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United States v. Benally,
No. 07-2194 (10th Cir., September 9, 2008) (Published): Expert Testimony: Benally was convicted of abusive sexual conduct with a child and sentenced to 240 months. AFFIRMED over a claim that the district court excluded "the testimony of an expert witness on false confessions who would have provided support for his claim that his confession to FBI agents was untrue."
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United States v. Leonel Mejia, a/k/a "Little Chino,"
No. 05-2856 (2nd Cir., October 6, 2008): Experts: Gang-related crimes reversed on the basis of error in the form of testimony from Hector Alicea, an investigator with the New York State Police, regarding the gang's "enterprise structure and the derivation, background and migration of the MS-13 organization, its history and conflicts...as well as its hierarchy, cliques, methods and activities, modes of communication and slang." The panel presented an excellent discussion of Rule 702 and "officer experts," noting that such an expert may "stray" in two ways: 1) by testifying about the meaning of conversations in general, beyond the interpretation of code words; and 2) by interpreting ambiguous slang terms based on knowledge gained through involvement in the case rather than by reference to the "fixed meaning" of those terms "either within the narcotics world or within this particular conspiracy." In this case, the panel did not quarrel with the District Court's ruling that Alicea was an expert on gangs, but reversed on the basis that his testimony exceeded the bounds of Rule 702 and the Confrontation Clause.
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