 1978)). “Nonetheless, 

the statutory command was not designed to foreclose 

electronic surveillance until every other imaginable method of 

investigation has been unsuccessfully attempted.” Williams, 

580 F.2d at 588 (internal quotation marks omitted). It is 

sufficient for the Government to show that “other techniques 

are impractical under the circumstances and that it would be 

 

are being used . . . in connection with the commission of such 

offense.” 18 U.S.C. § 2518(3)(a)-(b), (d). 

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unreasonable to require pursuit of those avenues of 

investigation.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 

An “aggrieved person” may move to suppress the 

contents of any intercepted communication and any evidence 

derived therefrom where “the communication was unlawfully 

intercepted.” 18 U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a)(i). This provision 

“was not intended to reach every failure to follow statutory 

procedures,” but applies where there is a “failure to satisfy 

any of those statutory requirements that directly and 

substantially implement the congressional intention to limit 

the use of intercept procedures.” United States v. Chavez, 416 

U.S. 562, 574-75 (1974) (quoting United States v. Giordano, 

416 U.S. 505, 527 (1974)). This includes “the statutorily 

imposed preconditions to judicial authorization” of a wiretap, 

such as necessity. United States v. Donovan, 429 U.S. 413, 

436 (1977) (citing 18 U.S.C. § 2518(3)(c)); see also United 

States v. Carter, 449 F.3d 1287, 1292-93 (D.C. Cir. 2006). 

An affidavit offered in support of a wiretap application 

enjoys a “presumption of validity.” Maynard, 615 F.3d at 

550 (quoting Franks, 438 U.S. at 171) (concerning affidavits 

in support of search warrants). The court reviews an 

authorizing court’s necessity determination for abuse of 

discretion, but does not give a second layer of deference to a 

district court’s assessment of the authorizing court’s necessity 

determination. See Glover, 681 F.3d at 419-20. In assessing 

a district court’s denial of a wiretap suppression motion, the 

court reviews the district court’s legal conclusions de novo

and its factual findings for clear error. United States v. 

Eiland, 738 F.3d 338, 347 (D.C. Cir. 2013). 

B. 

We turn now to Appellants’ arguments seeking to 

suppress the evidence derived from the wiretaps. 

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1. Appellants first argue that the district court erred by 

refusing to hold a Franks hearing concerning certain 

omissions from the Government’s wiretap applications. 

Because the omissions were not material, we reject the 

argument. 

Appellants allege, and the Government does not dispute, 

that the Government’s wiretap affidavits did not disclose two 

“investigative procedures,” 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(c), related to 

its investigation of Bowman. First, the Government’s initial 

three applications seeking to wiretap Bowman’s TT2 phone 

failed to disclose the existence of a pen register5

 on TT3, 

another of Bowman’s phones. See generally Jan. 13 TT2 

Aff.; Feb. 14 TT2 Aff.; Mar. 11 TT2 Aff. The Government 

had been operating the TT3 pen register for nearly a year 

when it first sought to wiretap Bowman’s TT2 phone, and by 

March 2011, when it submitted its third application for a 

wiretap on TT2, the Government had recorded over two 

thousand activations on TT3. See Mar. 21 TT3 Aff. ¶ 23. 

Second, in the March 11 Affidavit, the Government did 

not disclose the existence of an additional confidential source, 

CS-4, who had known Bowman and Edwards for over ten 

years, and who, in late February 2011, informed the 

Government that he or she knew that the two were “working 

in concert to traffic[] in narcotics.” Apr. 8 TT2 Aff. ¶ 35. 

 

5

 “A pen register is a mechanical device that records the numbers 

dialed on a telephone by monitoring the electrical impulses caused 

when the dial on the telephone is released. It does not overhear oral 

communications and does not indicate whether calls are actually 

completed.” United States v. N.Y. Tel. Co., 434 U.S. 159, 161 n.1 

(1977). 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 18 of 54
19 

Neither of these omissions, however, would have 

“defeat[ed] probable cause,” and therefore, the district court 

was not required to hold a Franks hearing concerning those 

omissions. Becton, 601 F.3d at 597 (quoting Spencer, 530 

F.3d at 1007). While pen registers cannot “convey to the 

government the substance of [Bowman’s] calls,” Eiland, 738 

F.3d at 349, they can nonetheless reveal relevant and 

important information. And sometimes they uncover data that 

can make a wiretap unnecessary.6

 Here, however, Appellants 

have not shown that pen register data rendered the wiretaps 

unnecessary. See Franks, 438 U.S. at 171-72. 

The same is true of the Government’s use of CS-4. CS-4 

provided some information to the Government concerning 

Bowman and Edwards’s relationship and participation in drug 

trafficking. But that information was not sufficient to 

 

6 See, e.g., Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 737 (1979) (police 

obtained a search warrant through use of a pen register, where pen 

register demonstrated petitioner was responsible for robbing victim 

in question after victim began receiving threatening phone calls 

from robber subsequent to robbery); United States v. Geraldo, 271 

F.3d 1112, 1115 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (describing pen register data as 

part of the evidence submitted to a magistrate deemed sufficient to 

justify the issuance of a search warrant, without resort to a wiretap); 

United States v. Clay, 34 F.3d 1070 (8th Cir. 1994) (unpublished) 

(pen register data led to arrest of a drug trafficking co-conspirator 

where pen register data linked one co-conspirator to the other); 

United States v. Thornton, 746 F.2d 39, 41-42 (D.C. Cir. 1984) 

(explaining that pen register data, among other evidence, allowed 

law enforcement to secure – without the use of a wiretap – several 

search warrants concerning an alleged gambling enterprise based on 

the fact that the pen registers showed that numerous calls were 

placed to the location in question “within one hour of the prime 

gambling period”); United States v. Louderman, 576 F.2d 1383, 

1386 (9th Cir. 1978) (pen register data used to prove wire fraud). 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 19 of 54
20 

establish either the source of Bowman’s drugs, or the 

hierarchy of his organization. Nor was continued reliance on 

CS-4 reasonably likely to reveal that information, which the 

Government needed to uncover fully and prosecute 

effectively the conspiracy at issue here. Had the Government 

disclosed the existence of CS-4, it would not have altered the 

authorizing court’s necessity determination, and therefore, the 

Government’s omission of that information did not require a 

Franks hearing. 

2. Appellants next argue that the Government violated 

Title III’s necessity requirement, 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(c), by 

failing to include the omitted information regarding the pen 

register on TT3 and confidential source CS-4. We reject 

Appellants’ contention that the fruits of the resulting wiretaps 

must be suppressed. Although we agree that the Government 

could have, and should have, provided the omitted 

information discussed above in each relevant wiretap 

application, the Government provided the bare minimum 

necessary to comply with Title III. 

The Government has offered no reason why it could not 

have provided the authorizing court with the omitted 

information concerning the pen register on TT3 and the 

existence of CS-4, consistent with the statutory requirement 

of a “full and complete statement.” Id. Both omissions were 

relevant to the necessity determination because both shed 

further light on the breadth of the Government’s investigation 

and the alternative means the Government had to investigate 

the conspiracy at issue, short of the invasive option of wiretap 

surveillance. 

Nonetheless, the Government’s failure to include this 

information in its wiretap applications did not violate the 

necessity requirement of Title III. The Government informed 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 20 of 54
21 

the authorizing court of the existence of the pen register on 

TT2, see, e.g., Jan. 13 TT2 Aff. ¶¶ 30-34, and further 

explained why, in this particular case, pen register data was 

insufficient to reveal the “full nature and scope” of the 

conspiracy. Becton, 601 F.3d at 597; see also id. (finding that 

“[t]he Government’s omission of information that a previous 

search had yielded incriminating information did not make its 

affidavit infirm”); Jan. 13 TT2 Aff. ¶¶ 47-48 (asserting that 

while pen registers are useful “in establishing relationships 

and patterns of operations, . . . they provide little direct 

evidence as to the significance of the telephone calls”). The 

activations recorded by the pen register on TT3 were no more 

illuminating. Consequently, the inclusion of information 

concerning the pen register on TT3 could not have altered the 

authorizing court’s necessity determination. 

The same is true of the Government’s use of CS-4. 

