Opinion ID: 203873
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Summary of the case v. summary of the investigation

Text: There may be value in having a case agent describe the course of his investigation in order to set the stage for the testimony to come about the nature of the conspiracy and the defendants involved. Indeed, in considering a defendant's challenge to the testimony of an IRS agent, we have explicitly distinguished between the kind of overview testimony that we described in Casas and an agent's description of his investigation into the defendant's activities, which is based on personal knowledge. United States v. Hall, 434 F.3d 42, 57 (1st Cir.2006). The officer's testimony, if properly limited to constructing the sequence of events in the investigation, could be valuable to provide background information and to explain how and why the agents even came to be involved with th[e] particular defendant. United States v. Goosby, 523 F.3d 632, 638 (6th Cir.2008) (quotation marks and citation omitted). Absent a basis in personal knowledge, however, the overview witness may not offer substantive testimony about the nature of the conspiracy or the involvement of particular defendants. When a law enforcement witness express[es] opinions as to defendants' culpability based on the totality of information gathered in the course of their investigation[ ], Garcia, 413 F.3d at 211, these conclusory statements often involve impermissible lay opinion testimony, without any basis in personal knowledge, about the role of the defendant in the conspiracy. Id. at 211-13; Fed.R.Evid. 701. Additionally, such overview testimony may have serious Crawford /Confrontation Clause implications. In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), the Supreme Court held that a declarant's testimonial out-of-court statement is inadmissible under the Confrontation Clause unless (1) the declarant testifies ... or (2) the defendant had a prior opportunity for cross examination and the declarant is unavailable... or (3) the evidence is admitted for purposes other than establishing the truth of the matter asserted. United States v. Maher, 454 F.3d 13, 19-20 (1st Cir.2006). Therefore, [p]ost- Crawford, the admission of non-testifying informants' out-of-court testimonial statements, through the testimony of police officers, is a recurring issue in the courts of appeals. Id. at 19. Overview testimony frequently reflects reliance on the statements of non-testifying informants, who implicate the defendants in criminal activity. The problematic nature of such testimony is self-evident. Finally, and more generally, such overview testimony is almost certain to be rife with hearsay. Rodríguez, 525 F.3d at 96 (overview testimony also constituted improper hearsay testimony). While the subsequent trial testimony of the out-of-court declarant resolves the Crawford issue, which is based on the Confrontation Clause, it does not cure the hearsay problem more generally.