Opinion ID: 2658283
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Testimony of Darrel Lyons

Text: Edwards, Akins, Shawn Perkins, and Marco Perkins challenge the district court’s denial of their objection under Federal Rule of Evidence 701 to the lay testimony of Secret Service Agent Darrell Lyons concerning the meaning of code words used by the conspirators on wiretapped recordings. Because this objection was preserved at trial, at least by counsel for some appellants, we review for abuse of discretion, subject to harmless error analysis. Lyons, the lead investigator of the conspiracy, testified as a lay witness about his understanding of the meaning of code words recorded in wiretapped conversations. Counsel objected on various grounds at trial, including that Lyons was testifying to an ultimate fact issue, that he was not qualified as an expert, and that defense counsel had not been given advance notice that he would be testifying as an expert. The district court sustained the objection on the ground that the Government had not provided defense counsel with proper notice to qualify Lyons as an expert, and prohibited Lyons from testifying on the meaning of drug slang because it required specialized knowledge. The following day when Lyons was recalled, defense counsel renewed their objection to Lyons’ continued testimony about how he interpreted coded words on wiretapped calls. The court clarified that as a lay witness under Fed. R. Evid. 701, Lyons could testify about his understanding of the meaning of coded conversations if his testimony was rationally based on Lyons’ own perception–here, his reading of the wiretap transcripts and involvement in this particular investigation–and not on specialized knowledge from his broader experience. Counsel’s repeated objections to Lyons’ interpretations of code words on the recordings were overruled on the grounds that the interpretation was based on knowledge gathered from the investigation of this case. Lyons proceeded to give extensive testimony about what coded conversations “mean[t] to [him]” or what he “believed” the speakers were saying, and confirmed in 6 Case: 12-40515 Document: 00512575405 Page: 7 Date Filed: 03/27/2014 No. 12-40515 response to questioning that his understanding of the code words was based on his investigation of this case. On appeal, Edwards, Akins, Marco Perkins, and Shawn Perkins urge that the district court erroneously allowed Lyons to testify as an expert on this drug jargon despite the court’s earlier instruction that Lyons could testify only as a lay witness. Although we question that the demarcation between drug slang knowledge based on Lyons’ expertise and that based on his investigation of this conspiracy could have been as clean as Lyons’ proffered justifications suggested, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted the testimony. In United States v. McMillan,3 this Court addressed the argument appellants raise here. In that case, appellants argued that the trial court “violated its role as gatekeeper for expert evidence by allowing three fact witnesses . . . to give opinions based on Louisiana’s statutory accounting rules.”4 This Court denied appellants’ claim, holding that the witnesses’ testimony properly was confined to the conclusions and observations the witnesses gathered from their investigation in the case at issue.5 “A witness who provides only lay testimony may give limited opinions that are based on the witness’ perception and that are helpful in understanding the testimony or in determining a fact in issue, but the witness may not opine based on scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge.”6 Although the witnesses defined certain legal terms in the course of their testimony, they provided factual information about the circumstances of the case, their observations, and the conclusions they reached. “To the extent that some of the witnesses’ testimony may have implicated specialized 3 600 F.3d 434 (5th Cir. 2010). 4 Id. at 455. 5 Id. at 456. 6 Id. 7 Case: 12-40515 Document: 00512575405 Page: 8 Date Filed: 03/27/2014 No. 12-40515 knowledge by defining certain accounting terms,” this Court concluded, “the error in allowing the testimony, if any, was harmless because in the context of the entire trial [there was] no reasonable basis to find an effect on the jury’s verdict.”7 This Court has recognized that in the context of drug conspiracies, “[d]rug traffickers’ jargon is a specialized body of knowledge, familiar only to those wise in the ways of the drug trade, and therefore a fit subject for expert testimony.”8 But we have not limited drug slang testimony to experts in all cases. Rather, we have recognized that testimony about the meaning of drug code words can be within the proper ambit of a lay witness with extensive involvement in the underlying investigation. In United States v. Miranda,9 the appellant maintained that an FBI agent, who had not been designated as an expert witness, testified about the meanings of various code words heard on intercepted phone calls and thereby “crossed the line” from lay to expert opinion testimony. In rejecting that argument under the facts presented there, we held that the agent’s testimony was permissible under Fed. R. Evid. 701 because the agent’s “extensive participation in the investigation of this conspiracy, including surveillance . . . and the monitoring and translating of intercepted telephone conversations, allowed him to form opinions concerning the meaning of certain code words used in this drug ring based on his personal perceptions.”10 Similarly, in United States v. El-Mezain,11 we acknowledged that some of the facts presented by testifying agents would not be known to an average lay 7 Id. at 457. 8 United States v. Griffith, 118 F.3d 318, 321 (5th Cir. 1997) (finding no error in a drug investigator’s testimony on her “expertise” in drug jargon where the court and parties treated the witness “in substance as an expert” even though the court failed formally to qualify her). 9 248 F.3d 434 (5th Cir. 2001). 10 Id. at 441. 11 664 F.3d at 514. 