Appellants have not shown that, had the authorizing court 

known that CS-4 was aiding the Government in its 

investigation, the court would have found necessity lacking 

because the available investigative techniques were sufficient 

to establish the source of Bowman’s drugs or the hierarchy of 

his organization. See supra Part II.B.1. This information 

could not have altered the authorizing court’s necessity 

determination, and thus the Government was not required to 

include it in its wiretap application. To this extent, the 

Government’s omission “was not material, because it did not 

undermine the government’s ability to prove the need for the 

. . . wiretap.” Becton, 601 F.3d at 597 (internal quotation 

marks omitted). 

 By omitting the information concerning the pen register 

on TT3 and the Government’s use of CS-4, the Government 

did not provide the authorizing court with as complete a 

picture of its investigation as it could have, making the 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 21 of 54
22 

authorizing court’s necessity determination potentially less 

well-informed. Although we conclude that the Government’s 

omissions were not material to Title III’s necessity 

requirement, the Government could have, and should have, 

included this information in its wiretap affidavits. As the 

Supreme Court stated in United States v. Donovan, the “strict 

adherence by the Government to the provisions of Title III 

would . . . be more in keeping with the responsibilities 

Congress has imposed upon it when authority to engage in 

wiretapping or electronic surveillance is sought.” 429 U.S. at 

440 (quoting Chavez, 416 U.S. at 580). Absent some 

persuasive explanation for an omission, we anticipate that the 

Government will provide such information to authorizing 

courts in the future. 

3. Appellants next argue that the information the 

Government did disclose in its wiretap application was 

insufficient to demonstrate the wiretap’s necessity when 

considered in combination with the omission of the pen 

register on TT3 and CS-4. We disagree. We have determined 

already that the Government’s omission of information 

concerning the pen register on TT3 and the existence of CS-4 

did not negate the wiretap’s necessity. Appellants fare no 

better when those omissions are viewed in combination with 

Appellants’ arguments concerning the information that the 

Government did include in its wiretap application. 

Focusing first on the January 13 Affidavit, Appellants 

argue that the wiretap was unnecessary because the 

Government’s surveillance of Bowman was bearing fruit and 

likely would continue to do so, given that “Bowman was 

hardly circumspect” when it came to carrying out his drug 

operations. Appellants’ Br. 27-29. In particular, Appellants 

highlight several instances when the Government was able to 

observe Bowman selling cocaine to undercover operatives 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 22 of 54
23 

and others. See Jan. 13 TT2 Aff. ¶¶ 19-20 (describing two 

controlled drug purchases a confidential source made from 

Bowman); Trial Tr. 83-84 (Oct. 25, 2012, p.m. session) 

(testimony of Government agent recounting his surveillance 

of Bowman during a confidential informant’s purchase of 

drugs from Bowman). Appellants’ arguments are unavailing. 

The Government has adequately demonstrated that such 

surveillance and undercover operations were unlikely to 

provide it with the information needed to uncover the “full 

nature and scope” of the suspected crime at issue, United 

States v. Sobamowo, 892 F.2d 90, 93 (D.C. Cir. 1989) 

(quoting United States v. Brown, 823 F.2d 591, 598 (D.C. Cir. 

1987)), namely, the source of Bowman’s cocaine, and the 

hierarchy of Bowman’s organization. In Becton, the court 

similarly found necessity where “normal investigative 

procedures ha[d] been probative in proving that an ongoing 

illegal narcotics business [wa]s operating” because “the FBI 

had been unable to determine the identities of other coconspirators who supplied and transported drugs into D.C. 

and who assisted in local redistribution using these methods.” 

601 F.3d at 596 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Appellants fault the Government for not “squarely 

address[ing]” “how well-placed the informants were, or how 

close they were to Bowman,” Appellants’ Reply Br. 12, but 

the Government persuasively suggests that Bowman was 

unlikely to give his customers information about where he 

kept his drugs, or who was supplying them to him. Had he 

done the former, he would have risked his drugs being stolen. 

Had he done the latter, he would have risked having his 

customers go straight to his drug source. As the district court 

noted, “the fact that Bowman was willing to sell narcotics to 

the undercover officer and confidential sources he barely 

knew does not negate [the Government’s] observation that 

Bowman kept certain information, such as the location of his 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 23 of 54
24 

stash house, from his customers.” Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 2d 

at 9; see also Eiland, 738 F.3d at 349 (explaining that the 

placement of informants does not demonstrate lack of 

necessity because those informants were not close enough to 

the core members of the conspiracy to “have access to the 

most closely held secrets”); United States v. Fernandez, No. 

12-cr-445, 2013 WL 503966, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 7, 2013) 

(noting that individuals involved in a drug trade “were 

unlikely to reveal to an informant the source of their drugs or 

the manner in which the narcotics were transported”). 

Nor was the Government required in these circumstances 

to expect that physical surveillance would provide such 

information. The Government notes that there was only so 

much surveilling of Bowman it could do before Bowman 

might catch on to the surveillance. See Jan. 13 TT2 Aff. ¶ 40 

(asserting that “prolonged or regular surveillance of the 

movements of the subjects would most likely be noticed, 

thereby causing them to become more cautious in their illegal 

activities, or to change the manner in which they conduct their 

illegal activity, thus further stalling law enforcement efforts”). 

And while following Bowman’s movements might have given 

the Government some idea of where Bowman kept at least 

some of his drugs, the Government’s submissions to the 

authorizing court established that continued surveillance 

could not be expected to provide it the breadth of 

understanding concerning the location of those drugs, nor the 

certainty that wiretap surveillance in these circumstances 

would likely provide. See United States v. Scurry, 821 F.3d 1, 

17-18 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (finding the Government’s use of 

physical surveillance insufficient to defeat necessity where 

the defendant “took evasive maneuvers to avoid physical 

surveillance, [and] consummated drug sales indoors or inside 

cars,” and rejecting the defendant’s argument that “the 

government could have searched [the defendant’s] known 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 24 of 54
25 

stash house or prosecuted [the defendant] on the evidence of 

the controlled narcotics transactions alone”). 

Appellants also claim that the disclosed pen register on 

TT2 provided the Government with sufficient information to 

preclude the need for a wiretap. But as discussed above, the 

pen registers at issue here did not reveal, nor was their 

continued use reasonably likely to reveal, sufficient 

information to render the wiretaps unnecessary. 

Accordingly, the authorizing court did not abuse its 

discretion by finding the wiretaps sought by the Government 

here necessary. To the extent that Appellants contest the 

Government’s February 11 Affidavit on the same necessity 

grounds as the January 13 Affidavit, we affirm the necessity 

determination as to the February 11 Affidavit for the same 

reasons.

4. Appellants’ challenge to the Government’s March 11 

Affidavit focuses on the Government’s failure to name or 

discuss Edwards anywhere in the Affidavit. They assert that 

this omission violated Title III’s “naming” and necessity 

requirements, and thus request the suppression of the fruits of 

the wiretap approved based on that affidavit. 

 a. Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(b)(iv), the 

Government is required to include information concerning 

“the identity of the person, if known, committing the offense 

and whose communications are to be intercepted.” The 

Supreme Court has interpreted this provision to require the 

identification of an individual if the Government (1) “has 

probable cause to believe that the individual is engaged in the 

criminal activity under investigation” and (2) “expects to 

intercept the individual’s conversations over the target 

telephone.” Donovan, 429 U.S. at 428. This naming 

requirement applies to individuals placing calls to the target 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 25 of 54
26 

telephone as well as to individuals making calls from the 

target telephone. See id. at 424-28. The Supreme Court in 

Donovan held that a violation of § 2518(1)(b)(iv) did not 

constitute grounds for suppression under § 2518(10)(a)(i), 

where the failure to name an individual in the wiretap 

application was not made “knowingly . . . for the purpose of 

keeping relevant information from the District Court.” 429 

U.S. at 436 n.23; see also id. at 439. 

