Opinion ID: 78333
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Opinion Testimony Regarding Drug Codes and Jargon

Text: At trial, the government also offered Sergeant Woodside as an expert in interpreting drug codes and jargon used during the taped conversations. Defense counsel made a number of objections to Sergeant Woodside's testimony, including improper opinion, relevance, narrative, and improper summary. The district court overruled the objections, explaining that 15 years experience of this officer, and his background in analyzing the code words is enough [under Rule 702] to put it in front of the jury. (R. Vol. 4, at 615.) We review the district court's decisions regarding the admissibility of expert testimony for abuse of discretion. United States v. Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244, 1258 (11th Cir.2004). Furthermore, evidentiary and other nonconstitutional errors do not constitute grounds for reversal unless there is a reasonable likelihood that they affected the defendant's substantial rights; where an error had no substantial influence on the outcome, and sufficient evidence uninfected by error supports the verdict, reversal is not warranted. Arbolaez, 450 F.3d at 1290. The operations of narcotics dealers, including drug codes and jargon, are proper subjects of expert testimony. United States v. Garcia, 447 F.3d 1327, 1335 (11th Cir.2006). Emmanuel argues that Sergeant Woodside's testimony went far beyond testimony concerning drug parlance and jargon. (Appellant's Br. at 53.) He says that the government used Sergeant Woodside as a summary witness and cites to cases from the Second Circuit to support his argument. The concern is that particular difficulties, warranting vigilance by the trial court, arise when an expert, who is also the case agent, goes beyond interpreting code words and summarizes his beliefs about the defendant's conduct based upon his knowledge of the case. United States v. Dukagjini, 326 F.3d 45, 53 (2d Cir.2003). Although courts often approve of testimony interpreting drug code words, such expert testimony may unfairly provide the government with an additional summation by having the expert interpret the evidence, and may come dangerously close to invading the province of the jury. Id. ; see also United States v. Nersesian, 824 F.2d 1294, 1308 (2d Cir.1987). Most of Sergeant Woodside's testimony was specific and closely related to his interpretation of drug codes and jargon. Sergeant Woodside explained that car means boat; water sometimes means fuel and other times means the ocean; the road could get bad means the weather could get bad; pothole means there is a delay with a shipment; and coming up fishing means coming directly to an island. Other codes and jargon dealt directly with drugs. Sergeant Woodside explained that two dollars means $2,000; D Boys means agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration; scanner means wiretap; movements means law enforcement activities; girls means cocaine; pouring that concrete means exchange of the cocaine; a check for $300 means 300 kilos of cocaine; and for them to find the girls with this guy, they got to pick him out of the water, and, you know, and cut means they have to take the boat out of the water and cut it up to find the cocaine. This testimony was properly admitted. Garcia, 447 F.3d. at 1335. Some of Sergeant Woodside's testimony, however, was not specific to his interpretation of drug codes and jargon. At times, his testimony went beyond interpreting code words to interpret conversations as a whole. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the testimony affected Emmanuel's substantial rights. During Sergeant Woodside's testimony, the district court emphasized that [i]t is going to be up to the jury whether the testimony is credible that this means something as opposed to something else. That is one of those jury issues that the jury will have to determine. (R. Vol. 4, at 615.) Moreover, the primary evidence against Emmanuel consisted of his own incriminating conversations, intercepted from both the Bahamian and United States wiretaps. Even if none of Sergeant Woodside's expert testimony was admissible, the jury could have easily interpreted the recorded conversations as involving drugs based on other evidence in the case, including actual seizures of drugs and drug money and testimony from coconspirators. Considering the substantial evidence against Emmanuel, Sergeant Woodside's opinion testimony that went beyond interpreting drug codes and jargon was merely cumulative and was not essential to the jury's verdict. See Dukagjini, 326 F.3d at 62. Therefore, any alleged error by the district court in allowing Sergeant Woodside's opinion testimony into evidence does not require reversal.