Opinion ID: 4510144
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Conclusory Testimony

Text: We turn first to Gula’s testimony about Diaz’s role in the conspiracy. Diaz contends that, when Gula summarized Diaz’s role, he improperly and unhelpfully offered his opinion on the ultimate issue at trial: Diaz’s involvement in the conspiracy. We agree. The District Court allowed Gula to opine that Diaz worked as “a subordinate of Jeffrey Guzman, working at the direction of Jeffrey Guzman” to bag and distribute drugs. App. at 256. This conclusory statement was obviously unhelpful, and the Court should have excluded it under 701(b). The “purpose of the foundation requirements” of Rule 701 “is to ensure that such testimony does not . . . usurp the fact-finding function of the jury.” Fulton, 837 F.3d at 291–92 (citation omitted). Therefore, the helpfulness requirement in 701(b) requires courts to exclude “testimony where the witness is no better suited than the jury to make the judgment at issue.” Jackson, 849 F.3d at 554 (quoting Fulton, 837 F.3d at 293). Here, the jury was perfectly well suited to determine, based on the evidence before them, whether Diaz worked as a part of Guzman’s conspiracy. Indeed, that was the primary question 12 facing them. Gula’s comments articulated precisely the conclusion the government asked the jury to infer from the evidence presented at trial, removing the jury’s need to personally review the evidence. See United States v. Grinage, 390 F.3d 746, 750 (2d Cir. 2004). Rather than offering insight the jury could not itself have gleaned from the evidence, Gula’s testimony served to provide the conclusion the government wanted the jury to reach. Such conclusory testimony undermines the goal of Rule 701 “to exclude lay opinion testimony that ‘amounts to little more than choosing up sides, or that merely tells the jury what result to reach.’” Fulton, 837 F.3d at 291 (quoting United States v. Stadtmauer, 620 F.3d 238, 262 (3d Cir. 2010)). That is just what Gula did when he told the jury Diaz worked as Guzman’s subordinate, bagging and distributing drugs. By admitting such testimony, the District Court allowed precisely the sort of testimony Rule 701 is designed to exclude.