Edwards argues that, pursuant to § 2518(1)(b)(iv), the 

Government was required to name him in its March 11 

Affidavit because the Government at that point had probable 

cause to believe both that he was involved in the cocaine 

distribution conspiracy at issue and that his communications 

would be intercepted by the wiretap. The Government does 

not argue that it lacked probable cause that Edwards was 

involved in the conspiracy, but instead argues that it had no 

reason to expect that the March 11 wiretap would intercept 

Edwards over Bowman’s TT2 phone specifically (as opposed 

to over Bowman’s TT3 phone).7

 

7

 According to the 2014 edition of the United States Attorneys’ 

Manual, the Government’s current policy goes beyond the 

minimum required by 18 U.S.C. § 2518 by mandating the naming 

in all wiretap affidavits of each person “whose involvement in the 

alleged offenses is indicated, even if not all those persons are 

expected to be intercepted over the target facility or at the target 

location.” U.S. Att’ys’ Manual, Crim. Resources Manual, 28 

Electronic Surveillance – Title III Applications ¶ E (2014 ed.), 

https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-28-

electronic-surveillance-title-iii-applications (last visited July 6, 

2016). Appellants argue that the Government’s policy therefore 

required it to name Edwards in its March 11 Affidavit. However, 

such a policy is not judicially enforceable in a criminal case, see 

United States v. Kember, 648 F.2d 1354, 1370 (D.C. Cir. 1980), nor 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 26 of 54
27 

By March 2011, the Government had captured pen 

register data showing that Edwards and Bowman had been in 

constant phone contact for at least a year. See Mar. 21 TT3 

Aff. ¶ 23 (displaying a chart cataloging 939 phone activations 

between Edwards and Bowman since January 2010). 

However, this contact occurred strictly over TT3. Id. At no 

point during the three months the Government had been 

monitoring TT2 had Bowman received a single call from 

Edwards on that phone. As the district court noted, “[d]espite 

numerous opportunities to do so, the Defendant has never 

contested the Government’s assertion that the pen register on 

TT2 did not show any calls between Bowman and telephone 

numbers known or believed to be associated with Edwards.” 

Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 2d at 21 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Thus, it was reasonable in this context for the 

Government to have expected any phone communications that 

were going to occur between Bowman and Edwards would 

occur over TT3, not TT2. 

To get around the Government’s reasonable inferences 

from Edwards’s past communication pattern, Edwards 

contends that even if he was not likely to call Bowman on 

TT2, the Government should have expected to pick up 

Edwards’s voice in the background of the TT2 wiretap 

because the Government had obtained some evidence 

suggesting that Bowman and Edwards had met on at least two 

occasions. Although the Government acknowledges that GPS 

data showed Bowman near an address associated with 

Edwards on two occasions, see Gov’t’s Opp’n Br. at 4, United 

States v. Edwards, No. 11-cr-129 (D.D.C. Oct. 20, 2012), 

 

is it relevant to whether the Government had probable cause to 

believe that Edwards’s conversations would be captured by TT2. 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 27 of 54
28 

ECF No. 517, Edwards’s argument is nonetheless 

unpersuasive. First, it is not clear that Title III’s naming 

provision applies to the identity of individuals whose 

background conversations might be expected to be overheard 

during intercepted wire communications. We have found no 

authority on point, nor have the parties provided any. 

According to Appellants, “[t]he trial judge correctly 

concluded that the naming requirement extends to persons 

who might be overheard in the background of an intercept,” 

Appellants’ Br. 59 & n.173 (citing Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 2d 

at 25-26), but this is incorrect. Although the district court 

stated that “the plain language” of 18 U.S.C. § 2518(b) 

“would appear to encompass all communications recorded as 

a result of the wiretap, regardless of . . . whether the 

conversation took place over, or merely in the vicinity of, the 

target telephone,” the court also noted that it had been unable 

to locate any legal authority on the point, nor had the parties 

offered any, and it went on to state that “the Court need not 

resolve the scope of the Government’s burden in this respect 

because the Defendant failed to show that he should have 

been named as a target even if the Donovan requirements 

applied to background[] conversations.” Edwards, 889 F. 

Supp. 2d at 25-26. 

Assuming, without deciding, that such overheard 

conversations do implicate Title III’s naming requirement, 

Appellants fare no better. Even if Bowman and Edwards 

were in the same room, and Edwards was having a 

conversation with a third individual at the same time that 

Bowman was talking on TT2 to a fourth individual, it is 

unlikely that Bowman would stop speaking, and Edwards 

would start speaking, at just the right time, such that the TT2 

wiretap would clearly pick up Edwards’s conversation and 

enable the Government reliably to identify his voice. When 

viewed in concert with the fact that the Government had 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 28 of 54
29 

evidence of only a few instances in which Bowman and 

Edwards may have met, it was not unreasonable for the 

Government to expect that it would not intercept Edwards’s 

voice in the background over the TT2 wiretap. 

This conclusion is supported by the fact that, during the 

period from January through March 2011, the Government 

never intercepted Edwards’s voice in the background over 

TT2, even during those times when the Government 

suspected Bowman and Edwards met. See Edwards, 889 F. 

Supp. 2d at 28. Thus, just as the Government lacked grounds 

to expect that Edwards would call Bowman on TT2, since he 

had not done so during the two and a half months it had 

intercepted calls placed from or to TT2, the Government had 

no reason on this record to expect that Edwards’s voice would 

be captured in the background of a TT2 call. 

Edwards also points out that on March 8-9, 2011, the 

Government ran an “ELSUR” electronic surveillance database 

check to determine whether Edwards had been the subject of 

prior intercept orders. The ELSUR check was disclosed in 

the wiretap application for TT3 submitted by the Government 

on March 21, 2011. Mar. 21 TT3 Aff. ¶ 49. Edwards argues 

that this fact lends further support to his contention that the 

Government was required to name him in its March 11 

wiretap application. At best, the ELSUR check demonstrates 

that the Government had probable cause to believe Edwards 

was involved in the investigated conspiracy and that the 

Government anticipated that he would become a target of a 

wiretap. See Edwards, 889 F. Supp. 2d at 20-21. It says 

nothing about whether Edwards’s communications were 

likely to be intercepted over TT2. Accordingly, this argument 

also lacks merit. 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 29 of 54
30 

Edwards also claims that the Government violated 18 

U.S.C. § 2518(1)(e) by failing to disclose in its March 11 

Affidavit all prior wiretap applications that mentioned 

Edwards. However, the prior application requirement applies 

only to those individuals who must be named in the wiretap 

application in the first place. See 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(e) 

(requiring the disclosure of previous applications only for “the 

same persons . . . specified in the application”). Because the 

Government was not required to name Edwards in the March 

11 Affidavit, it was also not required to disclose prior 

applications naming Edwards. 

We therefore hold that the district court did not err in 

denying Edwards’s motion to suppress the fruits of the March 

11 wiretap. To the extent Edwards seeks a Franks hearing 

based on these same naming requirement claims, see 

Appellants’ Br. 62-63, 66; Appellants’ Reply Br. 30, we reject 

the contention for the same reasons.

 b. Appellants jointly argue that the Government’s 

omission of any information concerning Edwards from its 

March 11 Affidavit, when combined with the wiretap 

application’s other alleged deficiencies discussed above, see 

supra Parts II.B.1-II.B.3, violated Title III’s necessity 

requirement, requiring the suppression of all evidence derived 

from the March 11 wiretap. They claim that the 

Government’s alleged knowledge about Edwards and his 

connection to Bowman proves that the Government knew that 

Edwards was the source of Bowman’s supply. The March 11 

wiretap, according to Appellants, was therefore unnecessary 

because the Government already knew that Edwards was 

Bowman’s drug supplier. Appellants are incorrect. Title III’s 

necessity requirement obligates the Government to provide “a 

full and complete statement” concerning only “whether or not 

other investigative procedures have been tried and failed or 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 30 of 54
31 

why they reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if 

tried.” 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(c). Title III does not require the 

Government to disclose every individual whom the 

Government suspects might be involved in the allegedly 

criminal activity. It requires only that the Government name 

those individuals “if known, committing the offense and 

whose communications are to be intercepted.” Id.

§ 2518(1)(b)(iv). 

Appellants contend that had the Government included 

information about Edwards in its March 11 Affidavit, it would 

have been clear to the authorizing court that no further 

wiretap surveillance was necessary because the information 

would have demonstrated that the Government already knew 

the source of Bowman’s drugs: Edwards. We disagree. 

