Evidence — expert testimony

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Evidence — expert testimony

Although a police officer who testified regarding dye packs should have been identified as an expert, the error was harmless.

“We need not consider whether the error could be considered plain, because Brown cannot demonstrate that he would not have been convicted absent the error, or that the introduction of that testimony without complying with the expert testimony requirements resulted in a miscarriage of justice. First, Brown does not argue that Spano—who testified to having investigated between 800 and 1,200 bank robberies in his career—was actually unqualified, nor does he question the validity of the information as to the dye packs concerning the timers or the heat produced by the packs upon detonation. In other cases, we have held that the failure to raise any such challenge was itself enough to end the matter. See United States v. Tucker, 714 F.3d 1006, 1016 (7th Cir. 2013); York, 572 F.3d at 422. In fact, Brown even knew the nature of the testimony that Spano would provide, because the government had given Brown the exhibit concerning dye packs that it intended to introduce during Spano’s testimony, thus fulfilling some of the same purposes as the disclosure requirement. We need not rely on those grounds, however, because, more significantly, none of that evidence was damaging to Brown, and certainly none of it was so damaging as to constitute error that is plain and that resulted in a miscarriage of justice.”

Affirmed.

11-3864 & 12-1695 U.S. v. Jones

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Stadtmueller, J., Rovner, J.