United States v. Moralez, No. 14-3702 (8th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed his conviction and sentence for distributing cocaine and other offenses. The court held that district courts and counsel should take appropriate measures to minimize the problems that may arise from dual-role testimony by a case agent. Affording proper deference to the district court, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting a case agent's expert testimony in this case. The court also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by applying a three-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. 3B1.1(b) because defendant was a manager-supervisor; the district court did not clearly err in its drug quantity calculation; and the sentence was substantively reasonable where the district court gave a reasoned explanation under the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Beam, Author, with Loken and Shepherd, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. Where a law enforcement officer in charge of the investigation testifies both as a fact witness and as an expert witness, district courts and counsel should take appropriate measures to minimize the problems which may arise from dual-role testimony; here, the questioning and the jury instructions sufficiently guarded against the problems, and it was not an abuse of the trial court's discretion to permit the agent's expert testimony on drug jargon; no error in imposing a manager-supervisor enhancement under Guidelines 3B1.1(b); drug quantity calculations were supported by the preponderance of the evidence; the sentence imposed - an upward variance - was substantively reasonable.
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