Court Opinion

ID: 9954024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-25 16:00:43.789286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:11:44.955223
License: Public Domain

FOR PUBLICATION

     UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
          FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                          No. 22-50069

                 Plaintiff-Appellee,                 D.C. No.
    v.                                            3:19-cr-04034-
                                                     TWR-1
JOSE PABLO JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ,

                 Defendant-Appellant.                OPINION

         Appeal from the United States District Court
            for the Southern District of California
         Todd W. Robinson, District Judge, Presiding

             Argued and Submitted July 19, 2023
                    Pasadena, California

                      Filed March 25, 2024

     Before: Jacqueline H. Nguyen and Danielle J. Forrest,
    Circuit Judges, and Richard D. Bennett, * District Judge.

                   Opinion by Judge Forrest;
                Partial Dissent by Judge Bennett

*
 The Honorable Richard D. Bennett, United States District Judge for the
District of Maryland, sitting by designation.
2                     USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

                          SUMMARY **

                          Criminal Law

    The panel affirmed Jose Jimenez-Chaidez’s jury
conviction for knowingly importing cocaine and
methamphetamine, vacated his sentence, and remanded for
resentencing.
    The panel held that the district court properly admitted
evidence of Jimenez’s prior drug transports. The panel
concluded that this prior-act evidence was admitted for the
proper purpose of showing knowledge and intent under
Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b)(2), and the evidence was
not unduly prejudicial under Rule 403.
    The panel held that the district court did not abuse its
discretion in allowing an FBI agent to testify about the
extraction of data from a cellphone as a lay witness rather
than an expert witness because the agent’s testimony did not
require specialized knowledge.
    The panel held that the district court erred by not making
an explicit reliability finding related to an expert’s testimony
about the value of the drugs found in Jimenez’s vehicle when
he was arrested, but this error was harmless.
    The panel vacated Jimenez’s sentence and remanded for
resentencing in line with recent authority clarifying the
process for conducting a mitigating role inquiry under
U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2.

**
  This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
                   USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                  3

    District Judge Bennett concurred with the majority with
respect to its holdings that the prior-acts evidence was
properly admitted, that any error as to drug value was
harmless, and that the case must be remanded for
resentencing. Dissenting in part, Judge Bennett would hold
that the district court abused its discretion in treating the
testimony regarding cellphone data as lay testimony because
this testimony was clearly expert testimony within the ambit
of Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

                        COUNSEL

Jessica Agatstein (argued), Elana R. Fogel, and Sara M.
Peloquin, Assistant Federal Public Defenders, Federal
Defenders of San Diego, San Diego, California, for
Defendant-Appellant.
Daniel E. Zipp (argued), Assistant United States Attorney,
Appellate Section Chief, Criminal Division; Derek Ko,
Assistant United States Attorney; Deborah E. Bercovitch,
Special Assistant United States Attorney; Randy S.
Grossman, United States Attorney; United States
Department of Justice, United States Attorney’s Office, San
Diego, California; for Plaintiff-Appellee.
4                  USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

                        OPINION

FORREST, Circuit Judge:

    Jose Jimenez-Chaidez drove large amounts of
methamphetamine and cocaine into the United States from
Mexico. He appeals his drug importation conviction and
resulting sentence, arguing that the district court
(1) admitted improper propensity evidence, (2) erroneously
allowed an FBI agent to testify about the extraction of data
from a cellphone as a lay witness rather than an expert
witness, (3) failed to determine the reliability of a drug-
valuation expert, and (4) applied the wrong legal standard in
denying him a minor-role sentencing reduction under
U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291. We affirm Jimenez’s conviction, but we vacate his
sentence and remand for resentencing.
                   I. BACKGROUND
    In September 2019, Jimenez was living in Tecate,
Mexico and had been working at a bakery in Southern
California. He crossed the United States/Mexico border five
to six days a week. On September 10, Jimenez entered the
United States through the Tecate Port of Entry. In the post-
primary screening area, a border patrol canine indicated that
drugs were present in Jimenez’s car. Officers found cocaine
and methamphetamine hidden in the trunk and the modified
gas tank. Jimenez was charged with knowingly importing
cocaine and methamphetamine under 21 U.S.C. §§ 952, 960.
At trial, Jimenez’s counsel argued that Jimenez did not know
the drugs were in his car, and he was just a “blind mule.”
                   USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                    5

             A. Evidence of Prior Smuggling
    Before Jimenez’s trial, the Government interviewed
Alejandro Ramos, a prisoner who had pleaded guilty to
importing methamphetamine. Ramos stated he worked as a
“scout” in the same organization as Jimenez and, on several
prior occasions, including multiple times in May 2019, had
met Jimenez in the United States to unload drugs from
Jimenez’s car. The Government moved in limine to admit
Ramos’s testimony, border crossing records, and evidence
from Ramos’s phone to demonstrate Jimenez’s knowledge
and intent to import drugs on the day he was arrested. After
thorough argument, the district court granted the
Government’s motion, finding that the evidence made
“[Jimenez]’s relevant knowledge and intent more probable
than it would be without the other act evidence.” The district
court also concluded that the danger of unfair prejudice from
the evidence of Jimenez’s other smuggling activity did not
substantially outweigh its probative value.
    At trial, Ramos testified that he knew Jimenez from a
garage in Tecate, Mexico where cars were modified to carry
drugs across the border. Jimenez left his car at the garage and
picked the car up after its gas tank was modified to carry
drugs. Ramos also testified that he worked as a scout
approximately ten times when Jimenez drove drugs across
the border, including multiple times in May 2019. Ramos
would arrive at Jimenez’s workplace in the United States
where Jimenez’s car was parked and contact Jimenez to
exchange car keys. Ramos would then drive Jimenez’s car
to another location, unload the drugs, and then return the car
to Jimenez’s work. Jimenez was paid for the transport when
he returned to Tecate.
6                    USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

