United States v. Brendan Gates

USCA11 Case: 24-10369 Document: 63-1 Date Filed: 05/27/2026 Page: 1 of 3

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 24-10369 ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus BRENDAN GATES, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 3:21-cr-00019-CAR-CHW-8 ____________________ Before JORDAN, JILL PRYOR, and NEWSOM, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: Brendan Gates appeals his convictions, following a jury trial, for conspiracy to possess over 50 grams of methamphetamine and grams or more of a methamphetamine mixture with intent to distribute, possession of 50 grams or more of methamphetamine USCA11 Case: 24-10369 Document: 63-1 Date Filed: 05/27/2026 Page: 2 of 3

2 Opinion of the Court 24-10369 with intent to distribute, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. Following review of the record and the parties’ briefs, we affirm.

Ashley Bailey, a government witness, testified on direct ex- amination at trial that, after she had engaged in narcotics transac- tions with Mr. Gates, she spoke to his girlfriend, Kaitlyn Lackey.

Ms. Bailey then stated, without government prompting, that Ms. Lackey said that Mr. Gates had hit her. See D.E. 347 at 109. Mr. Gates objected, and the district court said, “Let’s not go into that.”

Id. There was no further testimony about the incident.

Mr. Gates moved for a mistrial, but the district court denied the motion and gave the jury the following curative instruction: “Ladies and gentlemen, let me just tell you that it came out in the testimony something about some domestic violence, and I imme- diately said that that was not appropriate. And so y’all just need to completely disregard that. Just forget about it. It should have no bearing whatsoever on anything related to this case.” Id. at 115.

On appeal, Mr. Gates contends that the testimony by Ms. Bailey about him hitting Ms. Lackey warrants a new trial because no curative instruction could have cured the prejudice that re- sulted. We review the denial of a motion for a mistrial for abuse of discretion. See, e.g., United States v. Ramirez, 426 F.3d 1344, 1353 (11th Cir. 2005).

For a number of reasons, we conclude that the district court did not err in denying the motion for a mistrial. First, the statement USCA11 Case: 24-10369 Document: 63-1 Date Filed: 05/27/2026 Page: 3 of 3

24-10369 Opinion of the Court 3 by Ms. Bailey was isolated and not elicited by the government. Sec- ond, the district court gave the jury a curative instruction, and as a general matter “[w]e presume that the jury followed [a] . . . cura- tive instruction[.]” United States v. Lopez, 590 F.3d 1238, 1256 (11th Cir. 2009). This is therefore not a case like United States v. Hands, 184 F.3d 1322, 1332 (11th Cir. 1999), where the prosecutor asked the defendant during his testimony whether he had beaten his wife, in- troduced into evidence photographs depicting the alleged beating, and the district court did not give a limiting or curative instruction.

In addition, the testimony by Ms. Bailey was not prejudicial given the substantial evidence of Mr. Gates’ guilt presented by the government. This evidence included the eyewitness testimony of various witness (like Ms. Bailey and Ms. Lackey) about Mr. Gates’ narcotics activity and firearm possession; the evidence found in the bedroom of the home Mr. Gates shared with Ms. Bailey (e.g., methamphetamine, a pistol, drug paraphernalia, cellphones, a watch, and Mr. Gates’ driver’s license); a photograph in one of the cell phones of a man’s hands holding a significant quantity of meth- amphetamine with a watch on one wrist matching the one found in the search and tattoos on one wrist matching those of Mr. Gates; and photographs showing Mr. Gates weighing and bagging meth- amphetamine for a customer. “We need not reverse [a] conviction if the [evidentiary] error ‘had no substantial influence on the out- come and sufficient evidence uninfected by error supports the ver- dict.’” Hands, 184 F.3d at 1329 (citation omitted).

AFFIRMED.