## Facts

- A caller claiming to be a bank investigator warned the manager of a Wachovia National Bank branch in Atlanta that an extortion note would be delivered and instructed him to follow its directions.
- The next morning, a bank security camera recorded a man wearing a scarf and sunglasses placing an envelope under the bank’s front door.
- The envelope contained a handwritten note demanding $100,000 and directing delivery to the men’s restroom of a downtown Atlanta McDonald’s, with threats of violence for noncompliance.
- The FBI arranged a sting in which an agent posed as the bank manager and left a briefcase in the designated restroom.
- Agents observed Sunonda G. Paul near the restroom; after the agent exited, Paul re-entered, took the briefcase, and attempted to leave with it in his backpack.
- After arrest, Paul provided handwriting exemplars.
- An FBI document examiner compared the exemplars to the note and opined they matched, citing, among other things, identical misspellings.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion in qualifying the FBI document examiner and admitting handwriting-comparison testimony as helpful under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.
2. Whether admitting the handwriting testimony failed Rule 702 reliability requirements (including Daubert considerations) or created unfair prejudice by giving it an unwarranted scientific status.
3. Whether the district court abused its discretion by excluding the defense’s proposed rebuttal expert (a law professor offered to critique handwriting analysis and the examiner’s conclusions).
4. Whether prosecutorial remarks in closing argument required a mistrial because they prejudiced the defendant’s substantial rights.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the conviction.
- The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the government’s handwriting-expert testimony under Rule 702.
- Challenges to the scientific basis and potential error of handwriting comparison went to weight, not admissibility, given cross-examination and other adversarial testing.
- The district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the defense rebuttal expert, whose proposed testimony risked confusing the jury and was not grounded in forensic document examination.
- The prosecutor’s improper remarks did not warrant a mistrial because there was no reasonable probability the verdict would have differed absent the comments.

## Legal Principles

- Trial courts have broad discretion to admit or exclude expert testimony; appellate review is for abuse of discretion.
- Under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, expert testimony is admissible if the witness is qualified and the testimony will help the jury understand evidence or determine a fact in issue.
- Daubert reliability considerations are flexible; disputes about error rate or subjectivity may be addressed through cross-examination and argument and may affect weight rather than admissibility.
- A court may exclude proposed rebuttal experts whose qualifications do not match the technical field at issue or whose testimony primarily comments on another witness’s credibility or risks confusing the jury.
- A mistrial for prosecutorial misconduct requires a reasonable probability that the remarks affected the trial outcome and the defendant’s substantial rights.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit upheld the admission of forensic handwriting-comparison testimony as permissible expert evidence under Rule 702, sustained the exclusion of a defense “reliability critique” witness as within trial-court discretion, and found that improper closing remarks did not justify a mistrial absent a reasonable probability of a different verdict.


United States v. Paul, 175 F.3d 906 (11th Cir. 1999)