    In addition to Ramos’s testimony, the Government
introduced records showing that Ramos and Jimenez crossed
into the United States within 90 minutes of one another on
May 21, May 22, and May 30, 2019, and that Ramos’s cell
phone was near Jimenez’s workplace on these dates during
the time Jimenez was working. It also introduced evidence
of the significant value of the drugs found in Jimenez’s car
to suggest it was unlikely Jimenez did not know they were
present.
    To corroborate Ramos’s testimony, the Government
called FBI Special Agent Edasi to testify about location data
extracted from Ramos’s cellphone. Jimenez objected to
Agent Edasi’s testimony because the Government failed to
disclose him as an expert witness before trial. In response,
the Government explained that it was offering Agent Edasi
only as a lay witness “in his capacity as a forensic examiner
who looked at a phone and found some items.” The district
court clarified: “So he plugged in the phone and it
downloaded, and he’s going to say what was on the phone?”
The Government responded affirmatively, and Jimenez’s
counsel dropped her objection.
    Agent Edasi testified that he extracted data from
Ramos’s phone using a software tool called Cellebrite. He
explained that Cellebrite is used for performing data
extractions, and it also has tools for “analyzing and parsing
data,” or interpreting digital code “in a language that’s easy
to understand.” Following this discussion, Jimenez’s
counsel objected to Agent Edasi’s testimony about the
examination under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16 1

1
 This rule governs the government’s disclosure obligations for expert
witnesses. Fed. R. Crim. P. 16(a)(1)(G).
                       USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                          7

and Federal Rule of Evidence 702. 2 The district court
overruled the objection.
    Agent Edasi explained that he retrieved Ramos’s cell
phone from evidence, isolated it from network connections,
and then connected it to Cellebrite “to extract the data.”
After connecting the phone to Cellebrite, the data was parsed
and analyzed to create a report. Agent Edasi testified that the
Cellebrite report could be understood without any
knowledge of software. The report contained information
about Ramos’s phone, including his Apple ID and phone
number; information about the contacts saved in the phone;
and location data showing where the phone had been. The
location-data report contained time-stamped GPS
coordinates from a frequently visited locations database.
Agent Edasi explained that he entered the GPS coordinates
from the report into Google Maps to identify the location and
that the coordinates showed that Ramos’s phone was near
Jimenez’s workplace on May 21, 22, and 30, 2019, during
Jimenez’s shifts.
                          B. Drug Value
    FBI Special Agent Lewenthal testified about the value of
the drugs found in Jimenez’s vehicle when Jimenez was
arrested. The Government intended for Agent Lewenthal to
testify as an expert witness but failed to properly disclose
him as an expert before trial. The district court conditionally
allowed Agent Lewenthal’s testimony but gave defense
counsel “wide latitude” to examine Agent Lewenthal before
the court determined if he was qualified as an expert. Agent
Lewenthal testified to his extensive law enforcement

2
 This rule governs the admissibility of expert opinion testimony. Fed. R.
Evid. 702.
8                  USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

experience: nearly thirty years working for Border Patrol and
Homeland Security, specific drug training, and participation
in 600–700 narcotics investigations. He also testified that he
calculated the wholesale and retail value of the drugs in
Jimenez’s car by speaking to one informant and three law
enforcement officers working in the area and by consulting
a publication that compiled drug prices reported by law
enforcement. After Jimenez’s counsel questioned Agent
Lewenthal about his qualifications, the district court
designated him an expert, and Agent Lewenthal offered his
opinion regarding the value of the drugs: over $60,000 of
methamphetamine and nearly $250,000 of cocaine. Jimenez
later renewed his objection to Agent Lewenthal’s
qualification as an expert and questioned the method by
which he calculated drug values. The district court declined
to strike Agent Lewenthal’s testimony based on the
Government’s failure to provide an expert disclosure.
                       C. Sentencing
    The jury found Jimenez guilty. At sentencing, Jimenez
argued that he qualified for a minor-role reduction under
U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2. The district court considered the five
factors listed in the Guidelines and declined to grant Jimenez
the requested reduction. The district court sentenced Jimenez
to 86 months’ imprisonment with five years of supervised
release. Jimenez timely appealed.
                     II. DISCUSSION
                       A. Prior Acts
    Jimenez first argues that the evidence of his prior drug
transports in May 2019 was improper propensity evidence.
Courts may not admit evidence of a defendant’s prior acts to
suggest that the defendant is more likely guilty of the
                   USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                   9

charged crime because of his past behavior (i.e., the
“propensity inference”). Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1). But the
same evidence may be admissible for other purposes,
including to prove knowledge and intent. Fed. R. Evid.
404(b)(2). To admit evidence of prior acts, courts proceed in
two steps. First, the court determines whether the prior-act
evidence is admissible for a proper purpose under Rule
404(b)(2). United States v. Holiday, 998 F.3d 888, 895 (9th
Cir. 2021), vacated, 142 S. Ct. 2857 (2022), aff’d in
pertinent part, 53 F.4th 501 (9th Cir. 2022). Second, if the
evidence is admissible for a non-propensity purpose, the
court determines whether the evidence nonetheless should
be excluded under Rule 403 as unduly prejudicial. Id. We
review the district court’s “[e]videntiary rulings admitting
evidence of other acts under Federal Rule of Evidence
404(b) . . . for an abuse of discretion,” although we review
whether such evidence is relevant to the crime charged de
novo. United States v. Rodriguez, 880 F.3d 1151, 1167 (9th
Cir. 2018) (citation omitted). “We review the district court’s
admission of evidence under Rule 403 for an abuse of
discretion.” United States v. Cox, 963 F.3d 915, 925 (9th Cir.
2020).
                      1. Rule 404(b)
    Prior-acts evidence must satisfy four requirements to be
admissible under Rule 404(b)(2): (1) it must tend to prove a
material issue; (2) the prior acts must not be too remote in
time; (3) there must be sufficient evidence for a reasonable
jury to conclude that the defendant committed the prior acts;
and (4) when used to show knowledge and intent, the prior
acts must be sufficiently similar to the charged offense.
Rodriguez, 880 F.3d at 1167; United States v. Plancarte-
Alvarez, 366 F.3d 1058, 1062 (9th Cir. 2004).
10                 USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

