Opinion ID: 161910
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Failing to Provide Expert Reports

Text: 29 The Caballeros next contest the designation of government witnesses Allen Speirs, Stephen Back, and Richard Kocak, all employees of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and Heidi Norman, a financial analyst working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as non-expert lay witnesses. 30 At a pretrial hearing and in responses to defense requests for discovery, the government explained that Messrs. Speirs, Back, and Kocak would not testify as experts, but only to basic INS procedures, and that Ms. Norman would summarize the Caballeros' bank accounts, client files, and internal billing records. The court initially agreed that this did not rise to the level of expert testimony, a position the court maintained throughout the trial with respect to all except Mr. Speirs. When called to testify, Speirs described and defined terms and concepts related to his INS work, including, for example, the meaning of certain visa categories and their associated requirements. The court admitted that it was a close call, but finally concluded that this amounted to expert testimony. Because the government had not complied with the discovery requirements of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16(a)(1)(E) 2 , the court excluded the remainder of Speirs's testimony and ordered that the defense be provided with a Rule 16 summary if and when Speirs was used as a rebuttal witness. 31 The Caballeros claim all four gave expert testimony and that prejudice resulted from the defendants' inability to consult their own experts and adequately prepare for cross-examination of these witnesses. They outline in great detail the importance of providing opposing counsel with timely notice and discovery of planned expert testimony. See Aplts. Br. at 73-77. However, they argue less convincingly the threshold question of whether Speirs, Kocak, Back, and Norman were in fact experts to whom the notice and discovery requirements in Rule 16 apply. The government argues that the requirement to qualify these witnesses as experts never arose because they did not give opinion testimony. The Caballeros argue that rendering an opinion is only a factor, not the determining question. Instead, defendants believe that these witnesses should have been designated as experts only because they presented specialized knowledge, and because their testimony was based on their perceptions, education, training and experience, Reply Br. at 21-22. The Caballeros provide no authority for this proposition. Both cases cited by defendants, United States v. Ortega, 150 F.3d 937 (8th Cir. 1998) and United States v. Figeroa-Lopez, 125 F.3d 1241 (9th Cir. 1997), deal with law enforcement officials offering expert opinions while testifying as lay witnesses. 150 F.3d at 943; 125 F.3d at 1245-46. 32 Both Federal Rules of Evidence 701 3 and 702 4 distinguish between expert and lay testimony, not between expert and lay witnesses. Indeed, it is possible for the same witness to provide both lay and expert testimony in a single case. See, e.g., Figueroa-Lopez, 125 F.3d at 1246 (law enforcement agents could testify as lay witness that the defendant was acting suspiciously; however, the rules on experts applied when the agents testified on the basis of extensive experience that the defendant was using code words to refer to drug quantities and prices). Contrary to the Caballeros' suggestion, witnesses need not testify as experts simply because they are experts the nature and object of their testimony determines whether the procedural protections of Rule 702 apply. 33 We reject appellants' contentions that Fed. R. Crim. P. 16 (a)(1)(E) was implicated by the challenged testimony. With regard to Kocak, Back, and Speirs, they testified to relevant, readily-understandable INS procedures or operations of which they had firsthand knowledge. Norman summarized business records and client lists and presented them in condensed form, a process clearly permitted by Federal Rule of Evidence 1006. The testimony of all four expressed neither a lay nor an expert opinion, as distinguished from a statement of fact as to what they had witnessed during their respective careers. Furthermore, this testimony was not a surprise to defendants who had been notified of the witnesses and the substance of their testimony during the pretrial phase. As the challenged testimony proffered no opinion, lay or expert, but simply the witnesses' personal experience relating to a subject bearing directly upon the appropriateness of a jury inference, we reject the claim that the Caballeros were entitled to Rule 16 discovery. 34 Furthermore, there was no misconduct in the prosecutor's actions. At no time did government actions conflict with the court's rulings regarding these four witnesses.