Opinion ID: 2570629
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Admission of Toxicology Expert's Testimony

Text: Moore also argues that the district judge erred in excluding Martinez' proffered testimony. Moore asserts that this claim of error should be reviewed de novo. The State maintains that the appropriate standard by which to review the admission or exclusion of such evidence is abuse of discretion. Traditionally, this court has stated that `[t]he admission of expert testimony lies within the sound discretion of the trial court. Its decision will not be overturned absent an abuse of such discretion. One who asserts an abuse of discretion bears the burden of showing such abuse.' State v. Brice, 276 Kan. 758, 775, 80 P.3d 1113 (2003) (quoting Irvin v. Smith, 272 Kan. 112, 125, 31 P.3d 934 [2001]). However, little turns on whether the court `label[s] review of this particular question abuse of discretion or de novo, for an abuse-of-discretion standard does not mean a mistake of law is beyond appellate correction. A district court by definition abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law.... The abuse-of-discretion standard includes review to determine that the discretion was not guided by erroneous legal conclusions.' State v. White, 279 Kan. 326, 332, 109 P.3d 1199 (2005) (quoting Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 100, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 [1996]). This court has recently modified the standard of review on such questions to reflect the actual analysis it applies: `[E]videntiary rules governing admission and exclusion may be applied either as a matter of law or in the exercise of the district judge's discretion, depending on the contours of the rule in question.' State v. Morton, 283 Kan. 464, 473, 153 P.3d 532 (2007) (quoting State v. Oliver, 280 Kan. 681, 693, 124 P.3d 493 [2005]). Here, the appropriate standard for review should be tied to the basis for the district judge's decision; but this is problematic, because the judge never explicitly ruled that the testimony could not be admitted. In fact, the district judge ruled in favor of the defense on the Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923), issue, i.e., the necessary scientific recognition and reliability of Martinez' methodology. Compare Kuhn v. Sandoz Pharmaceuticals Corp., 270 Kan. 443, 456, 14 P.3d 1170 (2000) (district judge failed to apply Frye standard correctly). Any further decision the judge may have made on whether an appropriate foundation had been laid for the opinion and whether the opinion itself was relevant and helpful to the jury were short-circuited by ruling that no voluntary intoxication instruction would be given and abandonment of the defense attempt to use Martinez to support Moore's theory of the case. The unusual order of events before the district judge is critical to our understanding. The district judge first heard the proffer of Martinez' testimony outside the presence of the jury. Apparently considering that proffer, among other evidence, he then ruled against the defense on its requests for instructions on voluntary manslaughter and voluntary intoxication. We regard the first decision on the voluntary manslaughter instruction as correct; the second decision on the voluntary intoxication instruction was incorrect. The court then reconvened in the presence of the jury, and the defense rested. At this stage, we can only attempt to reconstruct the reasoning behind this choice. But, without a voluntary intoxication instruction, there was nothing that Martinez could say that would be helpful to the jury or exculpatory for Moore. In circumstances other than those before us, we might find this order of events and the interrelationship between Moore's appellate arguments on the voluntary intoxication instruction and on Martinez' testimony troubling. Here, we do not. Our careful examination of Martinez' proffer convinces us that there was nothing he could have contributed to the jury's understanding of the case, even if the jury had been given a voluntary intoxication instruction. To begin with, the report of the urine screening performed shortly after Moore was arrested was not admitted into evidence. No foundation for it was laid, and no hearsay exception was established. This report was the sole basis for Martinez' expert opinion, and Kansas law requires an expert's opinion to be supported by admitted evidence. See State v. Gonzalez, 282 Kan. 73, 80-88, 145 P.3d 18 (2006). Second, even if a voluntary intoxication instruction had been given, Martinez admitted that he needed more information to opine on Moore's actual impairment at the time of the crimes. Although his report stated that habitual use of the massive levels of methamphetamine that would produce the values in Moore's screening report are known to result in toxic psychosis characterized by paranoia, delusion, hallucinations, bizarre and violent behavior, he was unable to testify about the timing of Moore's ingestion of drugs or the effect the drugs actually had on him in particular. We also see some similarity between this case and State v. Lawrence, 281 Kan. 1081, 1087-89, 135 P.3d 1211 (2006), in which we ruled that a treating physician could not testify about the effect that the risk of being injured or killed in a shooting may have on African-American men. We ruled that such general testimony could not be employed in that case to support an argument that a particular African-American man, defendant Kelly Jay Lawrence, possessed an honest belief in certain circumstances that he must use deadly force in self-defense. See Lawrence, 281 Kan. at 1088-89, 135 P.3d 1211. As we recognized in Lawrence, vague or speculative testimony about what may be true about certain members of a group on various occasions is not the same as testimony about what was true about a particular member of that group on a specified occasion. Finally, we observe that Moore did not object to the order of the proceedings before, or the order of the decisions made by, the district judge. And his arguments on appeal rest on the presumption that all necessary evidence had been considered by the judge when he made his rulings on this and other issues. Under what we are certain will be the unusual circumstances of this case, we are confident there was no error in the district judge's treatment of Martinez' testimony, regardless of whether we apply the de novo standard of review urged by the defense or the abuse of discretion standard advocated by the State.