    Initially, we note that the second and third requirements
are satisfied. The smuggling incidents that the Government
introduced occurred within five months of Jimenez’s arrest.
Cf. United States v. Lozano, 623 F.3d 1055, 1059–60 (9th
Cir. 2010) (evidence that the defendant had possessed drugs
eight months before the charged offense was not too remote).
The Government also introduced sufficient evidence for the
jury to reasonably conclude that Jimenez had smuggled
drugs in May 2019, including testimony from Ramos,
corroborating cellphone data, and border crossing records.
    To satisfy the first and fourth requirements (relevance
and similarity), we have emphasized that the government
must show a “logical connection” between the defendant’s
knowledge obtained from commission of the prior acts and
the knowledge at issue in the current case. Rodriguez, 880
F.3d at 1167; United States v. Ramos-Atondo, 732 F.3d
1113, 1123 (9th Cir. 2013). The logical connection “must be
‘supported by some propensity-free chain of reasoning.’”
Rodriguez, 880 F.3d at 1168 (quoting United States v.
Gomez, 763 F.3d 845, 856 (7th Cir. 2014) (en banc)).
Jimenez argues that the evidence of his prior smuggling and
his knowledge in the current case can only be logically
connected through improper propensity reasoning. We
disagree.
    With regard to relevance, “[w]e have consistently held
that evidence of a defendant’s prior possession or sale of
narcotics is relevant under Rule 404(b) to issues of intent
[and] knowledge” in drug importation cases. United States
v. Vo, 413 F.3d 1010, 1018 (9th Cir. 2005) (quoting United
States v. Mehrmanesh, 689 F.2d 822, 832 (9th Cir. 1982));
see also United States v. Rubio-Estrada, 857 F.2d 845, 848–
49 (1st Cir. 1988) (collecting cases). Moreover, whether
Jimenez knew there were drugs in his car is an element of
                   USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                  11

his charged offense. 21 U.S.C. §§ 952, 960. Thus, we easily
conclude that the evidence that the Government presented
regarding Jimenez’s prior smuggling made his knowledge
that he was smuggling on the day of his arrest more probable
and is, therefore, relevant. Fed. R. Evid. 401.
    Jimenez’s prior acts were also sufficiently similar to his
charged conduct to satisfy the fourth requirement. The
Government presented evidence that Jimenez left his car at
a garage where it was modified to carry drugs, and that he
had previously crossed the border at the same time of day, at
the same location, driving the same car, wearing the same
work uniform, and storing drugs in the same location in his
vehicle. Cf. Plancarte-Alvarez, 366 F.3d at 1062 (admission
of a prior smuggling incident “close in time and remarkably
similar” supported “the government’s position that [the
defendant] was engaged in purposeful and repetitive
criminal behavior and was not . . . an innocent victim”).
     The logical connection between the prior acts of
smuggling and the charged smuggling does not require
propensity reasoning to establish knowledge and intent.
Jimenez does not argue that there were no drugs in his
vehicle when he was arrested; he argues that he did not know
the drugs were there. And it is not merely that Jimenez
previously engaged in drug smuggling that evidences he
knew drugs were in his vehicle, which would be
impermissible propensity evidence. It is how the prior and
subject smuggling occurred. The Government’s evidence
established that Jimenez took his vehicle to a garage in
Mexico, where it was modified to hide drugs. The evidence
further established that, on multiple prior occasions, Jimenez
left his vehicle at the garage where it was loaded with drugs,
drove across the border, and let another person drive his
vehicle away while he was at work and then return it. There
12                 USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

is no apparent innocent explanation for why Jimenez
repeatedly engaged in this pattern and allowed Ramos to
drive his car during his workday, nor has Jimenez offered
one. We have previously recognized that similar pattern
evidence can permissibly show that a defendant knew there
were drugs in his vehicle. See United States v. Beckman, 298
F.3d 788, 794 (9th Cir. 2002) (holding Rule 404(b) permitted
testimony that a defendant previously smuggled marijuana
across the border in the same fashion as the charged
conduct). Simply stated, the jury could conclude from the
evidence of the May 2019 events that Jimenez knew there
were drugs in his vehicle because the circumstances of his
prior acts indicated knowledge, as opposed to simply
concluding that Jimenez knew he was smuggling drugs
because he had done so in the past.
                        2. Rule 403
    Even if prior-acts evidence is admissible under Rule
404(b), district courts should exclude it if the danger of
unfair prejudice “substantially outweigh[s]” the evidence’s
probative value. Cox, 963 F.3d at 925 (quoting United States
v. Banks, 514 F.3d 959, 976 (9th Cir. 2008)). Jimenez argues
that the district court abused its discretion because the prior
acts evidence dominated the trial and invited the jury to
engage in propensity reasoning. Jimenez compares his case
to a First Circuit decision, United States v. García-Sierra,
994 F.3d 17 (1st Cir. 2017). There, the government
introduced evidence that the defendant had smuggled drugs
via boat from South America into Puerto Rico to show that
he knew he was smuggling drugs by the same means two
years later, for which he was charged. Id. at 24–25. As we
do here, the First Circuit found the prior-acts evidence
admissible under Rule 404(b) to show knowledge. Id. at 31
(“If credited, this evidence would tend to decrease the
                   USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                   13

likelihood that [defendant] was ignorant of the illicit purpose
of the sea voyage on which he had embarked . . . .”). But it
concluded that the district court nonetheless abused its
discretion under Rule 403 by admitting the evidence. Id. at
32. The court noted several facts: that the government’s
other evidence of knowledge was so strong that the probative
value of the prior acts was diminished; the defendant was not
clearly tied to the earlier smuggling incident; and the
“omnibus” jury instruction listing all the permissible uses for
prior-acts evidence under Rule 404(b)(2) failed to
adequately narrow the jury’s focus on the purposes actually
at issue. Id. at 33–35.
    García-Sierra is distinguishable from the present case.
Here, the Government’s evidence of Jimenez’s prior
smuggling had substantial probative value. The Government
did not have other evidence clearly demonstrating Jimenez’s
knowledge that drugs were in this vehicle during the incident
for which he was tried. Ramos was not involved in that
transfer, and there was no other direct evidence of Jimenez’s
knowledge. Indeed, Jimenez argued before the district court
that the evidence was prejudicial because it was so central to
the Government’s proof of his knowledge. Unlike in García-
Sierra, Ramos’s testimony directly tied Jimenez to the May
2019 incidents. And the district court here sufficiently
narrowed the jury’s focus by instructing it to consider the
prior-acts evidence for “intent, plan, preparation, and
knowledge, and for no other purpose.” In contrast to the
over-encompassing instruction in García-Sierra, 994 F.3d at
34, we have found more limited instructions like the one
given in this case sufficient to remedy the potential prejudice
from evidence of prior drug activity, Vo, 413 F.3d at 1017,
1019 (approving a jury instruction to consider evidence of a
14                     USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

