United States Fourth Circuit

Defendant's convictions on five counts of narcotics trafficking are vacated and remanded, where: 1) although the district court did not err in accepting the FBI agent as an expert on decoding drug-related conversations, the district court abused its discretion in its evidentiary rulings regarding the decoding expert testimony because safeguards adopted by the district court to avoid the substantial risk of prejudice inhering in the jury's receipt of the decoding expert’s testimony were inadequate; 2) the errors were not harmless; and 3) the errors in the decoding expert's testimony so infected the entire trial that the judgment must be vacated and remanded for further proceedings.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/15/2014
• Published 05/15/2014

Judges

• DAVIS

Court

• United States Fourth Circuit

Counsel