Opinion ID: 4524736
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: dr. bacon’s challenge to the comments

Text: MADE BY PHARMACIST ESKEW Dr. Bacon also argues that the district court erred when it allowed pharmacist Bryan Eskew to testify on direct examination by the government that Dr. Bacon “knew what he was doing,” and allowed him to testify on crossexamination by Dr. Bacon that “I think the doctor knew what was going on.” Dr. Bacon acknowledges that there was no contemporaneous objection, and therefore a plain error analysis applies. We readily conclude that there was no plain error. We note initially that one of the two challenged statements by pharmacist Eskew was elicited by Dr. Bacon’s own cross-examination. Moreover, our decision in Tampa Bay Shipbuilding & Repair Co. v. Cedar Shipping Co., Ltd., 320 F.3d 1213, 1221–23 (11th Cir. 2003), established that the 2000 amendment to Federal Rule of Evidence 701 was not intended to prohibit lay witness opinion testimony based on specialized knowledge that had traditionally been considered admissible. We note that Dr. Bacon’s briefs on appeal cite not a single case holding inadmissible lay opinion testimony similar to that of pharmacist Eskew. Especially in light of our Tampa Bay decision, we cannot conclude that there is any obvious or plain error. In addition, we do not believe that Dr. Bacon has established the third prong of the plain error analysis: he has not shown that there is a reasonable probability that the result would have changed had pharmacist 8 Case: 18-15145 Date Filed: 04/13/2020 Page: 9 of 10 Eskew not so testified. The evidence that Dr. Bacon knew what he was doing was very substantial, if not overwhelming.