Opinion ID: 771786
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Agent Garcia

Text: 28 Vallejo also argues that the district court abused its discretion by allowing the Government to introduce the expert testimony of Agent Garcia concerning compensation rates for drug couriers. The Government offered this testimony to provide an alternative explanation for Vallejo's possession of a business card describing a white, two-door, 1989 or 1990 Honda Accord with rims and excellent tires accompanied by the dollar value of $700-800. Vallejo testified that the card contained the description and price of a car he planned to purchase. The Government argued that the card described the white Honda driven by Vallejo and indicated the fee he would be paid for importing drugs in that car. Agent Garcia testified: 29 If the load driver is just going to drive the car, cross the car, from, let's say, Mexicali to Calexico, and they're new members of the smuggling organization, they generally are paid anywhere between five and nine hundred dollars. If the load driver has been with the organization for some time, and his only role is to cross the car, again, into the U.S., they generally pay him anywhere from five to fifteen hundred dol lars. If they're going beyond crossing the vehicle from Mexicali to Calexico, and transporting that vehicle, let's say final destination to Los Angeles, they're generally paid anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five hundred dollars. 30 The district court did not abuse its discretion when it determined that Agent Garcia was a qualified expert witness. He had been a Customs Special Agent for ten years and had conducted over three to four hundred interviews with narcotics traffickers. He had interviewed at least one hundred and fifty individuals caught transporting drugs across the border and had asked them how much they were paid. He had worked undercover at least twenty-five to thirty times, and in that capacity, had learned what people were paid to drive marijuana across the border in the Imperial County area where Vallejo was stopped. Agent Garcia had also discussed this issue with confidential informants paid to work for the United States Customs Service. Thus, Agent Garcia had significant experience dealing with marijuana drug couriers crossing into the United States. 31 The district court, however, did abuse its discretion under Rule 403 by allowing Agent Garcia to testify regarding the fee paid to couriers within drug trafficking organizations. Although Agent Garcia's testimony as to payment rates for load carriers was, in and of itself, proper rebuttal testimony given Vallejo's testimony regarding the significance of the writing on the business card, the testimony as a whole was inadmissible for the same reasons as that of Agent Ajioka. This is because the payment amounts he testified to were again within the context of a large drug trafficking organization. In Agent Garcia's words: 32 new members of the smuggling organization . . . generally are paid anywhere between five and nine hundred dollars. If the load driver has been with the organization for some time . . . They generally pay him anywhere from five to fifteen hundred dollars. 33 This testimony, like Agent Ajioka's, improperly linked Vallejo to a vast drug trafficking organization, unfairly imputing the organization's knowledge of the drug in the cars to Vallejo. Because Agent Garcia's otherwise proper testimony as to the fees paid to drug couriers was inextricably intertwined with improper testimony as to drug trafficking organizations, the trial court abused its discretion by admitting it. 34