Opinion ID: 203236
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Agent Barron's Testimony

Text: Appellant next argues that the district court improperly allowed DEA Agent John Barron to testify that, during an interview of Marin, he did not ask Marin why he had the gun because it was obvious. Marin claims this was improper expert testimony in violation of Fed.R.Evid. 702. We disagree. The testimony came during re-direct examination. On cross-examination by defense counsel, Barron had testified that Marin never admitted to him that the gun recovered in his bedroom was related to drug dealing. He also described Marin as forthright during two conversations with him. The testimony was as follows: Q: [H]e never admitted that the gun you found had anything to do with the drugs that he was selling, is that correct? A: That's correct. . . . Q: And your interview of him involved questioning him about the gun both at the Springfield Police Station then on a separate day here at the courthouse before his arraignment, correct? A: Yes. Q: And during both of those times he did not tell you that the gun had anything to do with the drugs that he was selling, correct? A: Yes. The following exchange ensued on redirect examination: Q: Agent Barron, in your two interviews with the defendant, did you ask him why he possessed the Lorcin firearm and ammunition? A: No, we did not. Q: Why not, Sir? A: It was obvious to us for the same reason that we didn't  Defense Counsel: Objection, Your Honor, move to strike. Court: I'm going to overrule the objection. This is the witness's [sic] reason and I think it's fair to get into that. Q: Please continue, Sir. A: For the same reason, we didn't ask him why he possessed seven one-hundred gram packages of cocaine or the smaller packages that were in his night stand. We felt we knew why he possessed the firearm. The first bone of appellate contention is the government's argument that Marin did not preserve an objection based on improperly admitted expert testimony because of the general nature of the objection lodged at trial, as noted above. As such, the government argues, our review is only for plain error, as opposed to the more generous (to the appellant) abuse of discretion standard. We need not resolve this preliminary issue, however, as we find the admission of Agent Barron's testimony to be proper regardless of the standard of review. We reject Marin's claim that Barron's statement constituted expert testimony, subject to Rule 702. Instead, we view the re-direct testimony at issue as an acceptable response to the defense opening the door, where the trial court allowed the government to clarif[y] an issue which the defense opened up on cross-examination. United States v. Catano, 65 F.3d 219, 226 (1st Cir.1995). Catano was a drug case in which the defense used cross-examination to undermine a cooperating prosecution witness' credibility by suggesting that he barely knew the defendant. Id. at 225. On re-direct examination, over defense objections, the government elicited testimony that the witness knew the defendant from prior drug transactions. The district court allowed the testimony, ruling that the cross-examination had opened the door by suggesting (inaccurately) that a meeting between the witness and the defendant had been an isolated event. Id. We affirmed, finding no abuse of discretion in allowing the government to explore the past dealings of the witness and the defendant. Id. at 226. The same rationale applies here, where the government sought to clarify the context of Marin's statements  or more precisely, the absence of a specific statement to Barron by pointing out that Barron never asked Marin why he owned the weapon in question, and why he didn't ask. As we noted in Catano, failure to allow such limited redirect testimony could allow litigants to create misleading impressions, secure in the knowledge that the other side was barred from disabusing the jury. Id. at 226. Here, Marin's cross-examination of Barron, standing alone, could have left the impression that Marin had denied drug-related firearm ownership, without the defense offering any supporting evidence. The re-direct examination of Barron yielded an appropriate response. His testimony that it was obvious to him that the gun was related to the drug business put his actions  and Marin's statements  in their appropriate contexts.