Opinion ID: 2624500
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Testimony of Joseph Orantes

Text: Defendant first asserts the trial court erred in excluding the opinion of Criminalist Joseph Orantes that the fact the killer dismembered or otherwise disfigured the victim would tend to suggest that he sought to hide the victim's identity, which in turn would tend to suggest that he knew the victim. Orantes would have testified that, sometime in the early 1980's, during a crime laboratory directors association meeting at FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, he attended a four-hour presentation on the elements of criminal profiling in which he learned that the presenters from the FBI had observed in a number of cases that when a victim is disfigured, it tends to suggest that the killer knows the victim. He also would have testified to his involvement in the investigation of two cases in which the killer disfigured the victim and knew the victim, and one case in which the police suspected, but could not firmly establish, such a connection. He acknowledged, however, that the information he received in the FBI course was anecdotal, lacked any statistical foundation, was not included in any published data and was intended for use only as an investigative tool, and that he could not remember the names or any details of the cases in which he was involved. (15) The trial court correctly found the proffered testimony, based on imprecise facts and limited experience, lacked an adequate foundation for an expert opinion (see Evid. Code, § 801 [expert opinion limited to special knowledge, skill, experience, training, education of a type reasonably relied on]), and was insufficiently probative on the issue of defendant's guilt. Even if the court abused its discretion, however, defendant has not established a reasonable possibility that the error affected the verdict. ( People v. Lancaster, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 94.) Defendant's conclusion, that the dismemberment of the body had a tendency to prove the killer was someone other than defendant, was speculative at best.