## Facts

- Jacqueline Panseta Brown was searched at an airport while traveling to Bermuda, and authorities found cocaine base concealed in her luggage.
- Brown claimed she did not know the cocaine was in her luggage.
- At trial, the prosecution sought to prove Brown’s knowledge by arguing that drug traffickers would not entrust a shipment of such high value to an unknowing courier.
- To support that theory, the prosecution offered testimony from a DEA agent qualified to testify about drug value.
- The DEA agent testified that the cocaine had an estimated value of about $217,000 in Bermuda.
- The agent acknowledged he would not have known the Bermuda value without information he obtained from another DEA agent.
- That other DEA agent had contacted Bermudan authorities to obtain the Bermuda price information that was then relayed back to the testifying agent.
- The trial court admitted the DEA agent’s valuation testimony, the jury convicted Brown, and Brown appealed, arguing the valuation testimony rested on hearsay.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by admitting a DEA agent’s drug-valuation testimony when the agent’s Bermuda price estimate was based on information relayed through another agent from Bermudan authorities, and Brown argued the basis was hearsay.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed Brown’s conviction.
- The court held the valuation testimony was admissible because an expert witness may base an opinion on information that would be inadmissible as evidence, so long as it is of a type reasonably relied upon by professionals in the field.
- The court rejected Brown’s hearsay objection to the valuation opinion on the ground that the challenged out-of-court information was used as a basis for the agent’s opinion rather than admitted as substantive proof of the underlying facts.

## Legal Principles

- Under Federal Rule of Evidence 703, an expert may base an opinion on facts or data that are not admissible, including hearsay, if such information is the kind reasonably relied upon by professionals in the relevant area.
- An expert’s reliance on out-of-court information does not automatically make the expert’s opinion inadmissible; the key question is whether reliance is reasonable in the field and whether the testimony is presented as an opinion rather than as a conduit to admit hearsay for its truth.
- Evidence offered to show the basis for an expert opinion is treated differently from evidence offered for the truth of the out-of-court statements; courts may allow the opinion even when the underlying statements would be inadmissible if offered directly.

## Conclusion

Brown’s conviction was affirmed because the trial court properly allowed the DEA agent to testify about the Bermuda value of the cocaine based on price information obtained through law-enforcement channels, since Rule 703 permits an expert to rely on such information when forming an admissible opinion.


United States v. Brown, 299 F.3d 1252 (1999)