Opinion ID: 7265
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendant Richard Gatten

Text: 31 Like West, Richard Gatten was convicted of both conspiracy to defraud the United States and two counts of attempting to evade federal gasoline excise tax. On appeal, he contends that the government's summary witness, Jannett Reiner, was not qualified to testify as an expert. Also, Gatten argues that the district court erroneously permitted Reiner to bolster the testimony of a key prosecution witness, Ray Long, by referring to and restating certain portions of Long's testimony. In response, the government argues that Reiner is fully qualified to testify as an expert witness on matters of accounting and evasion of excise tax. The government also contends that the purpose of Reiner's restatement of Long's testimony was to identify the evidence upon which she based her calculations of tax due, as is appropriate for a summary witness. Federal Rule of Evidence 702 provides: 32 If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise. 33 The district court is given wide discretion to admit or to exclude expert testimony. 22 We review its decision for manifest error. 23 To qualify as an expert, the witness must have specialized knowledge or training such that his or her testimony will assist the fact finder in the determination of a fact issue. 24 34 In this case, agent Reiner testified regarding her training and experience. 25 Reiner holds a Bachelor of Science in accounting. 26 At the time of trial, she had served the IRS for seven years as a revenue agent, during four of which she acted as an excise tax specialist. 27 Agent Reiner received general training when she started as a revenue agent and participated in additional training in order to specialize in the area of excise tax. 28 In addition, agent Reiner participates in annual continuing education in the areas of both general tax and excise tax. 29 35 In the light of agent Reiner's background, we cannot say that the district court committed manifest error when it admitted the testimony of agent Reiner as a summary expert. She has specialized training and experience which made her adequately suited to assist the jury in understanding the large amount of documentary evidence presented by the government and the tax implications. We, therefore, reject Gatten's argument and affirm the district court's decision to admit agent Reiner as an expert. 36 Gatten also argues that agent Reiner should not have been allowed to restate the testimony of Ray Long because by doing so, she impermissibly affected the jury's assessment of Long's credibility. That is, agent Reiner's testimony bolstered and confirmed Long's damaging testimony against the defendants. The government, in response, points out that it is the purpose of a summary witness to reference other evidence in order to identify the evidence used in determining the amount of taxes evaded. 30 37 This Court addressed an argument similar to the one pressed here by Gatten in United States v. Moore. 31 In Moore, four defendants convicted on various charges surrounding the preparation of false tax returns argued that by repeating only damaging testimony, the expert summary witness of the IRS had impermissibly made implicit credibility choices for the jury. 32 This Court rejected that argument because the IRS agent merely recited factual information and made no express comments regarding the credibility of the witnesses. 33 We held that admission of the IRS expert's testimony, which included a summary of testimony given by other government witnesses, was not error because the agent properly referenced other evidence when necessary to explain his analysis of the case. 34 38 The circumstances are the same in this case. Agent Reiner referred to Long's testimony while in the process of explaining how the defendants attempted to conceal the sales transactions between Dispetco and the retailers. 35 The testimony of Long and others was used by the agent to explain the basis of her findings and calculation of the taxes owed. She made no comment regarding Long's credibility. In addition, the judge reminded the jury that agent Reiner's role was to summarize evidence in order to explain the tax liability evaded by the defendants. 36 In these circumstances, the district court did not err in admitting the summary testimony of agent Reiner.