United States v. Hankey

Lavern Hankey (defendant) and James Anthony Welch were tried together for their alleged roles in selling phencyclidine (PCP) to a confidential informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1996. Welch testified that police had entrapped him in the PCP sale. Welch also denied Hankey’s involvement in the drug transaction. The government (plaintiff) filed a motion in limine to rebut Welch’s testimony with Officer Mark Anderson’s expert testimony. After extensively questioning Anderson without the jury present, the federal district court found that Anderson was qualified as a gang expert and that his opinion testimony would be relevant and reliable. Anderson had worked for the Compton Police Department for 21 years and belonged to an FBI anti-gang task force. He had worked undercover with thousands of gang members, received formal training in gang structure and organization, and taught classes about gangs. He had personally known Hankey and Welch for 10 or 11 years, knew that Hankey and Welch were members of two affiliated gangs in the early 1990s, and had seen Hankey and Welch together in 1996. Anderson testified that he believed that Hankey and Welch continued to belong to their respective gangs because they remained in their neighborhoods; generally, people who left their gangs also left town. Anderson opined that a code of silence and pattern of retaliation among gang members and affiliates prevented Welch from incriminating Hankey. The jury acquitted Welch but convicted Hankey of distributing PCP and conspiracy. Hankey appealed, arguing that the district court had not properly applied the Daubert test to determine whether Anderson’s expert testimony was admissible.