First, it is not clear that the Government had firm 

information identifying Edwards as Bowman’s supplier. The 

Government acknowledges that “investigators . . . had reason 

to suspect Edwards was involved” but maintains that “they 

certainly did not have proof he was Bowman’s conduit to 

imported cocaine.” Appellee’s Br. 58-59. Without firm 

proof, the Government persuasively contends that “holes 

remained in the evidence that could only reasonably be filled 

by a wiretap.” Id. at 58 (quoting Eiland, 738 F.3d at 349). 

Second, even if the Government had included in its 

March 11 application discussion of Edwards and had noted its 

suspicion that he was Bowman’s source, we are not persuaded 

that it would have changed the authorizing court’s necessity 

analysis. Appellants claim in conclusory fashion that if the 

Government had discussed Edwards in the March 11 

application, it would have “caused the district judge to 

scrutinize more carefully the March 11th application,” 

Appellants’ Br. 55, but Appellants fail to specify how such 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 31 of 54
32 

supposed close scrutiny would have changed the court’s 

necessity analysis. 

Like Appellants’ other claims concerning the alleged 

deficiencies of the Government’s wiretap applications, we 

find their arguments concerning the Government’s decision 

not to name Edwards in its March 11 Affidavit unpersuasive. 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s finding that the 

Government’s March 11 Affidavit did not violate Title III’s 

naming or necessity requirement. 

III. Lay Opinion Testimony 

 Appellants also contend, renewing objections they made 

before and during trial, that the district court erred in allowing 

lay opinion testimony by FBI Special Agent John Bevington 

that circumvented the requirements of Federal Rules of 

Evidence 701, 702, and 704. Specifically, they contend that 

Agent Bevington’s testimony conflated expert opinion with 

lay opinion testimony by presenting as lay testimony 

interpretations of audio and video recordings that were clearly 

based on his expertise as an FBI agent. This error was not 

harmless as to Williams, they contend, because Agent 

Bevington’s testimony failed to adhere to limitations on 

expert testimony and was used by the Government to 

establish Williams’s (and to some extent Bowman’s) guilt. 

 Our review of the admission of Agent Bevington’s lay 

opinion testimony is for abuse of discretion. See United 

States v. Williams, 212 F.3d 1305, 1308 (D.C. Cir. 2000). 

Our evaluation of the harmlessness of any such error proceeds 

under the standard in Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 

750, 764-65 (1946). See Bank of Nova Scotia v. United 

States, 487 U.S. 250, 256 (1988). The Government has the 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 32 of 54
33 

burden to show any error was not prejudicial. See United 

States v. Smart, 98 F.3d 1379, 1390 (D.C. Cir. 1996).

 In view of our opinion in United States v. Hampton, 718 

F.3d 978 (D.C. Cir. 2013), which was decided after 

Appellants’ trial, the Government concedes that some of 

Agent Bevington’s lay opinion testimony was inadmissible 

under Federal Rule of Evidence (“FRE”) 701 for failing to 

establish the bases for his opinion but maintains that any error 

was harmless. We agree and find other error as well. We 

therefore conclude that the admission of Agent Bevington’s 

lay opinion testimony was error under FRE 701 and that the 

error was not harmless as to Williams. Accordingly, we 

reverse Williams’s conviction and remand his case to the 

district court for further proceedings. 

A. 

 FRE 701 provides that a witness who is not testifying as 

an expert may only provide testimony regarding his or her lay 

opinion where it is: “(a) rationally based on the witness’s 

perception; (b) helpful to clearly understanding the witness’s 

testimony or to determining a fact in issue; and (c) not based 

on scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge” of the 

sort that is properly the subject of expert opinion testimony 

under FRE 702. FRE 701 was designed to ensure that any 

opinions offered by a lay witness are based on personal, 

“first-hand knowledge or observation,” Fed. R. Evid. 701 adv. 

comm. note (1972 proposed rule), and “a process of reasoning 

familiar in everyday life,” Fed. R. Evid. 701 adv. comm. note 

(2000 amend.) (quoting State v. Brown, 836 S.W.2d 530, 549 

(Tenn. 1992)). The “prototypical example[s]” of lay opinion 

testimony envisioned by the Advisory Committee when 

proposing to add subsection (c) were opinions regarding 

“items that cannot be described factually in words apart from 

inferences,” such as size, degrees of darkness, speed, distance, 

USCA Case #13-3019 Document #1623721 Filed: 07/08/2016 Page 33 of 54
34 

or whether a person appeared sad or angry. Fed. R. Evid. 701 

adv. comm. note (2000 amend.) (quoting Asplundh Mfg. Div. 

v. Benton Harbor Eng’g, 57 F.3d 1190, 1196 (3d Cir. 1995)). 

The addition of subsection (c) was intended to preclude 

litigants from proffering an expert in lay witness’s clothing 

and thereby avoid the disclosure and other requirements for 

expert opinion testimony under FRE 702. See id. (citing 

United States v. Figueroa-Lopez, 125 F.3d 1241, 1246 (9th 

Cir. 1997)).

 FRE 702 addresses expert testimony. It provides that a 

witness who is “qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, 

experience, training, or education” may testify about his or 

her opinion where: “(a) the expert’s scientific, technical, or 

other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to 

understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue; (b) the 

testimony is based on sufficient facts or data; (c) the 

testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; 

and (d) the expert has reliably applied the principles and 

methods to the facts of the case.” These factors reflect that 

the Supreme Court has placed “gatekeeping” responsibilities 

on the trial courts “at the outset” and thereafter during trial to 

ensure that expert testimony is sufficiently reliable to help, as 

opposed to confuse and hinder, the jury. Daubert v. Merrell 

Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 592, 597 (1993). The 

Advisory Committee contemplated that this could be done 

through “[v]igorous cross-examination, presentation of 

contrary evidence, and careful instruction,” which it 

considered especially important in order to inform the jury of 

the limits of expert testimony. Fed. R. Evid. 702 adv. comm. 

note (2000 amend.) (quoting Daubert, 509 U.S. at 595). To 

facilitate the evaluation of reliability, expert opinion 

testimony is subject to disclosure requirements. See Fed. R. 

Evid. 703 & 705; see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2); Fed. R. 

Crim. P. 16(a)(1)(G). In addition, FRE 704(b) prohibits an 

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35 

expert witness from “stat[ing] an opinion about whether [a] 

defendant did or did not have a mental state or condition that 

constitutes an element of the crime charged or of a defense” 

as such matters “are for the trier of fact alone.” 

 

 The court held in United States v. Wilson, 605 F.3d 985, 

1026 (D.C. Cir. 2010), that “an individual without 

personalized knowledge of a specific drug conspiracy may not 

testify about drug topics that are beyond the understanding of 

an average juror under Rule 701. Such a witness may be 

permitted to testify only as an expert under Rule 702.” Lay 

opinion is proper when it is based upon personal knowledge 

of events that occurred in the case being tried, because “[a]n 

individual testifying about the operations of a drug conspiracy 

because of knowledge of that drug conspiracy has 

‘particularized’ knowledge and should be admitted as a lay 

witness.” Id. On the other hand, “an individual testifying 

about the operations of a drug conspiracy based on previous 

experiences with other drug conspiracies has ‘specialized’ 

knowledge and – provided his testimony meets the rule’s 

enumerated requirements – should be admitted as an expert.” 

Id. The court has “drawn that line because knowledge 

derived from previous professional experience falls squarely 

‘within the scope of Rule 702’ and thus by definition outside 

of Rule 701.” United States v. Smith, 640 F.3d 358, 365 

(D.C. Cir. 2011) (quoting FRE 701(c)). 