prior drug conviction for “intent, knowledge, absence of
mistake, and for no other purpose”). 3
    For these reasons, we conclude that the district court did
not abuse its discretion under Rule 403 by concluding that
the evidence of Jimenez’s prior smuggling activity was more
probative than prejudicial and by admitting this evidence.
                     B. Cellphone Extraction
     Next, Jimenez argues that the district court abused its
discretion by allowing Agent Edasi to testify as a lay witness
about extracting and “parsing” location data from Ramos’s
cellphone; and about his interpretation of the GPS
coordinates and time stamps recovered from the cellphone.
Lay witnesses may testify to opinions that are rationally
based on their perceptions, but they may not testify to
opinions based on “scientific, technical, or other specialized
knowledge.” Fed. R. Evid. 701. A witness must testify as an
expert if offering opinions that require “demonstrable
expertise,” United States v. Figueroa-Lopez, 125 F.3d 1241,
1246 (9th Cir. 1997), or go “beyond the common knowledge
of the average layman,” United States v. Finley, 301 F.3d
1000, 1007 (9th Cir. 2002). A district court’s decision to
admit lay testimony under Rule 701 “will be overturned only
if it constitutes a clear abuse of discretion.” United States v.

3
  To the extent Jimenez argues the district court failed to adequately
explain the grounds for its decision, the record as a whole establishes that
the district court weighed the proper considerations. United States v.
Sangrey, 586 F.2d 1312, 1315 (9th Cir. 1978) (“As long as it appears
from the record as a whole that the trial judge adequately weighed the
probative value and prejudicial effect of proffered evidence before its
admission, we conclude that the demands of Rule 403 have been met.”).
The district court heard and actively participated in extensive argument
regarding the content of the evidence, its relevance to the charged crime,
and Jimenez’s concerns of unfair prejudice.
                   USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                  15

Barragan, 871 F.3d 689, 704 (9th Cir. 2017) (quoting United
States v. Gadson, 763 F.3d 1189, 1209 (9th Cir. 2014)).
     It follows from these principles that a lay witness may
testify to the information extracted from a phone so long as
the testimony does not require “specialized knowledge.”
Fed. R. Evid. 701(c); accord United States v. Williams, 83
F.4th 994, 995 (5th Cir. 2023) (“When law enforcement uses
Cellebrite to pull information from a phone and a lay juror
would require no additional interpretation to understand that
information, the party does not need to introduce the
evidence through an expert.”). Here, Agent Edasi testified
that he connected Ramos’s cellphone to a Cellebrite device,
used the Cellebrite software to extract and “parse” the data
into reports, reviewed the time-stamped GPS coordinates
listed on the location-data reports, and entered those
coordinates into Google Maps to identify where the
cellphone had been. GPS information is readily available
and understandable to the general public, see, e.g., United
States v. Brooks, 715 F.3d 1069, 1078 (8th Cir. 2013)
(“Commercial GPS units are widely available, and most
modern cell phones have GPS tracking capabilities.”), and
the Cellebrite report that contained this information was in a
format that was easily understandable to anyone familiar
with GPS coordinates. Agent Edasi’s testimony about this
information and how it was obtained largely was not opinion
testimony, and to the extent it was, it was based on his
perception and not specialized knowledge. Fed. R. Evid.
701; cf. United States v. Montijo-Maysonet, 974 F.3d 34, 47
(1st Cir. 2020) (a government witness was not required to
testify as an expert when “all she did was to read from the
[extraction] report”).
    Jimenez suggests that Agent Edasi did more than simply
extract data when he testified that he parsed and analyzed the
16                  USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

data to create a report. This argument misunderstands the
record. Agent Edasi testified that “parsing” means
presenting digital code in a legible format and that Cellebrite
is used for “analyzing and parsing data” and can create
reports that are easily understood without technical
knowledge. Our task here is limited to determining whether
the district court committed a “clear abuse of discretion” in
allowing Agent Edasi’s testimony. Barragan, 871 F.3d at
704. In context, the district court could plausibly have
inferred that Agent Edasi used Cellebrite and that Cellebrite
analyzed and parsed the data to create the report, not that
Agent Edasi personally parsed and analyzed the data. This
inference is all the more plausible because neither the
Government nor Jimenez elicited testimony from Agent
Edasi about how the data was parsed, the technical process
for how Cellebrite parses and analyzes data, or the reliability
of the Cellebrite software. Cf. Williams, 83 F.4th at 997 (“At
no point did he speak to the reliability of the software, except
that he double-checked some of the report by looking
directly at the source material in the phones themselves.”);
Montijo-Maysonet, 974 F.3d at 48 n.12 (“Perez ‘offered no
assurances about how well [the extraction software]
performed.’” (quoting United States v. Chavez-Lopez, 767 F.
App’x 431, 434 (4th Cir. 2019))). Contra United States v.
Wehrle, 985 F.3d 549, 554 (7th Cir. 2021) (requiring a
witness to testify as an expert when her testimony concerned
“technical     concepts,”     including       “reliability   and
safeguards”).
    The dissent suggests that the Government knew Agent
Edasi had to be presented as an expert and only sought to
recharacterize him as a lay witness because the prosecutor
failed to properly disclose him as an expert. It may be that
the Government originally intended to present Agent Edasi
                       USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                         17

