Significant Fourth Circuit Drug Case

Because our appellate courts often find the Fourth Circuit’s opinions to be persuasive authority, I read all the Fourth Circuit’s published criminal cases. Yesterday, the court decided United States v. Johnson, a drug case involving two noteworthy issues.

The short version of the facts is as follows: Officers wiretapped a suspected drug dealer’s phone. The suspect had several conversations with the defendant. The conversations consisted of slang that the officers interpreted as evidence of a drug conspiracy. The defendant was arrested and charged accordingly, and the case proceeded to trial. The government’s evidence consisted largely of (1) the recorded conversations, plus testimony from an officer about the meaning of the slang used in the recordings, and (2) evidence about the defendant’s prior drug activity, admitted under Fed. R. Evid. 404(b). The defendant was convicted and appealed, but the Fourth Circuit reversed.

First, it found that the trial court erred in admitting the officer’s testimony. It reasoned that (a) the officer was not offered as an expert, so his testimony was admissible, if at all, as lay opinion under Fed. R. Evid. 701; (b) Rule 701 allows lay opinion only if it is based on a witness’s personal knowledge and observations; and (c) the officer testified that he knew the meaning of the slang based on his training and experience, not his personal observations. Thus, his testimony was “expert testimony dressed in lay witness clothing,” and was inadmissible.

Despite that characterization, the court stated that the testimony would not have been admissible as expert testimony under Rule 702, either. Although several prior Fourth Circuit cases — cited in the opinion — allow officers to testify as experts regarding the drug trade and the language used therein, they may do so only when they can show that “reliable principles and methods” support their testimony. In this case, the officer did not testify in any detail about his principles and methods, and indeed, the government admitted that the phrases he interpreted were not “typical drug code” and did not have a fixed meaning in the drug world. (For example, the officer testified that “I’m going to hit you and let you know what’s happening” meant “when [I am] able to obtain cocaine, [I]’ll let [you] know so [you] can purchase it.”)

I don’t know of a North Carolina case that analyzes this issue in as much detail. I found several cases in which an officer testified in passing about the meaning of a term, but these cases do not focus on the propriety of such testimony. See, e.g., State v. Mackey, 352 N.C. 650 (2000) (officer explains that to be “looking” is “terminology indicating a desire to purchase drugs”). The most relevant case may be State v. Hargrave, __ N.C. App. __, 680 S.E.2d 254 (2009), in which the court of appeals held that officers properly gave lay opinion testimony that “the cocaine [found near the defendant] was packaged as if for sale and that the total amount of money and the number of twenty-dollar bills found on defendant were indicative of drug sales.” The court concluded that the testimony was based on the officers’ “personal experience” and “personal knowledge of drug practices.” I suspect that our appellate courts would view most testimony about drug-related slang, when offered by an experienced officer, as similarly grounded in the officer’s knowledge of the drug trade.

Of course, the line between an officer’s personal experience and her “training and experience” — which the Johnson court found to be an improper basis for lay opinion testimony — is not a sharp one. My sense is that the key to Johnson was not so much the specific theory of admissibility as it was the government’s concession that the terms at issue there were not typical drug code, and lacked any fixed meaning in the drug business. That concession calls into question the relevance of both the officer’s “training” and his “experience.” In effect, the officer was trying to translate a language that the government admitted he did not speak.

The second issue in the case was the Rule 404(b) issue. One of the government’s witnesses was an inmate who claimed that he had purchased drugs from the defendant nearly ten years earlier. The court ruled that this evidence should not have been admitted to show the defendant’s intent and knowledge. It found the prior conduct insufficiently relevant given the lack of connection in “time, pattern, or state of mind” between the earlier transactions and the charged offenses. This Rule 404(b) analysis is routine, and is similar to how North Carolina courts would address the same issue. Yet the case is noteworthy because the court found admission of the evidence to be reversible error even though the the trial judge had given a limiting instruction about the purpose for which the jury was permitted to consider the evidence. The Fourth Circuit has often placed considerable faith in limiting instructions, see, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 587 F.3d 625 (4th Cir. 2009) (expressing the court’s “presum[ption] that juries follow such instructions”), making this aspect of the opinion somewhat surprising.

3 thoughts on “Significant Fourth Circuit Drug Case”

  1. I would like for someone to help research my husband’s case, which up to today, the court’s decision still puzzles me.State v Jason Anthony Evans. Let me know what you suggest.
    Thanks,
    Pauline

    Reply
  2. My question is: What was the class offense for possession of marijuana 90-95(d)(4) from year 94-2008? My second question is: Has this law been amended since 94-2008?

    Thanks,

    Quasheba

    Reply
  3. Of course cops are going to use creative interpretation to imply nefarious conduct when they have no real evidence..not suprising at all. If cops were allowed to use their imaginations to establish what a suspect meant, no one would be safe from their machinations and deceipts.
    Suspect: ” I am going to the store and get some smokes “. Cops: I am going to a dealer and get some drugs “. This shows that cops have no lower limits, no conscience about doing anything needed, no matter how spurious, to get an arrest.

    “I’m going to hit you and let you know what’s happening”..that means to anyone without an agenda:” I will call you and keep you informed “..for the cop to fantasize that it means ” “when [I am] able to obtain cocaine, [I]’ll let [you] know so [you] can purchase it” is the height of imagination unsupported by any rational evidence. If the courts did not disallow such blatant guessing as to meaning, any conversation, no matter how innocent, could be made into a criminal issue by cops. who are the last people qualified to make judgements based on fairness and logic. The cops agenda is to bust and convict as many people as possible, using any means necessary…only the courts limitations on their zeal protect us from tragic results. Desperate for drug arrests, dedicated to the insane drug war, and with no moral compass to limit abuses, cops can and do exceed all bounds until reigned in by the courts. A police state is the perfect world for cops..unlimited authority with no oversight and a cowed and fearful populace bowing to their every command…to the rest of us, it is a nightmare, which proves how far we have strayed from what protect and SERVE really mean …now the cops want us to serve them, while they want the courts to protect them from accountability…it is bad enough that prosecutors can cover up their abuses with immunity, and allowing cops such opportunities to escape sanctions for their misdeeds is a moral crime. Allowing a cop to interpret vague terms is a recipe for abuses..they will always see what they want to see, even if it does not exist.

    Reply

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