 More recently, in Hampton, 718 F.3d at 981-84, the court 

held that the district court erred in admitting, over a proper 

objection, lay opinion testimony by an FBI agent interpreting 

recorded conversations between a defendant and an alleged 

co-conspirator without requiring him to disclose the 

“objective bases” of his opinion. As a consequence, FRE 

701’s requirements were not met and the jury was denied the 

information it needed in order to exercise its fact-finding 

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36 

function by independently assessing the FBI agent’s lay 

opinion. The court adopted the analysis of the Second Circuit 

Court of Appeals stating: “[W]hen a witness has not identified 

the objective bases for his opinion, the proffered opinion 

obviously fails completely to meet the requirements of Rule 

701, first because there is no way for the court to assess 

whether it is rationally based on the witness’s perceptions, 

and second because the opinion does not help the jury but 

only tells it in conclusory fashion what it should find.” Id. at 

981 (quoting United States v. Rea, 958 F.2d 1206, 1216 (2d 

Cir. 1992)). The court concluded that the proffered bases for 

the FBI agent’s opinion – namely, his having listened to “all 

of the [recorded] calls” and his “knowledge of the entire 

investigation” – was inadequate because its lack of specificity 

invited “the risk that he was testifying based upon information 

not before the jury, including hearsay” and left the jury with 

“no way of verifying his inferences or of independently 

reaching its own interpretations” as FRE 701 requires. Id at 

982-83 (quoting United States v. Grinage, 390 F.3d 746, 750 

(2d Cir. 2004)). Additionally, the court emphasized that 

“[j]udicial scrutiny of a law-enforcement witness’s purported 

basis for lay opinion is especially important because of the 

risk that the jury will defer to the officer’s superior knowledge 

of the case and past experiences with similar crimes.” Id at 

981-82 (citing Grinage, 390 F.3d at 750-51). 

 As noted in Hampton, 718 F.3d at 983, the court’s 

analysis reflects similar concerns the court has expressed with 

regard to the Government’s use of overview and summary 

witnesses to anticipate or interpret evidence for the jury, see

United States v. Moore, 651 F.3d 30, 57 (D.C. Cir. 2011), 

concerns shared by other circuits, see United States v. Garcia, 

413 F.3d 201, 210-17 (2d Cir. 2005); United States v. Casas, 

356 F.3d 104, 117-20 (1st Cir. 2004). See also United States 

v. Lemire, 720 F.2d 1327, 1348-50 (D.C. Cir. 1983). 

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37 

Subsequent to Hampton, the court held in United States v. 

Miller, 738 F.3d 361, 373 (D.C. Cir. 2013), that the admission 

of lay opinion testimony by two FBI agents and a detective 

who did not “set forth the specific bases (events, other calls, 

seizures of contraband, etc.) upon which their opinions rested 

. . . other than broad claims about knowledge they had gained 

from the investigation” is plain error because the jury had “no 

effective way to evaluate their opinions.” 

 

B.

 At trial, Agent Bevington provided two forms of opinion 

testimony: lay opinion testimony interpreting recorded 

conversations and other interactions between the alleged coconspirators that he had listened to or observed during the 

FBI’s investigation, and expert opinion testimony on “the 

interpretation of words and phrases used by drug traffickers.” 

Trial Tr. 67 (Oct. 24, 2012, a.m. session). To distinguish 

between the two, the prosecutor generally inquired about 

Agent Bevington’s “expertise” or “expert opinion” when 

seeking expert opinion testimony, and his “experience in this 

case” or something similar when seeking lay opinion 

testimony. In relation to Williams, however, the prosecutor 

did not elicit expert opinion testimony regarding the meaning 

of particular words or phrases. Instead, all of Agent 

Bevington’s testimony interpreting wiretap recordings of 

phone conversations and, in a few instances, surveillance 

videos of meetings between Williams and Bowman was 

offered as lay opinion testimony. These recorded interactions 

between Williams and Bowman involved vague language and 

ambiguous conduct, but neither explicitly referred to cocaine 

nor showed Williams receiving cocaine from Bowman. 

Nonetheless, Agent Bevington’s testimony interpreted them 

for the jury as relating to the buying and selling of cocaine. 

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38 

 On direct examination, the prosecutor generally asked 

what opinion Agent Bevington had regarding the meaning of 

a specific recording based on his “experience in the 

investigation,” “prior calls that he had listened to in the 

investigation,” or something similar. For example, after 

playing a wiretap recording of a March 20, 2011, phone 

conversation between Bowman and Williams, the prosecutor 

asked Agent Bevington: “Based upon your experience with 

this investigation and the phone conversations that you’ve 

intercepted, do you have an opinion of what Mr. Williams 

was referring to when he stated, quote, [‘]I got one that is 

going to go as soon as I get it from you and then I’m going to 

get the one for me so is two possible?[’]” Agent Bevington 

testified: “Yes. He had a customer that wanted a quantity of 

cocaine but he also wanted a quantity of cocaine for himself.” 

Trial Tr. 52-53 (Nov. 8, 2012, p.m. session). 

 At times, however, the prosecutor instead asked for 

Agent Bevington’s opinion in reference to his review of 

specific evidence. For example, after playing a wiretap 

recording of a March 12, 2011, phone conversation between 

Bowman and Williams, the prosecutor asked: “[B]ased upon 

the other interceptions involving Mr. Bowman that we’ve 

listened to from March 12th of 2011, and your observations of 

the surveillances of Mr. Bowman that day, what did you 

understand Mr. Bowman to be referring to when he told Mr. 

Williams, quote, ‘I got a couple of other people coming to see 

me, but you know what I mean, I don’t want all of you, 

everybody to come at the same time’?” Agent Bevington 

testified: “He was telling Mr. Williams that he had other 

customers that he was going to be meeting with, and he didn’t 

want all the customers to arrive at the same time.” Trial Tr. 

73-74 (Nov. 8, 2012, a.m. session). On cross-examination, 

when defense counsel asked whether his opinions regarding 

the meaning of the conversations and interactions between 

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39 

Bowman and Williams were “based on what [he] learned in 

this investigation[,]” Agent Bevington testified: “Right, based 

on what I overheard on the phone and what I saw in 

surveillance, yes.” Trial Tr. 65 (Nov. 9, 2012, a.m. session). 

 The Government properly concedes in light of Hampton

that some of Agent Bevington’s lay opinion testimony about 

Williams’s conversations with Bowman was inadmissible 

because the articulated bases for his opinions referred too 

generally to Agent Bevington’s knowledge of the 

investigation or his review of unspecified phone calls or 

surveillance operations. See Appellee’s Br. 75-76. In 

Hampton, 718 F.3d at 982-83, Agent Bevington had referred 

to having “listened to all of the calls . . . [and] done the 

surveillance” and to his “knowledge of the entire 

investigation” as the bases for his lay opinion. In Miller, 738 

F.3d at 373, the FBI agents and detective similarly claimed to 

have based their lay opinion on their “knowledge of the 

overall investigation.” Neither explanation was held to be 

sufficient under FRE 701. As the prosecutor and Agent 

Bevington offered essentially the same objective bases for 

Agent Bevington’s lay opinions here as in Hampton and 

Miller, the requirements of FRE 701 were not met. 

 The lay opinion testimony that Agent Bevington provided 

in response to questions referencing specific evidence also 

failed to conform to the requirements of FRE 701. The 

Government views this testimony as properly admitted under 

Hampton because “[Agent] Bevington stated that [his] 

opinions were based on specific calls and/or surveillance 

operations conducted on precise dates.” Appellee’s Br. 75. 

In fact, Agent Bevington stated no such thing. Instead, when 

asked whether he had an opinion regarding the meaning of 

certain conversations and interactions based on his review of 

the specified evidence, Agent Bevington stated his 

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40 

interpretation. Nowhere did Agent Bevington establish that 

the evidence referenced in the prosecutor’s question was a 

factual basis for his lay opinion testimony, let alone a 

complete and accurate statement of the bases on which he 

relied. Nor could the prosecution’s questions alone 

necessarily establish the bases for Agent Bevington’s lay 

opinion. Because, on this record, only Agent Bevington had 

personal knowledge of what perceptions and reasoning he 

relied on in formulating his lay opinion, only he was able to 

provide the “sufficient factual foundation” necessary “to 

admit lay opinion evidence rationally based on [his] 

perception.” Williams, 212 F.3d at 1309 n.6; see also Garcia, 

413 F.3d at 211-13 (citing Fed. R. Evid. 602). Hence, FRE 

701 requires that “[a] witness . . . identif[y] the objective 

bases for his [or her] opinion,” not the attorney directing the 

examination. Hampton, 718 F.3d at 981 (emphasis added) 

(quoting Rea, 958 F.2d at 1216). Otherwise, the prosecutor 

could present rationalizations for Agent Bevington’s lay 

opinions on which he may not have actually relied, effectively 

vouching for the bases of his lay opinion, misleading the jury, 

and defeating the purposes of FRE 701. Even assuming, 

notwithstanding limitations on the use of leading questions, 

see Green v. United States, 348 F.2d 340, 341-42 (D.C. Cir. 