as an expert, but that is not determinative of whether he had
to be presented that way. The content of the testimony
dictates the answer to that question. See Fed. R. Evid. 701–
02 (classifying testimony as lay or expert based on the
characteristics of the testimony, not the witness); see also
United States v. Caballero, 277 F.3d 1235, 1247 (10th Cir.
2002) (“[W]itnesses need not testify as experts simply
because they are experts—the nature and object of their
testimony determines whether the procedural protections of
Rule 702 apply.”). And here, Agent Edasi did not opine on
Cellebrite’s technical methodology or reliability, nor did
Jimenez-Chaidez raise a challenge related to those issues.
Rather, Agent Edasi described that he plugged the cellphone
into Cellebrite and that Cellebrite extracted data from the
phone and generated reports that were understandable to a
lay person. Thus, the district court’s conclusion that Agent
Edasi properly testified as a lay witness was not “illogical,
implausible, or without support in inferences that may be
drawn from facts in the record.” United States v. Hinkson,
585 F.3d 1247, 1251 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc). 4

4
   The dissent also suggests that cellphone location data must be
introduced by expert testimony. At trial, Jimenez did not object to the
location data itself (as opposed to the extraction of that data), so we
review its admission for plain error. Tan Lam v. City of Los Banos, 976
F.3d 986, 1006 (9th Cir. 2020) (citing Fed. R. Evid. 103(e)). It is
common knowledge that smartphones track users’ location using GPS.
See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 428 (2012) (Alito, J.,
concurring) (“[N]ew ‘smart phones,’ which are equipped with a GPS
device, permit more precise tracking [than cell towers].”); United States
v. Duggar, 76 F.4th 788, 795 (8th Cir. 2023) (a witness was not required
to explain how iPhone photos are tagged with GPS locations because
GPS’s “accuracy and reliability are not subject to reasonable dispute”
(internal quotations omitted)); see also Location Services & Privacy,
Apple, http://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/location-services/
18                     USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

    Our decision today does not foreclose that there may be
cases involving Cellebrite or other similar technology that
do require expert testimony, particularly where the
functionality or reliability of the technology is challenged or
otherwise at issue. That simply is not this case. The
Government limited the scope of Agent Edasi’s testimony to
his use of the Cellebrite software and his perceptions of the
data that the software produced that are readily
understandable without having him opine about the
software’s technical processes or reliability or other issues
that require specialized knowledge.
                          C. Drug Value
    Finally, Jimenez argues that the district court erred by
not making an explicit reliability finding related to Agent
Lewenthal’s expert testimony about the value of the drugs
found in Jimenez’s vehicle when he was arrested. We agree
that failing to make this finding was error, but this error was
harmless.
    A court may admit expert testimony when the testimony
is helpful, based on “sufficient facts or data,” and produced
by “reliable principles and methods,” reliably applied to the
facts of the case. Fed. R. Evid. 702. That is, expert testimony
is properly admitted when it “rests on a reliable foundation
and is relevant to the task at hand.” Primiano v. Cook, 598
F.3d 558, 564 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting Daubert v. Merrell

(last visited Mar. 14, 2024) [http://perma.cc/85ZM-JTGQ] (iPhone’s
Location Services uses GPS and Bluetooth where available). And it is
also well known that cellphones store some location data. A Google
search for “iPhone location stored,” for example, leads to several
different websites instructing users how to access historic location data
on their phones. The district court did not plainly err in admitting the
location data from Ramos’s phone.
                    USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                   19

Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 597 (1993)). District
courts have wide discretion in determining whether expert
testimony is reliable, but they cannot avoid making that
determination. United States v. Valencia-Lopez, 971 F.3d
891, 898 (9th Cir. 2020). “A district court cannot be silent
about reliability when challenged.” United States v. Holguin,
51 F.4th 841, 854 (9th Cir. 2022).
     Though Jimenez never used the magic word “reliability”
in objecting to Agent Lewenthal’s testimony, he did object
under Rule 702, explaining: “based on what the agent said
today . . . the way he came about the numbers in this
particular case . . . one informant, three people that he talked
to and one publication certainly doesn’t seem like a large
sample size or body of work . . . .” Cf. United States v.
Ruvalcaba-Garcia, 923 F.3d 1183, 1189 (9th Cir. 2019) (per
curiam) (applying the abuse of discretion standard where the
defendant “object[ed] to the qualifying [of the witness] as an
expert”). This was sufficient to trigger the district court’s
obligation to analyze the reliability of this evidence and state
its finding on the record. Holguin, 51 F.4th at 854–55.
    Nonetheless, we will not reverse the district court if the
government shows that, more likely than not, “the error did
not materially affect the verdict.” United States v. Gonzalez-
Flores, 418 F.3d 1093, 1099 (9th Cir. 2005) (quoting United
States v. Morales, 108 F.3d 1031, 1040 (9th Cir. 1997) (en
banc)). The government can show harmlessness in two ways.
First, an error is harmless when “the admitted expert
testimony was relevant and reliable under Daubert based on
the record established by the district court.”
Ruvalcaba-Garcia, 923 F.3d at 1190 (cleaned up). Second,
an error is harmless if the jury more likely than not would
have reached the same verdict even without the expert
testimony. Id.
20                  USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

