consisted of tattoos and clothing containing devil’s heads and demonic insignia. In addition, the government’s evidence highlighted the name of the gang, the Diablos, which means “devils” in Spanish. The introduction of gang membership linked to satanic imagery is clearly inflammatory. The possible prejudicial effect of the gang testimony was further aggravated by the fact that the government had no direct evidence that the defendants were jointly transporting the drugs or were jointly intending to sell them. The highly charged gang-affiliation evidence served as a substitute for such direct evidence, increasing the chance of guilt purely by association. See United States v. Johnson, 28 F.3d 1487, 1497-98 (8th Cir.1994), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 768, 130 L.Ed.2d 664 (1995) (<HOLDING>); Thomas, 86 F.3d at 653-54 (same). This
holding appellate counsel did not provide ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to appeal district courts decision to admit evidence that defendant was a member of a gang because gang membership was relevant to show motive and intent holding the district court properly admitted expert testimony on defendants active gang membership holding gang membership admissible because it did not substitute for evidence of actual participation in the drug distribution conspiracy holding that evidence of gang membership was admissible because the testimony also reflected harriss motive for possessing these particular firearms holding that it was not plain error for the district court to find the police officers identification of a defendant as a member of the fresno bulldogs gang and testimony about the nature and identifying characteristics of the organization including drug distribution were relevant in a drug conspiracy case