United States v. Julio Diaz
876 F.3d 1194 (2017)
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Rule of Law:
Expert witness testimony is not an impermissible legal conclusion, even if it uses language that mirrors the elements of a criminal statute, provided the terms used do not have a specialized legal meaning distinct from their ordinary professional usage and the testimony serves to help the jury understand the evidence.
Facts:
- Dr. Julio Diaz operated a medical clinic that began offering pain management and treatment in 2005.
- Between 2008 and 2011, Diaz wrote more than 50,000 prescriptions and prescribed over 5 million opiate pills.
- Several of Diaz's patients were prescribed, on average, more than 60 tablets per day.
- The government alleged that this aspect of Diaz's practice was a facade for the illegal distribution of narcotics.
- Diaz was charged with illegally prescribing controlled substances to nine specific patients.
Procedural Posture:
- The United States government indicted Dr. Julio Diaz in a federal district court on 88 counts of distributing controlled prescription drugs.
- The government proceeded to trial on 79 counts against Diaz.
- At trial, the government's expert witness, Dr. Rick Chavez, testified without objection that Diaz’s prescriptions were written 'outside the usual course of medical practice' and 'without a legitimate purpose.'
- A jury convicted Diaz on all 79 counts.
- The district court sentenced Diaz to 327 months in prison.
- Diaz (appellant) appealed his conviction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, arguing the expert testimony was improper. The United States is the appellee.
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Issue:
Does an expert witness offer an impermissible legal conclusion in violation of Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 704 by testifying that a physician's prescriptions were issued 'outside the usual course of medical practice' and 'without a legitimate medical purpose,' phrases that directly track the language of the elements of a crime under 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)?
Opinions:
Majority - Christen, Circuit Judge
No. An expert witness does not offer an impermissible legal conclusion by testifying in such a manner. Federal Rule of Evidence 704(a) abolished the old 'ultimate issue' rule, but it does not permit an expert to state an opinion as to a legal conclusion. The dispositive question is whether the terms used by the expert have a 'separate, distinct and specialized meaning in the law different from that present in the vernacular.' Here, the phrases 'outside the usual course of medical practice' and 'without a legitimate medical purpose' do not have a specialized legal meaning; they are used in their ordinary, medical sense to describe a standard of professional conduct. The expert testimony was necessary to help the lay jury understand whether Diaz's conduct comported with the standard of care in the medical community and was therefore admissible under Rule 702. The expert was not instructing the jury on the law but was providing a professional opinion based on specialized knowledge.
Analysis:
This decision clarifies the boundary between permissible expert opinion on an ultimate factual issue and an impermissible legal conclusion under Federal Rule of Evidence 704. It establishes that an expert can testify using language that tracks the elements of a statute, as long as the terms are grounded in the standards of the expert's profession rather than a specialized legal definition. This ruling provides a clear framework for prosecutors in cases involving professional malpractice or criminal conduct, allowing experts to opine directly on whether a defendant's actions met professional standards. The holding aligns the Ninth Circuit with the Fourth, Sixth, and other circuits, creating a consistent approach to this common evidentiary issue.