    Here, Jimenez concedes that Agent Lewenthal was
qualified to testify as an expert. He challenges only the
reliability of Agent Lewenthal’s methods for calculating
American and Mexican drug prices. As to the wholesale and
retail prices for drugs in the United States, Agent Lewenthal
testified that he spoke with an informant, consulted three
other law enforcement officers working in the area, and
referenced a publication that other law enforcement officers
rely on for drug pricing. In light of his extensive experience,
and his reliance on sources trusted by others in the field, the
record shows that his testimony regarding drug prices in the
United States was reliable. Cf. United States v. Alatorre, 222
F.3d 1098, 1104 (9th Cir. 2000) (an agent was qualified to
testify to drug value based on experience, training, and
knowledge gained through investigations). And even if
Agent Lewenthal’s testimony regarding Mexican drug
prices was unreliable because the publication he relied on
does not cover Mexico, this evidence likely did not
materially impact the jury’s verdict. The high American
price of the drugs and their substantial quantity support the
inference that such valuable cargo would not be entrusted to
an ignorant courier. See, e.g., United States v. Recio, 371
F.3d 1093, 1105 (9th Cir. 2004) (“The substantial value of
the cocaine and marijuana involved in this case supports an
inference that drug smugglers would not have entrusted the
pick-up’s cargo to an unknowing outsider.”). Thus, we
conclude that the district court’s error in not making an
explicit reliability finding related to Agent Lewenthal’s
testimony was harmless error.
                       D. Sentencing
    Finally, Jimenez argues that the district court erred in not
granting him a minor-role sentencing reduction. After the
district court sentenced Jimenez, we clarified the process for
                   USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                   21

conducting the “mitigating role” inquiry under U.S.S.G.
§ 3B1.2. “The relevant comparison is to the other
participants in the defendant’s crime, not to typical
defendants who commit similar crimes.” United States v.
Dominguez-Caicedo, 40 F.4th 938, 960 (9th Cir. 2022);
United States v. Klensch, 87 F.4th 1159, 1163 (9th Cir.
2023). We outlined a three-step analysis for weighing
relative culpability. Klensch, 87 F.4th at 1163–64
(discussing Dominguez-Caicedo, 40 F.4th at 960). Because
the district court did not have the benefit of recent decisions
on this issue, we vacate Jimenez’s sentence and remand for
resentencing in line with our recent authority.
   AFFIRMED in part, VACATED, and REMANDED.

BENNETT, District Judge, dissenting in part:

    I concur with the majority with respect to the
admissibility of prior acts evidence under Rule 404(b) and
that the district court did not abuse its discretion under
Rule 403. I further concur that any error as to drug value was
harmless. Furthermore, I concur that this case be remanded
to the district court for resentencing in light of developments
in this Court’s jurisprudence with respect to the process for
conducting the “mitigating role” inquiry under U.S.S.G.
§ 3B1.2. However, the district court erred in allowing
Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent David
Edasi to proffer testimony regarding the data from Ramos’s
cellphone. The record before this Court makes clear that
Edasi’s testimony exceeded the scope of Fed. R. Evid. 701
and was clearly expert testimony within the ambit of Rule
702. The decision to treat Edasi’s testimony as lay testimony
deprived Jimenez of important protections provided to
22                  USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

criminal defendants under Fed. R. Crim. P. 16. Because I
would find that the district court abused its discretion in
admitting Edasi’s testimony and the error was not harmless,
I respectfully dissent. Jimenez’s conviction should be
vacated and the case remanded for a new trial.
    Before Jimenez’s trial began, the Government filed a
Motion in Limine to admit, among other things, the expert
testimony of Special Agent Eric Sajo, a “Computer
Forensics Analyst.” The Government indicated that Sajo
would “testify as to the process used to extract information”
from a cellphone seized from Jimenez, “the reliability of the
obtained data,” and “may offer an expert opinion that the
data was recorded, taken, or made on the date and time
reflected in the cellphone extraction report or related
[cellphone] summary charts.” The Government stated that
Sajo “[would] base his opinion on his background,
education, training, and experience, along with his
knowledge and use of accepted cellphone data extraction and
analysis.” Special Agent Sajo was the only such expert
mentioned in that motion, but he did not testify at trial.
    However, during the third day of trial, the Government
called Special Agent Edasi to testify concerning location
history data that he had extracted from a cellphone
connected to Alejandro Ramos—a key witness in the
Government’s case—to support the veracity of Ramos’s
testimony as to Jimenez’s prior, uncharged acts of
smuggling. Defense counsel objected under Fed. R. Crim. P.
16 and Fed. R. Evid. 702. The prosecutor stated that the
Government could “solve this problem,” explaining that it
did “not intend[] to tender Mr. Edasi as an expert,” but rather
that he was just going to “testify in his capacity as a forensic
examiner who looked at a phone and found some items.”
                   USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                  23

However, it is clear from the record that the Government did
elicit expert testimony from Edasi.
    The testimony began with Special Agent Edasi
explaining his role as a computer forensics agent, the
functions of that role, and his background and training in
digital evidence analysis. Edasi testified that he had
experience using Cellebrite, a mobile device data extraction
and recovery software, and further explained that he had
gained additional experience “in the area of digital forensics
since [his] train[ing],” stating that he had completed
“[a]pproximately 350” mobile device examinations. Edasi
defined certain digital forensic analysis terms that he would
use during his testimony. He explained that “extraction” is
“taking digital evidence and retrieving it off of a
device . . . kind of like making a copy.” He explained that
“parsing” is “another way to say that you are interpreting the
evidence and putting it in a language that [is] easy to
understand from a digital code to a legible end-user
language.”
    Special Agent Edasi recounted that on October 1, 2019,
he examined an Apple iPhone 7-plus with an International
Mobile Equipment Identifier of 359216072458515. When
the prosecutor asked Edasi to “describe the process of how
[he] conducted [his] examination,” defense counsel objected
under Fed. R. Crim. P. 16 and Fed. R. Evid. 702. After the
district court overruled the objection, Edasi explained:

       Typically what I do is I retrieve the device
       from our evidence storage facility. I open up
       the sealed evidence bag and take photos of
       the device. . . . I isolate the device from any
       network connections, which we put in
       something called a stronghold box . . . [that]
24                 USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

       doesn’t allow any cellular, WiFi or Bluetooth
       signals to enter. I verify that the device is in
       airplane mode, and then at that point, I would
       connect the device to a software tool to
       extract the data. Once that is done, then I
       would parse the data, analyze it and create a
       report.

