## Facts

- The DEA began investigating Glenn Edward Scott after a confidential informant identified him as a possible cocaine dealer.
- At a DEA agent’s direction, the informant arranged a meeting with Scott for the evening of September 25, 2002, at a gas station on Interstate 10 in Houston.
- The informant was searched, equipped with an audio transmitter, and monitored by agents; agents also conducted surveillance of the meeting location.
- Scott arrived and entered the informant’s vehicle. During the recorded conversation, Scott instructed someone he called “Randy” to retrieve “that stuff” and meet them at a nearby McDonald’s.
- The informant drove to the McDonald’s while agents continued monitoring. An agent using binoculars observed events near the informant’s vehicle.
- At the McDonald’s, the agent saw a person the agent later identified as Scott exit the informant’s vehicle and walk to its hood area, where he met a person the agent later identified as Ronald Norman.
- The government introduced the audio recording of the transaction and a transcript. DEA agents testified as lay witnesses identifying the defendants’ voices on the recording and linking the transcript’s speakers to the defendants.
- Scott sought to use a Department of Justice (DOJ) manual on eyewitness identification to suggest the agents’ identification methods were unreliable and to question them about “proper procedure.”
- The district court declined to take judicial notice of the manual’s reliability or authority and limited cross-examination that relied on the manual as an external standard.
- A jury convicted Scott and Norman of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. They appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court erred by admitting DEA agents’ voice-identification testimony as lay opinion (and permitting related use of the transcript) rather than requiring expert testimony.
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion by refusing to take judicial notice of the DOJ eyewitness-identification manual and by limiting cross-examination based on that manual, including any claim under the Confrontation Clause.
3. Whether the evidence was sufficient for a rational jury to find Scott and Norman guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the convictions in a per curiam opinion.
- The court held that the agents’ voice identifications were properly admitted as lay opinion testimony based on familiarity gained during the investigation and monitoring of the recorded transaction.
- The court held the district court acted within its discretion in declining to judicially notice the DOJ manual and in restricting cross-examination that treated the manual as an authoritative measure of reliability or admissibility.
- The court rejected the defendants’ sufficiency challenges, concluding that the record evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, supported the conspiracy and possession-with-intent-to-distribute convictions.

## Legal Principles

- Lay opinion testimony is admissible when it is rationally based on the witness’s perception, helpful to the jury, and not based on scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge; voice identification may qualify when the witness has acquired familiarity through investigation and monitoring.
- Judicial notice under Federal Rule of Evidence 201 is limited to adjudicative facts that are not subject to reasonable dispute; the asserted reliability or authority of a government training or guidance manual is not ordinarily an indisputable adjudicative fact.
- Trial courts have broad authority to control the mode and scope of cross-examination to avoid confusion, undue delay, and collateral disputes; limits do not violate the Confrontation Clause so long as the defense retains a meaningful opportunity to test the witness’s observations and credibility.
- In reviewing sufficiency of the evidence after a jury verdict, the question is whether any rational juror, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, could find the essential elements of the offenses beyond a reasonable doubt.

## Conclusion

United States v. Norman held that DEA agents could identify the defendants’ voices on a recorded drug transaction as lay witnesses based on familiarity obtained during the operation, and that the trial court did not err by refusing to judicially notice a DOJ eyewitness-identification manual or by limiting cross-examination that relied on the manual as an outside standard; the Fifth Circuit also found the evidence sufficient and affirmed both defendants’ conspiracy and possession-with-intent-to-distribute convictions.


United States v. Norman, 415 F.3d 466 (2005)