Opinion ID: 736797
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Special Agent Vu's testimony

Text: 4 At trial, while holding up the tank top worn by Callum at the time of his arrest, Special Agent Trung Vu pointed to a bank surveillance photograph of the robber. Vu compared the logo on Callum's tank top to the writing on the tank top in the surveillance photograph. Defense counsel objected to this testimony as impermissible lay opinion, and Callum contends on appeal that the court erred in admitting Vu's testimony. 5 A district court's decision to admit lay opinion testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 701 1 must be upheld unless shown to be clearly erroneous or a clear result of an abuse of judicial discretion. United States v. Skeet, 665 F.2d 983, 985-86 (9th Cir.1982). 6 We conclude that the district court's decision to admit Vu's testimony was neither clearly erroneous nor an abuse of discretion. In fact, Vu's testimony did not clearly amount to lay opinion, as Vu did not draw the conclusion that the writing on the tank top matched that in the photograph. Even assuming that Vu's testimony amounted to a lay opinion, we conclude that the district court did not err in admitting it. 7 We routinely have held that a lay witness may identify evidence shown in videotapes or surveillance photographs when the witness is familiar with the evidence. In particular, in bank robbery cases we have allowed individuals familiar with the defendant to give their opinions as to whether bank surveillance photographs depicted the defendant, even when they did not witness the robbery. United States v. Miranda, 986 F.2d 1283, 1285 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 929 (1993); United States v. Langford, 802 F.2d 1176, 1178-79 (9th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 483 U.S. 1008 (1987). Callum's argument that Vu's testimony should be excluded because Vu did not witness the robbery is therefore without merit. Indeed, in a recent case involving testimony similar to that at issue, we determined that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing a police officer to identify individuals depicted in a video tape because of his familiarity with the contents of the tape, even though the officer was not present at the scene of the crime. United States v. Begay, 42 F.3d 486, 502-03 (9th Cir.1994), cert. denied, 116 S.Ct. 93 (1995). 8 In such cases, the key issue is whether the witness's opinions aid the jury by making identifications based on information not immediately observable by the jury at trial. Langford, 802 F.2d at 1179; see also Begay, 42 F.3d at 503 (noting that because officer had spent more than 100 hours viewing video of demonstration by over 200 people, officer's testimony could help the jury discern correctly and efficiently the events depicted in the videotape). Here, the writing on the T-shirt portrayed in the photographs was not immediately apparent. Vu was familiar with the tank top worn by Callum and had carefully analyzed the surveillance photographs. Under these circumstances, we find that it was not an abuse of discretion for the district court to admit Vu's testimony.