1965), this approach would suffice under FRE 701, the 

Government points to no instance in which the prosecutor 

elicited testimony from Agent Bevington that his lay opinion 

was, in fact, based on the factual foundation stated in the 

prosecutor’s question. Nor can such confirmation be inferred 

from Agent Bevington’s responses in view of his testimony 

on cross-examination that his opinions were based generally 

on his observations throughout the investigation. See Trial 

Tr. 65 (Nov. 9, 2012, a.m. session). 

 The requirement that Agent Bevington adequately 

disclose the objective bases for his lay opinion stems from the 

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41 

inter-related requirements of FRE 701. Without knowing 

what observations and reasoning Agent Bevington relied on in 

arriving at his lay opinion, it is doubtful the district court 

could determine that his testimony was “rationally based on 

[his] perception” as required by FRE 701(a), much less be 

confident that his testimony would be “helpful” to the jury in 

“clearly understanding the witness’s testimony or to 

determining a fact in issue” by assisting it in its fact-finding 

role as required by FRE 701(b). Instead, Agent Bevington’s 

testimony may have been “based upon information not before 

the jury, including hearsay,” thereby potentially “usurp[ing] 

the jury’s function” by presenting the conclusion that should 

be drawn from facts of which he, but not the jury, was fully 

aware. Hampton, 718 F.3d at 983 (quoting Grinage, 390 F.3d 

at 750-51). Jurors not informed of the bases for Agent 

Bevington’s lay opinion might also have thought that Agent 

Bevington “had knowledge beyond what was before them . . . 

defer[ing] to the officer’s superior knowledge of the case and 

past experiences with similar crimes,” id. at 981-83 (quoting 

Grinage, 390 F.3d at 750), rather than independently reaching 

their own opinions about the evidence and ultimately about 

whether the Government had met its burden of proof. These 

risks would not have been mitigated by admitting into 

evidence all of the wiretap recordings and other investigatory 

materials available to Agent Bevington because the jury 

would still have been unaware of what exact perceptions and 

reasoning led to his lay opinions. See id. at 983 (citing 

Grinage, 390 F.3d at 747-48); see also id. at 984-86 (Brown, 

J., concurring). Here, the Government confirmed that not all 

of the surveillance videos that Agent Bevington 

acknowledged he had reviewed as part of his investigation 

were admitted in evidence, implying that his opinions may 

have been partly based on information that was not before the 

jury. When a witness fails to identify for the jury the specific 

observations and inferences on which he grounds each lay 

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42 

opinion, there is no way for the jury to independently evaluate 

the testimony. 

 Additionally, ignorance of the bases for Agent 

Bevington’s lay opinion testimony blurs the distinction in 

FRE 701(c) between lay and expert opinion testimony. As 

the Second Circuit has explained: 

In 2001, Rule 701 was amended to provide that 

testimony cannot be received as lay opinion if it is 

based on scientific, technical, or other specialized 

knowledge. Rather, a lay opinion must be the product 

of reasoning processes familiar to the average person 

in everyday life. . . . The purpose of this final 

foundation requirement is to prevent a party from 

conflating expert and lay opinion testimony thereby 

conferring an aura of expertise on a witness without 

satisfying the reliability standard for expert testimony 

set forth in Rule 702 and the pre-trial disclosure 

requirements set forth in [Federal Rule of Criminal 

Procedure] 16 and [Federal Rule of Civil Procedure] 

26. Thus, in considering the third prerequisite for lay 

opinion testimony, a court must focus on the reasoning 

process by which a witness reached his proffered 

opinion. If the opinion rests in any way upon 

scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge, 

its admissibility must be determined by reference to 

Rule 702, not Rule 701. 

Garcia, 413 F.3d at 215-16 (internal citations, footnote, and 

quotation marks omitted). Allowing opinion testimony 

without knowing whether Agent Bevington’s opinion 

testimony was based to some extent on scientific, technical, or 

specialized knowledge would leave the district court unable to 

determine whether the reliability and disclosure requirements 

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43 

of FRE 702 applied. As a result, there was a risk that Agent 

Bevington’s opinion testimony may have provided expert 

opinion on “a mental state or condition that constitutes an 

element of the crime charged” contrary to FRE 704(b). 

 Furthermore, the Government’s use of Agent Bevington 

as a “two-hatted” witness providing closely related lay and 

expert opinion testimony exacerbated these risks. Although 

the district court instructed the jury on the use of expert 

testimony and required the prosecutor to signal in questioning 

when Agent Bevington’s expert opinion was being sought, the 

manner in which Agent Bevington’s expert and lay opinions 

were interspersed during the trial required mental gymnastics 

of the jurors in determining when he was testifying as an 

expert and when he was not, risking confusion, particularly 

absent an adequate explanation of the bases for his lay 

opinions to distinguish them from his expert opinions. This 

“two-hatted” circumstance is mentioned by Appellants only in 

a footnote, see Appellants’ Br. 98 n.315, and on appeal they 

do not challenge the jury instructions in this regard, much less 

indicate that they sought an instruction to assist the jury in 

distinguishing when Agent Bevington was not testifying as an 

expert. See United States v. Rhodes, 62 F.3d 1449, 1453-54 

(D.C. Cir. 1995), rev’d on other grounds, 517 U.S. 1164 

(1996). The fact that an instruction was given on Agent 

Bevington’s expert testimony alone could, in these 

circumstances, have led the jury reasonably to assume that all 

of his opinion testimony was based upon his expertise and not 

merely on his own perceptions of events presented to the jury. 

For these reasons, we hold that there was a significant 

risk that Agent Bevington’s lay opinion testimony assumed an 

“aura of special reliability and trustworthiness surrounding 

expert testimony,” which may in turn have prejudiced 

Williams. United States v. Cruz, 363 F.3d 187, 194 (2d Cir. 

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44 

2004) (quoting United States v. Dukagjini, 326 F.3d 45, 53 

(2d Cir. 2002)). 

C. 

 The question remains whether the error in admitting 

Agent Bevington’s lay opinion testimony was prejudicial. 

Appellants maintain that the error was prejudicial. This 

depends on whether, “after examining the record as a whole,” 

the court concludes that “[the] error may have had ‘substantial 

influence’ on the outcome of the proceeding.” Bank of Nova 

Scotia, 487 U.S. at 256 (quoting Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 765). 

That is: 

[I]f one cannot say, with fair assurance, after 

pondering all that happened without stripping the 

erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment 

was not substantially swayed by the error, it is 

impossible to conclude that substantial rights were not 

affected. The inquiry cannot be merely whether there 

was enough to support the result, apart from the phase 

affected by the error. It is rather, even so, whether the 

error itself had substantial influence. If so, or if one is 

left in grave doubt, the conviction cannot stand. 

Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 765. In other words, the “harmless 

error test . . . is not a mere sufficiency-of-the-evidence 

inquiry,” but requires reversal if the properly admitted 

evidence is “even slightly ambiguous” and there is any risk 

that the error might not be harmless. Smart, 98 F.3d at 1391-

92. 

 The Government points to the “overwhelming evidence 

of Williams’s and Bowman’s guilt” as indicating that Agent 

Bevington’s lay opinions were likely unnecessary, an 

observation that the district court also made during trial. 

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45 

Appellee’s Br. 79. But unlike the overwhelming physical and 

testimonial evidence supporting the convictions of Bowman 

and Edwards, eliminating any suggestion their convictions 

must be reversed, the evidence against Williams was of a far 

lesser order. Agent Bevington conceded on crossexamination that there was no direct evidence before the jury 

that Williams possessed or sold cocaine to third parties or 

interacted with co-conspirators other than Bowman. No 

witness testified to having bought cocaine from Williams; no 

surveillance video showed him handling anything that any 

witness identified as cocaine; no audio tape disclosed him 

discussing cocaine, or anything that any witness other than 

Agent Bevington identified as cocaine; no one testified to 

stopping or arresting Williams and finding cocaine in his car, 

his home, or otherwise in his possession. See Trial Tr. 66-72 

(Nov. 9, 2012, a.m. session). 