Edasi confirmed he used Cellebrite for this specific
examination.
    During his testimony, the prosecutor asked whether
“device locations” “were . . . parsed as part of [the]
examination,” and Edasi indicated “[t]hey were.” Edasi
explained that “[d]evice locations are historical entries for
location data on the phone, so places that the phone had
been.” He testified that these entries produced “GPS
coordinates and locations that were on the device.” Edasi
stated that he checked the location represented by these
coordinates by putting them into Google Maps to “generate
a map.” According to Edasi, these entries showed that the
cellphone had been near Jimenez’s workplace on several
dates in May 2019. The prosecutor asked Edasi where he
found the locations, and Edasi explained “in a database that
is used for frequently visited locations.” The Government
further inquired whether Edasi “also parse[d] the device’s
log entries as part of [his] examination,” and Edasi replied:
“I did.” After the Government moved to introduce the log
entries into evidence, defense counsel renewed the Fed. R.
Crim. P. 16 and Fed. R. Evid. 702 objection “as to the
content of [the log entries] and the ability to explain them
without that basis,” which the district court overruled.
   In its closing argument, the Government relied on
Edasi’s testimony to demonstrate that the cellphone was at
                       USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                           25

the locations which he identified at the times at which he
testified. The Government explained that this data was “just
an entry in the phone that none of us would ever see, unless
somebody did a deep dive like this on our phones.” The
Government recounted Edasi’s testimony that the “phone
shows up at Ne-Mo’s from 10:36 to 10:44” on
May 21, 2019, “from 10:12 to 10: 21” on May 22, 2019, and
from “10:13 to 10:20” on May 30, 2019. The prosecutor
emphasized that this data shows that “a guy [drove] all the
way from Tecate to [a] place in Escondido for seven
minutes.” “That’s how you know,” the prosecutor
emphasized, that Ramos was honest about “what [he] and
[Jimenez] were doing together.” The majority accepts the
Government’s recharacterization at oral argument as to
Special Agent’s Edasi’s process in analyzing the phone. 1
This is contrary to the description provided by Edasi himself,
as explained in the record before this Court and as presented
to the jury.
    This Court has recognized that the distinction between
lay and expert testimony and the proper application of the
Federal Rules of Evidence are vital to ensuring a fair trial
because expert testimony has a “powerful nature” with
“potential to mislead the jury.” United States v. Rincon, 28
F.3d 921, 926 (9th Cir. 1994). Depending on the
circumstances, law enforcement testimony may be both

1
  During oral argument before this Court, the Government conceded that
Special Agent Edasi “was an expert, [and] he was intended to be called
as an expert . . . [until the Government] realized [it] had not turned over
the CV and . . . decided to present him as a lay witness at trial.” The
Government then asserted that Edasi mischaracterized what he did, and
that his testimony implied “more expertise than what he was actually
doing.”
26                     USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

expert and lay testimony, United States v. Reed, 575 F.3d
900, 922 (9th Cir. 2009), but this Court has cautioned:

         While witnesses who testify as an expert may
         receive “unmerited credibility” for their lay
         testimony, because expert testimony is
         “likely to carry special weight with the jury,”
         the converse is not true: a lay witness’s
         testimony carries no special weight, even if at
         points the lay witness has recourse to relevant
         background and training.

United States v. Gadson, 763 F.3d 1189, 1212 (9th Cir.
2014) (quoting United States v. Freeman, 498 F.3d 893, 903
(9th Cir. 2007)).
  The Advisory Committee Notes on the                               2000
Amendment to Rule 701 stress this exact concern:

         Rule 701 has been amended to eliminate the
         risk that the reliability requirements set forth
         in Rule 702 will be evaded through the simple
         expedient of proffering an expert in lay
         witness clothing. . . . [T]he amendment also
         ensures that a party will not evade the expert
         witness disclosure requirements set forth
         in . . . Fed. R. Crim. P. 16 by simply calling
         an expert witness in the guise of a layperson.

Fed. R. Evid. 701 advisory committee’s notes to 2000
amendments. 2 This Court recognized this important

2
  In affirming the district court’s decision to admit Special Agent Edasi’s
testimony as lay under Rule 701, the majority also obfuscates the gravity
of the Government’s failure to adhere to the requirements of Fed. R.
                       USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                          27

principle in United States v. Figueroa-Lopez, 125 F.3d 1241
(9th Cir. 1997): “The mere percipience of a witness to the
facts on which he wishes to tender an opinion does not trump
Rule 702. Otherwise, a layperson witnessing the removal of
a bullet from a heart during an autopsy could opine as to the
cause of the decedent’s death.” Id. at 1246.
    Here, Special Agent Edasi’s testimony crossed the
threshold into “expert” territory when he discussed the
technical aspects of data parsing and analysis and when he
explained his findings therefrom. This is because the process
of and conclusions drawn from digital evidence analysis
required “demonstrable expertise.” Id. Indeed, Edasi
testified that he underwent substantial training in order to
perform data analysis. Moreover, Edasi testified that
cellphone analysis required him to “interpret[] the evidence”
and translate it “from a digital code to a legible end-user
language.” This information is not within “the common
knowledge of the average layman.” United States v. Finley,
301 F.3d 1000, 1007 (9th Cir. 2002). The Government
acknowledged during its closing argument that the data was
of a sort that no layperson “would ever see, unless somebody
did a deep dive like this on our phones.”
    The majority has cited the opinion of the United States
Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in United States v.
Montijo-Maysonet, 974 F.3d 34 (1st Cir. 2020), emphasizing
the court’s finding that the use of forensic software to copy
information from a cellphone and display it on paper did not

