Walton

MEMORANDUM **

Homer Lewis Walton and Leon V. Hackett appeal their drug trafficking convictions and Hackett also appeals his sentence. We affirm.

I

Both argue that Detective Gray should not have been allowed to testify about gang affiliation because it was not relevant to their involvement in a drug conspiracy and was unduly prejudicial. The district court carefully limited the scope of Gray’s testimony to the gangs’ modus operandi of selling crack cocaine on street corners or in front of houses and from rooms with red light bulbs in particular areas. This was what Walton and Hackett were charged with doing. Accordingly, the evidence was probative of how and why they distributed crack. See United States v. Santiago, 46 F.3d 885, 889 (9th Cir.1995); United States v. Winslow, 962 F.2d 845, 850 (9th Cir.1992). The government neither elicited references to other wrongful acts nor was the trial permeated with gang overtones, and a limiting instruction was given. In these circumstances we cannot say that the gang-related evidence was unduly prejudicial. See United States v. Takahashi, 205 F.3d 1161, 1165-66 (9th Cir.2000); Santiago, 46 F.3d at 889 .

Hackett also suggests that this…