The prosecutor’s closing argument focused instead on the 

interactions between Williams and Bowman as showing “the 

same exact pattern” as Bowman’s interactions with others to 

whom he was selling cocaine, and told the jurors to “[a]sk 

[them]selves” whether “it makes any sense that people would 

speak on the phone in the manner that William Bowman and 

Henry Williams did” if they were not “discussing drug 

trafficking.” Trial Tr. 49-50 (Nov. 15, 2012, a.m. session). In 

other words, in the absence of direct evidence of Williams’s 

guilt, the prosecutor relied on the inferences jurors were 

willing to draw from Williams’s interactions with Bowman, 

as reflected in the wiretap and surveillance recordings the jury 

had viewed at trial. This is the exact subject addressed by 

Agent Bevington’s erroneously admitted lay opinion 

testimony, which told the jury to interpret the circumstantial 

evidence as showing that Williams was buying cocaine from 

Bowman in amounts that indicated his intent to sell drugs to 

third parties. Agent Bevington told the jurors not only what 

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46 

he thought, but his opinion of what the evidence showed and 

that he had substantial experience in drug conspiracy 

investigations and was involved in the FBI investigation that 

resulted in Appellants’ indictments. As in Hampton, 718 F.3d 

at 984, there was a strong “likelihood that the jurors afforded 

[Agent] Bevington substantial authority because of his 

expertise and access to information unavailable to them,” 

allowing his lay opinion testimony to influence their decision. 

Indeed, the district court observed that “the jury’s 

determination as to whether or not . . . Williams was a 

member of the conspiracy may turn on whether the jury 

chooses to credit lay opinions expressed by FBI Special 

Agent Bevington, or reach their own conclusions as to the 

nature of certain phone calls between Defendants Bowman 

and Williams.” Order at 4, United States v. Edwards, 11-cr129 (D.D.C. Nov. 12, 2012), ECF No. 561. 

 Under the circumstances, the court cannot “say, with fair 

assurance, . . . that the judgment [as to Williams] was not 

substantially swayed by the error” as to render it harmless, 

Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 765, and his conviction for conspiring 

to distribute and possess less than 500 grams of cocaine must 

be reversed. 

D. 

 The question remains whether Williams can be retried. 

Appellants contend that the district court erred in denying his 

motion for a judgment of acquittal because of the 

insufficiency of the evidence against him. If that is correct, 

then he is entitled to a judgment of acquittal and his retrial 

would be barred under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the 

Fifth Amendment. See Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 

13-17 (1978). Appellants are not correct, however. 

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47 

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

Government, as the court must, “[a] rational trier of fact could 

have found the essential elements of [Williams’s] crime 

beyond a reasonable doubt” based on the properly admitted 

evidence. United States v. Dykes, 406 F.3d 717, 721 (D.C. 

Cir. 2005) (quoting United States v. Arrington, 309 F.3d 40, 

48 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 

307, 319 (1979))). The court recently declined to decide 

whether, in evaluating a claim for insufficient evidence, a 

court should consider all the evidence before the jury or only 

that evidence not erroneously admitted, see United States v. 

McGill, 815 F.3d 846, 927-28 (D.C. Cir. 2016) 

(distinguishing Lockhart v. Nelson, 488 U.S. 33, 39-42 

(1988)), and because it makes no difference to the conclusion 

here, we assume without deciding that the more demanding 

standard applies and do not consider Agent Bevington’s 

erroneously admitted lay opinion testimony. 

 To prove the essential elements of a narcotics conspiracy 

under 21 U.S.C. § 846, the Government had to show that 

Williams “knowingly entered into the . . . conspiracy with the 

specific intent to further its objective of distributing 

narcotics.” United States v. Gaskins, 690 F.3d 569, 577 (D.C. 

Cir. 2012). Such an agreement can be inferred from 

circumstantial evidence. See United States v. Gatling, 96 

F.3d 1511, 1518 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Even without Agent 

Bevington’s lay opinion testimony, there was sufficient 

evidence to show Williams’s knowing involvement in the 

charged conspiracy. The evidence shows that Bowman and 

Edwards received a shipment of cocaine on or about March 

10, 2011. As confirmed by wiretap recordings, surveillance 

videos, and testimony of cooperating witnesses, Bowman 

shortly thereafter began to make arrangements to sell cocaine 

to individuals who met him in the vicinity of the “Shrimp 

Boat” restaurant and a nearby condominium. Bowman 

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48 

continued to make cocaine sales at these and other locations 

for several weeks. 

 Bowman’s interactions with Williams paralleled 

Bowman’s interactions with other alleged co-conspirators. At 

trial, wiretap recordings of their phone conversations in 

January and February 2011 showed that Williams repeatedly 

checked with Bowman regarding the status of some 

unspecified event, which Bowman generally indicated had not 

yet happened. On March 12, 2011, however, Bowman 

phoned Williams to tell him that he could “holler at 

[Bowman] in a little bit” near the Shrimp Boat restaurant, but 

warned Williams that he had a “couple of other people 

coming to see [him]” and “d[id]n’t want . . . everybody to 

come at the same time.” Gov’t Ex. 3056A. Bowman and 

Williams were videotaped meeting that evening outside the 

Shrimp Boat restaurant sitting in Williams’s car. 

 Bowman and Williams spoke again the morning of 

March 15, 2011, and arranged to meet again later that day. 

Security footage at a public storage facility where Bowman 

and Edwards stored and processed cocaine for distribution 

showed Bowman visiting the facility shortly before his 

meeting with Williams. Bowman and Williams were later 

videotaped meeting outside the Shrimp Boat restaurant. 

 Williams called Bowman again on March 20, 2011, and 

asked if Bowman was “still . . . alright with man” and whether 

“two [was] possible,” saying: “I got one that gonna go as soon 

as I get it from you, is gonna go, and then I’m gonna get the 

one for me.” Gov’t Ex. 3096A. Bowman said it was 

possible. In a wiretapped phone conversation the next day on 

March 21, 2011, Bowman phoned Moorer, a confessed coconspirator of Bowman and Edwards, and told him: “You 

know what I just told you? . . . Just add . . . to that one.” 

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49 

Gov’t Ex. 3129A. Moorer testified as a cooperating witness 

at trial that this was Bowman requesting that Moorer bring 

him more cocaine. A videotape showed Bowman meeting 

with Moorer on March 21, 2011, when Moorer provided 

Bowman with what Moorer testified were three sixty-twogram quantities of cocaine. As Moorer testified at trial: 

“When I met [Bowman], he told me . . . two guys wanted 

[cocaine]. I guess one of them wanted more.” Trial Tr. 35 

(Nov. 2, 2012, p.m. session). In two wiretapped phone 

conversations on March 22, 2011, Williams asked Bowman 

questions to the effect of: “[B]efore I get rid of this joint . . . 

[y]ou . . . good for tomorrow? You got it?” Gov’t Ex. 

3107A; see also Gov’t Ex. 3106A. Bowman replied he did. 

The next day, March 23, 2011, a surveillance video showed 

Bowman and Williams meeting once again in Williams’s car 

outside the Shrimp Boat restaurant. 

 A reasonable juror could infer from this evidence and 

evidence regarding Bowman’s sales to other alleged coconspirators that Bowman and Williams were engaged in 

cocaine trafficking. Unlike in Gaskins, 690 F.3d at 574, on 

which Appellants rely, this is not a case in which there was 

“no evidence that [Williams] participated in any drug 

transactions or conspiratorial meetings . . . [or] was ever 

present at or near the” site of the conspiracy’s activities. 

