Opinion ID: 673797
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The ATM Photos

Text: 19 1. Qualification of Agent Byers. Appellants contend that the court abused its discretion by qualifying Agent Byers as an expert witness in the identification of individuals from photographs. Although we are troubled by the court's ruling, we do not think it rose to a level of abuse of discretion. Agent Byers testified that as part of his duties for six years as a Secret Service Agent, he was assigned to protective details guarding the President, Vice President, and visiting dignitaries on over 200 occasions. Prior to each assignment, he would review photographs of persons known to pose security risks and then watch for those individuals at any location visited by the protectee, focusing particularly on facial features and distinguishing marks. Purporting to rely on this experience, Agent Byers positively identified appellants as the individuals depicted in a number of the ATM photographs. 20 The troubling aspect of the court's qualification of Agent Byers is not so much the training and experience upon which the agent based his supposed expertise. Courts are well within their discretion to qualify expert witnesses whose expertise was obtained in something more than a casual manner. United States v. Carswell, 922 F.2d 876, 878 (D.C.Cir.1991). Certainly that is the case here. What does concern us, however, is that the opinions Agent Byers expressed do not really require any particular expertise. Where the jury is just as capable of drawing correct conclusions as the witness possessed with special training, expert testimony is unnecessary. In United States v. Brewer, 783 F.2d 841 (9th Cir.1986), for instance, the Ninth Circuit held that it was not an abuse of discretion for the trial court to disallow the expert testimony of a forensic anthropologist as to whether the defendant was pictured in bank surveillance photographs. In the court's view, the untrained juror could fully assess the photographs without the assistance of the expert. The same is true here. But whether the court's ruling constitutes an abuse of discretion is another question. We conclude that it does not. Although Agent Byers' testimony may have been unnecessary, we cannot say that it was totally unhelpful to the jury. It may have served to focus the jury on particular characteristics of the defendants (e.g., facial features, distinguishing marks), thereby aiding the jurors' independent assessments of the photographs. Accordingly, we uphold the trial court's qualification of Agent Byers as an expert witness. 21 2. Authentication. We conclude also that the ATM photos were properly authenticated. Clearly, testimony by bank personnel familiar with the operation of the ATM cameras, and the time and date imprints on the photographs themselves, were sufficient to permit a reasonable juror to find that the evidence is what its proponent claims. United States v. Rembert, 863 F.2d 1023, 1027 (D.C.Cir.1988).