Opinion ID: 2973698
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Defendant’s Conviction

Text: Barnes raises numerous issues in this appeal challenging the admission by the district court of certain testimony and evidence. We review all such challenges to admissibility solely for an abuse of discretion. See Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 141 (1997). 1. Evidence Included in Defendant’s Motion in Limine Prior to the beginning of trial, Barnes moved the district court to exclude from the jury’s consideration evidence of Barnes’s association with the drug deals with Mobley that were brokered by Nicholas Smith because those illegal sales were not charged in the indictment. He also requested that no mention be made of the fact that Smith died as a result of a drug overdose, or that numerous firearms were found in the East Cavanaugh residence during the search of that premises. The district judge conducted a short hearing on the motion before denying the defendant’s request in its entirety. Barnes now reprises -5- 05-1072 United States v. Barnes his argument that the challenged testimony and evidence were inadmissible due to their overly prejudicial nature. We review the district court’s evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. United States v. Johnson, 440 F.3d 832, 842 (6th Cir. 2006). The district judge ruled that the evidence of the prior transactions was admissible to show the necessary background for the narrative of Mobley’s dealings with the defendant on February 12 and April 12, 2004. Similarly, the court held that Barnes’s announcement concerning Smith’s death was relevant background information explaining why Mobley first dealt with the defendant only through an intermediary and then directly. Without such background, the undercover officer’s contacts with the defendant would appear to be nothing more than incredibly fortuitous chance encounters. Thus, given the need for an explanation why Mobley would call Barnes’s cell phone on February 12, and why Barnes would contact Mobley on April 12 in an effort to sell him additional quantities of crack cocaine, the decision to permit introduction of testimony explaining the interrelationship among Barnes, Mobley, and Smith, combined with the instruction that the jurors not consider testimony of other acts as evidence that the defendant committed the charged offenses, was not an abuse of discretion. Also without merit is the defendant’s objection to testimony concerning the fact that a search of the residence at 2628 East Cavanaugh uncovered the existence of numerous firearms, two of which contained prints later linked to the defendant. Significantly, the -6- 05-1072 United States v. Barnes government never intimated that the firearms were possessed illegally. Any evaluation of the propriety of offering that evidence centers, therefore, only upon whether the testimony was relevant and whether its probative value was greater than any potential prejudicial effect. See FED. RULES OF EVID. 401 and 403. The proffered testimony satisfied both of these tests. A central issue during the defendant’s trial was the identity of the individual who supplied Mobley with crack cocaine. In an effort to prove that Barnes was indeed that individual, the government was justified in emphasizing evidence demonstrating that the supplier left the house at 2628 East Cavanaugh to meet Mobley for the sales and that Barnes himself had a connection with that premises. Trial testimony showing that firearms with the defendant’s prints on them and a prescription pill bottle with the defendant’s name on the label were found during a search of the East Cavanaugh home clearly was probative of Barnes’s connection with the crimes and had a “tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable . . . than it would be without the evidence.” FED. RULE OF EVID. 401. The district court thus did not abuse its discretion in ruling this evidence admissible at trial. 2. Fingerprint Evidence In an additional challenge to the relevance of the firearms evidence, the defendant raises two concerns about the fingerprint testimony offered by government witnesses. Barnes first asserts that the expert testimony of witness Michele Glasgow should have been excluded because of the government’s delay in identifying the substance of that -7- 05-1072 United States v. Barnes witness’s findings. Second, the defendant alleges that Glasgow’s testimony concerning peer review of her findings presented a confrontation clause violation that requires reversal of Barnes’s convictions. In raising his first challenge to the admission of the government’s fingerprint evidence, the defendant importantly does not claim that the prosecution withheld information ascertained by its expert witness. Rather, Barnes complains that the disclosure made by the government came too near the start of the trial to allow for adequate testing of the prosecution’s expert’s results. However, the defense was aware nine or ten days prior to trial that Barnes’s fingerprints had been found on two of the firearms discovered during the search of 2628 East Cavanaugh. Not only did the defendant fail to secure his own expert to challenge the government’s expected testimony within that time, but Barnes did not even request a further continuance from the court to examine the information that he might question. Instead, the defendant sought only the total exclusion of the fingerprint evidence, the most drastic sanction available for any discovery violation. Under these circumstances, the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the challenged evidence to be admitted at trial. Barnes raises an objection to testimony offered by expert witness Glasgow that the Michigan State Police Crime Laboratory never issues “an analysis of fingerprints that has not had a second analysis confirming the original analysis.” According to the defendant’s argument, such a statement not only indicates that a second examiner who was not made -8- 05-1072 United States v. Barnes available for cross-examination existed, but also that the unavailable expert necessarily verified the results reached by Glasgow herself. Even assuming that such testimony does indeed constitute a violation of the protections afforded by the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, that error in this case is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Not only would the testimony of the absent fingerprint analyst have been merely cumulative of the testimony offered by the live witness available to the defense for cross-examination, but the evidence of Barnes’s guilt of the offenses with which he was charged was overwhelming. One fingerprint expert already tied the defendant to the home on East Cavanaugh from which the drug dealer operated, and a prescription pill bottle and visual surveillance also helped identify Barnes as the individual from whom undercover officer Mobley purchased crack cocaine. Even more damning, however, was the eyewitness testimony of Mobley himself, one of the participants in the transactions, that Barnes was indeed the individual who supplied the contraband substances. This evidence, coupled with additional information gleaned from cell phone displays, unerringly connected the defendant with the illegal sales. Consequently, the district court did not commit reversible error in permitting witness Glasgow’s testimony to be considered by the finders of fact. 3. Evidence Gathered From Defendant’s and From Mobley’s Cell Phones Barnes next contends that the district judge committed error in allowing Officer Mobley to testify that Mobley’s cell phone registered the number of one of Barnes’s cell -9- 05-1072 United States v. Barnes phones as a previously-dialed number, and that yet another cell phone recovered from the defendant indicated that someone using that second phone had placed a call to Mobley at the same time the officer received a call from Barnes regarding plans for a drug sale on April 12, 2004. The defendant contends that admission of such evidence was improper because Mobley was not qualified as an expert in cell phone technology and should not, therefore, have been allowed to offer his opinion regarding the origin and destination of particular telephone calls. In the absence of a contemporary objection at trial, we review this issue for plain error only. A review of the record indicates that Mobley’s testimony did not involve the offering of any expert opinion. See FED. RULE OF EVID. 702. Instead, the witness merely recounted information retrieved from various cell phones in a procedure used and relied upon not by experts in telephonic technology, but by literally millions of cell phone users. Simply relating to a jury the information gained from a function performed, known, and understood by most members of modern society did not render Mobley’s testimony improper.