## Facts

- Police officers in Loíza, Puerto Rico, went to Melilla Street while searching for suspects in a prior shooting.
- The officers observed Luis Daniel Ayala-Pizarro and another man at the corner of a house the officers knew as a drug distribution location; both men had firearms.
- Ayala was seen attempting to cock a Cobrai Model M11 9mm semiautomatic weapon when officers approached.
- Officers detained and arrested Ayala and recovered 153 aluminum-foil-wrapped “decks” of heroin from his pocket.
- A jury in the District of Puerto Rico convicted Ayala of (1) possession with intent to distribute heroin, and (2) possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime; he was acquitted on two other firearms counts.
- At trial, an arresting officer testified that the location functioned as a drug point, described how such points operate, and stated that heroin at such points is commonly packaged in aluminum-foil decks; the defense objected that this was expert testimony offered without notice, but the court admitted it as lay testimony.
- Ayala received 24 months on the drug count and a consecutive 60 months on the firearm count, plus supervised release with drug testing and treatment conditions.

## Issues

1. Whether the officer’s testimony about a “drug point,” drug-point operations, and typical heroin packaging was inadmissible expert testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 offered without notice under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16(a)(1)(G), rather than admissible lay opinion under Rule 701.
2. Whether any error in admitting that testimony required reversal or was harmless given the other evidence.
3. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction for possessing a firearm “in furtherance of” a drug trafficking crime under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i).
4. Whether the supervised-release drug testing and treatment conditions required modification.

## Decision

- The First Circuit affirmed Ayala’s convictions.
- The court held the challenged testimony was properly admitted as lay opinion because it was grounded in the officer’s personal observations and experience with the location and common packaging encountered in his police work.
- The court added that, even if some testimony should have been treated as expert opinion, any misclassification was harmless because the physical evidence and circumstances strongly supported the verdict.
- The court found the evidence sufficient for § 924(c) because Ayala possessed a loaded semiautomatic weapon while holding a distribution quantity of heroin at a known drug point.
- The court affirmed the custodial sentence but issued a limited remand to modify supervised-release drug testing and treatment provisions to conform to controlling circuit law.

## Legal Principles

- Lay opinion under Fed. R. Evid. 701 may include a police officer’s testimony about drug locations and common packaging when based on the officer’s personal perception and experience from investigations, rather than on specialized methodology requiring Rule 702 treatment.
- Failure to provide Rule 16(a)(1)(G) expert-notice relief is not warranted when the testimony is properly lay opinion, the defense is not unfairly surprised, and cross-examination can test the basis of the officer’s perceptions.
- Erroneous admission of opinion testimony does not require reversal if it did not substantially influence the verdict in light of strong independent evidence.
- For 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i), a jury may infer “in furtherance of” drug trafficking from contemporaneous possession of a firearm and distribution-quantity drugs in circumstances consistent with drug selling activity, such as presence at a known drug point.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit upheld Ayala’s drug and § 924(c) convictions, concluding that the officer’s drug-point and packaging testimony was admissible lay opinion (or, at most, harmlessly misclassified) and that the evidence supported the firearm-in-furtherance finding; it remanded only to revise supervised-release drug testing and treatment conditions.


United States v. Ayala-Pizarro, 407 F.3d 25 (1st Cir. 2005)