09-2710 U.S. v. Lupton

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Evidence
Expert testimony

The expert testimony of an attorney was properly excluded where the witness offered only legal opinions as evidence.

“Even if Greenberg had been qualified as an expert, however, the district court would still have been within its discretion to exclude his legally interpretive testimony under the third and fourth rationales it provided. The court was correct in noting that the meaning of statutes, regulations, and contract terms is ‘a subject for the court, not for testimonial experts. The only legal expert in a federal courtroom is the judge.’Caputo, 517 F.3d at 942 (citation omitted); see also United States v. Stewart, 433 F.3d 273, 311 (2d Cir. 2006) (‘Clearly, an opinion that purports to explain the law to the jury trespasses on the trial judge’s exclusive territory.’). Greenberg’s exchange with the court demonstrates that he was acting-and even saw himself as-nothing more than a legal expert. Moreover, the legal interpretations he was providing related not to the statutes Lupton was charged with violating but rather to state statutes. Those statutes were relevant to Lupton’s defense, that what he did was legal under state law, but they were tangential to the crucial questions the factfinder had to answer, namely whether the government could prove beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of 18 U.S.C. §§ 666, 1343 & 1346. Testimony about them would have been of limited value at best and unduly confusing at worst; the district court did err in concluding that it fell nearer the latter end of that spectrum. See Fed. R. Evid. 403.”

Affirmed.

09-2710 U.S. v. Lupton

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Adelman, J., Tinder, J.

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