Opinion ID: 751641
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Detective Bryant's Testimony on Family Drug Gangs

Text: 69 Adrian, Jesus, Ignacio, and Adan contend that Bryant's testimony was inadmissible profile and opinion testimony which impermissibly summarized and bolstered the testimony of other witnesses. Bryant testified generally about the structure of family drug gangs, and, based on the testimony of other witnesses, he ascribed certain leadership roles to the Britos. Pablo was labeled the leader; Adrian was labeled the second-in-command, and the other Britos were labeled recruiters, overseers, and escorts. 70 Bryant described a profile of family drug organizations and then compared the Britos' actions to that profile. Using the profile, Bryant testified that Pablo was the leader, and assigned other leadership roles to the members of the organization. This type of profile evidence is inadmissible to prove substantive guilt based on similarities between defendants and a profile, see United States v. Williams, 957 F.2d 1238 (5th Cir.1992), and under the circumstances the court abused its discretion in allowing Bryant to testify in this respect over the defendants' objections. 71 In the course of his profile testimony, Bryant relied on the testimony of other witnesses, especially their conclusions and views about the leadership hierarchy of the Brito gang. We have in the past disapproved of this practice that without good reason or real need, unfairly allows one prosecution witness merely to repeat or paraphrase the in-court testimony of another as to ordinary, observable facts.... United States v. Castillo, 77 F.3d 1480, 1500 (5th Cir.1996). 72 In Castillo, we held that the error did not merit reversal because the witness did not misstate or put an unfair spin on the testimony that he repeated, and the testimony in question was uncontradicted. Id. The witness in Castillo, relied on ordinary, observable facts put forth by other witnesses. Id. Bryant, however, relied on conclusory facts and subjective observations by other witnesses. Castillo is thus distinguishable and does not support a finding of harmless error in this case. Nevertheless, we hold that Bryant's testimony was harmless as to Adrian, Jesus, Ignacio, and Adan, the only parties who have complained of it on appeal. 73 The profile testimony was harmless because there was substantial other evidence supporting the convictions for conspiracy, and Bryant's testimony merely assigned to the Britos roles within an organization to which they clearly belonged. Leadership is not an element of conspiracy, and therefore the fact that they may have been assigned a leadership role was essentially immaterial to their conspiracy convictions. Bryant did not unfairly bolster or summarize any testimony pertaining to the Britos' convictions for conspiracy. 74 In addition to describing the family drug organization profile, Bryant also testified about the difficulty of obtaining evidence about such an organization. He described the difficulty of infiltrating the organization and explained that the majority of the evidence is gathered from co-conspirators. This testimony was improper because it tended to implicitly suggest to the jury that they should convict the defendants on a lower standard of proof. General difficulty of proof does not justify conviction on any lesser standard than beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., United States v. Beckner, 134 F.3d 714, 719 (5th Cir.1998). We hold, however, that on this record and evidence the error was harmless. The jury was clearly and properly instructed on the burden of proof by the court, and neither the prosecutor (nor Bryant explicitly) asked the jury to convict the defendants on a lower standard of proof. We presume that the jury followed the court's instructions and applied the proper standard of proof, despite Bryant's testimony. 75 We specifically note that testimony such as Bryant's is normally inappropriate and inadmissible. In this case, however, the court's error in admitting it was harmless.