Instead, a juror could reasonably find that Bowman was 

selling cocaine to Williams based on the timing, nature, and 

locations of Bowman’s interactions with Williams. From the 

frequency with which he received quantities of cocaine from 

Bowman, as well as his March 20 statement (“I got one that 

gonna go as soon as I get it from you . . . and then I’m gonna 

get the one for me,” Gov’t Ex. 3096A), a reasonable juror 

could also find that Williams intended to distribute cocaine to 

third parties. And a reasonable juror could find that Bowman 

and Williams’s frequent discussion of others who were 

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50 

involved in similar activities with Bowman showed that 

Williams had the requisite knowledge of the conspiracy. That 

there may be alternative interpretations of the evidence is not 

relevant because the court must presume that the jury resolved 

any conflicting inferences supported by the record in the 

Government’s favor. See Jackson, 443 U.S. at 326. 

Accordingly, we hold that the district court did not err in 

denying Williams’s motion for a judgment of acquittal.

IV. Wired Plea Agreement 

Bowman argues that the Government violated his Fifth 

Amendment due process rights by offering him a “wired” plea 

deal that was contingent on Williams pleading guilty to the 

charged drug conspiracy. According to Bowman, the 

Government knew that a jury would only convict Williams if 

he was associated with the more culpable Bowman and so 

wired Bowman’s plea in a bad-faith attempt to ensure the two 

were tried together. 

As a threshold matter, the parties disagree over the 

applicable standard of review. Bowman contends that his due 

process claim is subject to de novo review. Cf. United States 

v. Straker, 800 F.3d 570, 629 (D.C. Cir. 2015). The 

Government, by contrast, argues that plain error review 

applies because Bowman did not raise his constitutional 

challenge before the district court. See United States v. 

Mahdi, 598 F.3d 883, 888 (D.C. Cir. 2010). We need not 

resolve that disagreement because Bowman’s due process 

argument fails under either standard. The parties also dispute 

whether the Government offered Bowman an opportunity to 

accept an “unwired” plea deal conditioned only on his own 

cooperation with the Government, rather than on Williams 

also pleading guilty. That preliminary factual dispute is 

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immaterial because, as we explain below, the Government’s 

“wired” plea agreement was constitutionally permissible. 

Bowman’s due process challenge fails under United 

States v. Pollard, 959 F.2d 1011 (D.C. Cir. 1992). There, the 

Government conditioned any plea agreement for the 

defendant’s ailing wife on the defendant also pleading guilty. 

See id. at 1015, 1020. The defendant accepted that wired plea 

deal but claimed that it violated his due process rights by 

effectively coercing him into pleading guilty to secure a plea 

deal for his wife. See id. at 1020 (citing Fontaine v. United 

States, 411 U.S. 213, 214-15 (1973)). The court concluded 

that the defendant’s due process argument was meritless and 

joined its sister circuits in holding that plea wiring “does not, 

per se, offend due process.” Id. The court explained that the 

wired plea accepted by the defendant was constitutional 

because the Government “had probable cause to arrest and 

prosecute both defendants in a related crime, and there [wa]s 

no suggestion that the government conducted itself in bad 

faith in an effort to generate additional leverage over the 

defendant.” Id. at 1021. 

 There is even less concern on this record than in Pollard 

that Bowman was somehow coerced by the Government’s 

decision to offer him a plea deal contingent on a codefendant’s guilty plea. There is no argument here that the 

Government induced Bowman to plead guilty by promising a 

shorter sentence for any loved one or spouse. Cf. id. (“We 

can understand how it might be thought that a threat of long 

imprisonment for a loved one, particularly a spouse, would 

constitute even greater pressure on a defendant than a direct 

threat to him.”). Nothing in the record suggests that the 

Government wired Bowman’s plea in a bad-faith effort to 

coerce him into involuntarily accepting a plea or to convict 

Williams based on guilt by association. Rather, the 

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Government offered Bowman the opportunity to plead guilty 

to a lower sentence if his alleged co-conspirator, Williams, 

also pleaded guilty. A plea offer that reflects the 

Government’s apparent preference either to accept guilty 

pleas from both defendants or, if it must try Williams, to try 

Bowman as well provides no basis to conclude that the 

Government’s offer was coercive or made in bad faith. 

Bowman nevertheless urges us to infer the Government’s bad 

faith from the fact that Williams played a much more minor 

role in the charged conspiracy. But we decline the invitation 

to assign nefarious intent to the Government’s conduct based 

on Bowman’s speculation. Bowman also contends that the 

wired plea was itself evidence of the Government’s intent to 

force Williams and Bowman into a joint trial. The district 

court had denied Williams’s request to sever his trial from 

that of his co-defendants, thereby authorizing the Government 

to proceed against both defendants in the same trial. The 

record belies Bowman’s assertion that the wired plea was an 

unconstitutionally coercive ploy to try Williams and Bowman 

together. 

Additionally, the Government had probable cause to 

arrest and prosecute both Bowman and Williams for their 

participation in the charged drug trafficking conspiracy. As in 

Pollard, there is no plausible basis for Bowman’s suggestion 

that the Government resorted to “bad faith in an effort to 

generate additional leverage” over Bowman and Williams. 

Id. In light of the evidence and information gathered from 

wiretaps, physical surveillance, and confidential sources, see 

supra Parts I & III.D, the arresting agents reasonably 

concluded that Bowman and Williams each participated in the 

suspected cocaine distribution conspiracy. See generally 

United States v. Holder, 990 F.2d 1327, 1328 (D.C. Cir. 

1993) (“Probable cause exists if a reasonable and prudent 

police officer would conclude from the totality of the 

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circumstances that a crime has been or is being committed.”).

It is undisputed that the Government obtained a valid 

indictment charging both Bowman and Williams with 

conspiring to distribute cocaine, which “conclusively 

determines the existence of probable cause” in their criminal 

case. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 117 n.19 (1975). 

Because the Government “had probable cause to [arrest and] 

prosecute” Bowman and Williams and “obtained a valid 

indictment” against them, “it was entitled . . . to prosecute 

[Appellants] fully” or “to offer lenience.” Pollard, 959 F.2d 

at 1021. Bowman might have preferred an offer of lenience 

in the form of an unwired plea agreement, but he had “no 

right to be offered a plea” at all, Missouri v. Frye, 132 S. Ct. 

1399, 1410 (2012), much less the particular plea agreement of 

his choosing. Accordingly, the Government’s plea offer did 

not violate Bowman’s due process rights. 

V. Acquitted Conduct in Sentencing 

Edwards argues that the district court violated his Fifth 

and Sixth Amendment rights by increasing his sentence based 

on his possession of a firearm, even though the jury had 

acquitted him of that same conduct. Controlling precedent 

squarely forecloses that argument, as Edwards correctly 

acknowledges. In United States v. Bell, 795 F.3d 88 (D.C. 

Cir. 2015), this court stated that “long-standing precedents of 

the Supreme Court and this Court establish that a sentencing 

judge may consider uncharged or even acquitted conduct in 

calculating an appropriate sentence, so long as that conduct 

has been proved by a preponderance of the evidence and the 

sentence does not exceed the statutory maximum for the 

crime of conviction or increase the statutory mandatory 

minimum.” Id. at 103 (internal quotation marks omitted); see 

United States v. Jones, 744 F.3d 1362, 1369 (D.C. Cir. 2014); 

United States v. Settles, 530 F.3d 920, 923-24 (D.C. Cir. 

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54 

2008). Because Bell is binding on this panel – and 

notwithstanding the serious concerns that some have raised, 

see United States v. Bell, 808 F.3d 926, 928-32 (D.C. Cir. 

2015) (Millett, J., concurring in denial of rehearing en banc); 

id. at 927-28 (Kavanaugh, J., same) – we must reject 

Edwards’s constitutional challenge and affirm his sentence. 

See LaShawn A. v. Barry, 87 F.3d 1389, 1393 (D.C. Cir. 

1996) (en banc). 

Conclusion 

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgments of the 

district court with respect to each Appellant, with the 

exception of Williams. Because the district court’s admission 

of Agent Bevington’s lay opinion testimony was error under 

FRE 701 and that error was not harmless, we reverse 

Williams’s conviction and remand the case to the district 

court for further proceedings. We therefore need not reach 

the question whether the district court erred by refusing to 

provide the jury with a multiple conspiracies instruction, issue 

limiting instructions concerning specific evidence submitted 

against Edwards and Bowman, or sever Williams’s trial from 

that of Edwards and Bowman. 

So ordered. 

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