Crim. P. 16, which include disclosure timelines “to provide a fair
opportunity for each party to meet the other side’s expert evidence.” Fed.
R. Crim. P. 16 advisory committee’s notes to 2022 amendments. Simply
stated, the Government deprived Jimenez of these important protections
when it failed to provide Edasi’s qualifications to the defense.
28                 USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

render the testimony expert when all the witness did “was []
read from the [extraction] report.” Id. at 47–48. However, a
closer reading of that opinion makes clear that the facts of
that case are distinguishable from the facts of this case. In
considering a second piece of the same officer’s testimony,
the First Circuit noted it faced a “closer call” because the
testimony “arguably ‘require[d] a technical understanding’
of the government’s forensic tools and their capabilities.” Id.
at 49. While the court did not reach a conclusive
determination on this question, instead finding any error
harmless, id., the reasons supporting this finding are
instructive. The court explained that the officer’s further
testimony “made it pellucid that she had no ‘training in
forensic tools,’” and “[t]hose clarifications dampened the
risk that the jury gave determinative weight to her
description of the government’s forensic capabilities.” Id.
That is clearly not the situation in this case.
    Here, Special Agent Edasi testified that “historical
entries for location data on the phone” are “places that the
phone had been.” While this may appear to be a mere lay
perception, Edasi’s statement proposes something more
conclusory: that the data stored in the phone and extracted
by Cellebrite demonstrates that the phone was where the data
places it. As suggested in Montijo-Maysonet, this conclusion
required a technical understanding of both cellphone
location logging and storage, as well as the Government’s
forensic tools’ capabilities to extract that data.
    In contrast to the officer’s testimony in
Montijo-Maysonet, Edasi specifically testified to his
extensive training in using forensic tools like Cellebrite. As
the Seventh Circuit has explained, “an officer testifies as an
expert when he brings ‘the wealth of his experience as [an]
officer to bear on those observations and ma[kes]
                   USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                  29

connections for the jury based on that specialized
knowledge.’” United States v. Gaytan, 649 F.3d 573, 582
(7th Cir. 2011) (quoting United States v. Oriedo, 498 F.3d
593, 603 (7th Cir. 2007)). Viewing the presentation of
Special Agent Edasi’s testimony in its entirety, it appears
clear that he did exactly this. Thus, Edasi’s testimony should
have been subject to scrutiny under Rule 702 because it was
based on “technical or specialized knowledge acquired
through [his] education and experience” as a forensic
examiner, and “therefore failed to satisfy Rule 701(c).”
United States v. Millan, 730 F. App’x 488, 489 (9th Cir.
2018).
    The errors presented by the expert presentation of
Special Agent Edasi’s testimony are further compounded by
a second assertion made by the Government: the inner
workings of the location data. The use and presentation of
data derived from cell towers requires expert testimony. See,
e.g., Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206, 2212
(2018) (explaining that testimony about cell-site data was
offered as expert testimony); United States v. Baker, 58 F.4th
1109, 1125 (9th Cir. 2023) (noting that the prosecution had
proffered the testimony of an expert who explained how
information about the cell towers to which the defendant’s
phone connected to on the night of the crime allowed him to
discern the phone’s movement toward the scene of the crime
and away from it afterward). Even setting aside this
oversight, the Government has at no point explained how,
and to what extent, data that may be purely “GPS” data is
distinct from cell tower location data. These reliability
concerns are not unfounded. See, e.g., Aaron Blank, The
Limitations and Admissibility of Using Historical Cell Site
Data to Track the Location of A Cellular Phone, 18 RICH.
J.L. & TECH. 3, 7 (2011) (describing various factors
30                     USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ

impacting the accuracy of cellphone geographic location
data).
    Lastly, the Government fails to acknowledge that the
data evidence is not relevant in the absence of establishing
foundation underlying the data. As the Supreme Court
explained in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S.
579 (1993), evidence or testimony must be relevant to the
extent that it will “assist the trier of fact to understand the
evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” Id. at 591 (quoting
Fed. R. Evid. 702). “[I]f the prosecution cannot muster any
independent admissible evidence to prove the foundational
facts that are essential to the relevance of the expert’s
testimony, then the expert’s testimony cannot be given any
weight by the trier of fact.” Williams v. Illinois, 567 U.S. 50,
81 (2012). In this case, the foundational facts required to
establish relevancy include the identity of the person in
possession of the phone at the relevant times and, central to
this appeal, whether the stored location history accurately
demonstrates the location of the phone. 3 If the location data

3
  It is notable that during Agent Edasi’s testimony, the district court
explained to counsel that “this witness examined a cellular telephone that
has not been connected to this case whatsoever,” and consequently, that
“there is no relevance as to any of this information so far.” Defense
counsel explained that her “suspicion is that the government is
introducing these location points to corroborate the evidence of what
they are suggesting” and that although “they had an opportunity” to
“make this point with their witness,” they did not, and therefore “should
not now be allowed to introduce a phone that we don’t know exactly its
province.” Defense counsel also explained that “it’s for the government
to show Alejandro Ramos is present at Ne-Mo’s Bakery” and that they
“don’t know . . . that he had this phone as this time.” The district court
agreed that “the link has not been established.” Nonetheless, after the
Government elicited testimony from Edasi that the iPhone was registered
to two Apple IDs—one with a name similar to Ramos and the other
                     USA V. JIMENEZ-CHAIDEZ                      31

is inaccurate or unreliable, it has no probative value. Thus,
in order to be probative as to Jimenez’s case, the cellphone’s
location history data must be shown to demonstrate where
the phone has actually, or even probably, been. In other
words, testimony as to the GPS coordinates identified
through cellular data extraction, whether one terms it expert
or lay, is entirely irrelevant without expert testimony as to
the underlying meaning and reliability of those extracted
coordinates. No such showing was made during Jimenez’s
trial.
    Accordingly, if Edasi’s testimony is lay under Rule 701,
Special Agent Edasi’s testimony should have been excluded
as irrelevant, as unsubstantiated and uncontextualized data
points are not “helpful to . . . determining a fact in issue.”
Fed. R. Evid. 701(b). Alternatively, the inescapable
conclusion is that Edasi’s representation that the “historical
entries for location data on the phone” extracted by
Cellebrite are, indeed, “places that the phone has been,”
constituted an expert opinion as to the reliability and
meaning of the data. The district court’s admission of this
testimony under Rule 701, despite the Government’s clear
attempt to sidestep Rule 16 and expert nature of the
testimony, warrants a reversal and remand of this case for a
new trial.
    Because I would find that there was clear error in the
admission of expert testimony proffered by Special Agent
Edasi with respect to the extraction of data from Ramos’s
cellphone, I respectfully dissent.

representing the name of Ramos’s girlfriend—the district court
concluded that the testimony cleared the “very low hurdle to make it
relevant under [Fed. R. Evid.] 401.”