Opinion ID: 3048259
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Agent Kavanaugh’s testimony

Text: Defendants challenge the district court’s admission of Agent Kavanaugh’s testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 701, specifically arguing that the district court abused its discretion in allowing Agent Kavanaugh to testify regarding his interpretation of the meanings of alleged code words the defendants used in the telephone intercepts. They argue that the agent should not have been allowed to proffer his lay opinion because he was not present during all of the intercepted calls and he did not have a rationally based perception of what the individuals meant when they used the code words. We review the district court’s ruling regarding the admissibility of the agent’s lay testimony under Rule 701 for a 29 clear abuse of discretion. See United States v. Myers, 972 F.2d 1566, 1576–77 (11th Cir. 1992). Rule 701 allows a lay witness to offer opinions or inferences if they are “(a) rationally based on the perception of the witness, (b) helpful to a clear understanding of the witness’ testimony or the determination of a fact in issue, and (c) not based on scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge within the scope of Rule 702.” Fed. R. Evid. 701. Subsection “(a) is the familiar requirement of first-hand knowledge or observation” and the limitation in (b) is phrased in terms of requiring that the lay witness’s testimony be helpful in resolving issues. Id. advisory committee’s note. In the 2000 Amendments, Rule 701 was changed “to eliminate the risk that the reliability requirements set forth in Rule 702 will be evaded through the simple expedient of proffering an expert in lay witness clothing.” Id. advisory committee’s note.4 Agent Kavanaugh’s testimony was rationally based on his perception. While investigating this case for five years, Agent Kavanaugh read thousands of wiretap summaries plus hundreds of verbatim transcripts, as well as faxes, 4 Rule 702 provides that: “If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.” Fed. R. Evid. 702. 30 publications, and speeches. He listened to the intercepted calls in English and Arabic. At trial, defendants objected to Agent Kavanaugh’s opinion testimony because he did not personally observe or participate in the defendants’ conversations and based his testimony largely on documents admitted into evidence. We have never held that a lay witness must be a participant or observer of a conversation to provide testimony about the meaning of coded language used in the conversation. We have allowed a lay witness to base his opinion testimony on his examination of documents even when the witness was not involved in the activity about which he testified. We have held that the testimony of a financial analyst of the FBI who “simply reviewed and summarized over seven thousand financial documents,” was properly admitted under Rule 701 in United States v. Hamaker, 455 F.3d 1316, 1331–32 (11th Cir. 2006). The financial analyst of the FBI in Hamaker “added and substracted numbers from a long catalogue of . . . records, and then compared those numbers in a straightforward fashion.” Id. The testimony was “rationally based on the perception of the witness.” Id. at 1332 (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 701). We have also held that testimony of a lay witness in a prosecution for Medicare fraud was “based on ‘first hand knowledge or observation,’” United States v. Gold, 743 F.2d 800, 817 (11th Cir. 1984) (quoting 31 Fed. R. Evid. 701 advisory committee note), when it was “based on [the witness’s] own examination of . . . store[] records,” id. Defendants rely on United States v. Cano, 289 F.3d 1354 (11th Cir. 2002), to support their argument, but their reliance is misplaced. In Cano, a cocaine trafficking and money laundering case, the government proffered Case Agent Donnelly to testify regarding the “hieroglyphics” or symbols contained in a defendant’s phone book. Id. at 1360–61. The government did not proffer the agent as an expert. Id. at 1360. The agent “decipher[ed] the hieroglyphics–by correlating the ten digit telephone number of members of the conspiracy (obtained from the wiretaps) with the ten hieroglyphic symbols opposite their names in the phone book.” Id. at 1360–61. For the first time on appeal, the defendants objected, based on Rule 701(a), to Agent Donnelly’s testimony regarding his deciphering. We agreed with the defendants that the agent was prohibited from testifying about the meaning of a simple code that the jury could have deciphered easily based on evidence admitted at the trial, id. at 1363–64, but based on the overwhelming evidence of guilt, we concluded that the error did not affect the defendants’ substantial rights. Id. at 1364. In the present case, Agent Kavanaugh testified about the meanings of code words that he learned through his examination of voluminous documents during a 32 five-year investigation. His testimony was more similar to the lay testimony held admissible in Hamaker and Gold than the testimony held inadmissible in Cano. Just as the testimony of the lay witnesses in Hamaker and Gold was “rationally based,” Fed. R. Evid. 701(a), on their perception of business records, Agent Kavanaugh’s testimony was also based on a review of documents and “rationally based on [his] perception,” id. By contrast, Agent Donnelly “merely delivered a jury argument from the witness stand ” when he drew “inferences . . . based on facts already in evidence.” Cano, 289 F.3d at 1363. But Agent Kavanaugh had examined thousands of documents, many of which were not admitted into evidence. Agent Donnelly deciphered only a simple code, but Agent Kavanaugh’s familiarity with the investigation allowed him to perceive the meaning of coded language that the jury could not have readily discerned. We also reject the defendants’ argument that Agent Kavanaugh’s testimony was not “helpful to a clear understanding of the witness’ testimony or the determination of a fact in issue.” Fed. R. Evid. 701(b). We have held that a lay witness may provide interpretations of code words when the meaning of these words “[is] not ‘perfectly clear’ without [the witness’s] explanations.” United States v. Awan, 966 F.2d 1415, 1430–31 (11th Cir. 1992) 33 Agent Kavanaugh’s knowledge of the investigation enabled him to draw inferences about the meanings of code words that the jury could not have readily drawn. His testimony helped the jury understand better the defendants’ conversations that related to their support of international terrorism because they “would likely be unfamiliar with the complexities” of terrorist activities. Id. at 1430. In his testimony he linked the defendants’ specific calls to checks, wire transfers, and other discrete acts of material support that put the code words into context. [Doc. 1120, p. 21.] The defendants also contend that the district court erred in allowing Agent Kavanaugh’s testimony under Rule 701(c). We disagree. In Hamaker, the financial analyst of the FBI testified as a lay witness even though “his expertise and the use of computer software may have made him more efficient at reviewing [the] records.” 455 F.3d at 1331–32. We permitted his testimony because he “did not testify . . . based on his financial expertise, nor did he express any expert opinion.” Id. at 1331. See also United States v. Rollins, 544 F.3d 820, 832–33 (7th Cir. 2008) (holding that a law enforcement agent’s testimony was admissible under Rule 701(c), even though the agent had “years of experience as a law enforcement officer,” because “his understanding of the[] conversations came only as a result of the particular things he perceived from monitoring intercepted calls” 34 and his testimony was based on his “perceptions derived from [that] particular case”), cert. denied, 130 S. Ct. 3343 (2010). The record confirms that Agent Kavanaugh based his testimony about the meaning of the code words on his experience from this particular investigation. He limited his testimony to what he learned during this particular investigation, and he testified that he interpreted code words based on their context [Doc. 1116,p. 90, 93.] The district court explained that “it appears as if this witness’s training and experience to opine on what certain things mean is the investigation of this case.” [Doc. 1116, p. 41.] The district court also limited the agent’s testimony to facts he learned in his investigation of the defendants. [Doc. 1119, p. 118 (“I want to make sure . . . this witness’s answer . . . is based upon things that he learned in the course of this investigation. That is how he was proffered to the Court as a 701 witness.”).] Therefore, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing Agent Kavanaugh to testify regarding his interpretation of the defendants’ use of code words in the intercepts because the government satisfied the criteria under Rule 701.