8 Case: 12-40515 Document: 00512575405 Page: 9 Date Filed: 03/27/2014 No. 12-40515 person. But we held that the district court did not err by admitting the testimony because “the agents’ opinions were limited to their personal perceptions from their investigation of this case.”12 We noted that “[b]y explaining the meanings of terms as used in the conversations and documents, as well as the relationships between the people they were investigating, the agents provided the jury with relevant factual information about the investigation.”13 And we clarified that “[t]estimony need not be excluded as improper lay opinion, even if some specialized knowledge on the part of the agents was required, if it was based on first-hand observations in a specific investigation.”14 We cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in admitting Lyons’ testimony. Lyons was extensively involved in the investigation of the conspiracy. As the lead investigator on the case, Lyons had conducted surveillance on a number of participants in the drug organization, and claimed to have reviewed every wiretapped phone call, reviewed every transcript offered into evidence, listened to “every second” of all relevant conversations, and spoken with a number of informants, co-conspirators, and the defendants themselves. Lyons repeatedly explained how this investigation led him to deduce the meaning of drug code words.15 The district court was clear, to counsel and to the jury, that “as long as [Lyons’] conclusions about what the language means in the calls is based, in part, on his investigation and not rooted in his 12 Id. 13 Id. 14 Id. 15 Lyons explained, for example, that he knows “three zones” is “three ounces” because he heard the speakers on the intercepted calls use the terms interchangeably; that“kinfolk” means the defendants from Paris because he investigated where the license plates are registered; that a “nine” referred to nine ounces of cocaine because the quoted price was consistent with that amount in the investigation here; and that “we know from the search and seizure that [a “bi”] is approximately 4-1/2 ounces of crack cocaine.” 9 Case: 12-40515 Document: 00512575405 Page: 10 Date Filed: 03/27/2014 No. 12-40515 expertise,” the court would allow the testimony. Although Lyons may have drawn in part from his law enforcement experience, it was not an abuse of discretion for the district court to rule that Lyons’ conclusions were largely based on first-hand observations in this specific investigation. We hold, furthermore, that any error of the district court in admitting Lyons’ testimony was harmless. To the extent that certain portions of Lyons’ testimony at times crossed the line into drawing exclusively on his expertise, it was cumulative of other testimony and therefore harmless.16 A careful review of the trial record convinces us that Lyons’ interpretations overwhelmingly were consistent with those provided by Styron and by Stacy Bellamy, a cooperating co-conspirator. Liggins, Walters, and Akins also challenge Lyons’ testimony on the grounds that it was unqualified, that he testified as a summary witness, and that he gave impermissible personal “impressions” of the intercepted conversations. We hold that the trial judge did not err in accepting Lyons’ personal observations of this investigation as the basis for his lay testimony. This Court has recognized that the meaning of drug code words can be within the proper ambit of the testimony of a lay witness with extensive involvement in the underlying investigation.17 Nor is there merit in appellants’ contention that Lyons’ “dual role as case agent and unqualified expert/lay opinion witness” allowed him to serve as a summary witness that impermissibly relayed his “impressions” to the jury. We are satisfied after a close review of the record that Lyons neither testified as a “summary witness” within the meaning of this Court’s precedent nor served to 16 See United States v. Griffin, 324 F.3d 330, 348 (5th Cir. 2003) (“We find any error that occurred from the district court allowing Stiner to testify as to the meaning of the law was harmless because her testimony was cumulative of other witnesses’ testimony.”). 17 United States v. Miranda, 248 F.3d 434, 441 (5th Cir. 2001). 10 Case: 12-40515 Document: 00512575405 Page: 11 Date Filed: 03/27/2014 No. 12-40515 “merely tell the jury what result to reach.” In United States v. Nguyen,18 we held that the district court committed harmless error in allowing an investigator to provide a summary of her investigation along with a summary chart, testify as to the ultimate issue of the defendant’s mental state by referring to her as a coconspirator, and premise her summary testimony on out-of-court statements that had not previously been presented to the jury. While summary witnesses “may be appropriate for summarizing voluminous records, as contemplated by Rule 1006,” they may not distill the jury’s ultimate conclusions from a body of evidence.19 Similarly, in United States v. Fullwood,20 we held that “limits [] may well have been exceeded” (but did not rise to reversible plain error) where an agent, as a final rebuttal witness before jury deliberations, “simply recap[ped] substantial portions of the Government’s case-in-chief.” Lyons did not testify as a “summary witness” within the meaning of this precedent. Lyons’ interpretation of the wiretapped recordings came only after they were admitted into evidence and played before the jury. We find no point in the record at which Lyons recapped portions of the Government’s case-inchief. To the contrary, the Government called Lyons to the stand fifteen times to describe various aspects of his investigation, ensuring that his testimony came only as the evidence was presented. Lyons’ explanation that his interpretation of some drug code words was based on what he learned from this investigation as a whole is a virtue for his role as a lay witness testifying from personal perception, not a vice that equates to summarizing the Government’s case-inchief within the meaning of Nguyen and Fullwood. We are satisfied that Lyons’ testimony neither drew conclusions as to the significance of particular evidence in the case, nor reached ultimate legal conclusions about the appellants’ guilt. 18 504 F.3d 561, 571 (5th Cir. 2007). 19 Id. at 572 (quoting United States v. Fullwood, 342 F.3d 409, 414 (5th Cir. 2003)). 20 342 F.3d 409, 413–14 (5th Cir. 2003). 11 Case: 12-40515 Document: 00512575405 Page: 12 Date Filed: 03/27/2014 No. 12-40515 Rather, Lyons testified about his interpretation of coded drug slang conversations, as this Court has recognized he may do under the facts presented here.