Opinion ID: 2233565
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admissibility Of Expert Testimony Regarding Blood Identification Factors Other Than A, B, O Grouping.

Text: Defendant contends that the court erred in denying his motion in limine objecting to Riis' testimony regarding the enzyme analysis of the blood samples. Defendant's objection to the admission of this testimony was based upon Riis' alleged lack of credentials as an expert witness and upon the ground that the enzyme analysis identification process is not a type of test reasonably relied upon by experts in the field. We hold that neither objection is well taken. The admission of expert testimony is governed by our court-adopted rules of evidence. SDCL 19-15-2 provides: If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise. As we indicated in State v. Shell, 301 N.W.2d 669 (S.D.1981), the foregoing rule is patterned after Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. In Shell we adopted the same standard of review with respect to our rule that the federal courts have applied to Rule 702. Under this standard, the trial court has broad discretion in determining the qualifications of expert witnesses and in admitting expert testimony. The trial court's decisions in this regard will not be reversed in the absence of a clear showing of an abuse of that discretion. We hold that there was no abuse of discretion by the trial court in admitting the challenged testimony in view of Riis' academic and post-academic training, as well as his experience in conducting serologic tests of blood samples. As did the trial court in Shell, supra, the trial court gave the jury in the present case an appropriate instruction concerning its right to give the expert testimony the weight to which it found it to be entitled. Likewise, we hold that the trial court did not err in overruling defendant's challenge to the scientific reliability of the enzyme analysis procedure. In State v. Helmer, 278 N.W.2d 808 (S.D. 1979), we applied to breathalyzer test results the test of admissibility of scientific evidence set forth in Frye v. United States, 293 Fed. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923). To be admissible under the Frye test, the scientific principle or technique must be shown to have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs. 293 Fed. at 1014. In support of his contention that the enzyme testing procedure of dried blood samples does not meet the test of scientific reliability set forth in Frye, defendant cites Johakait, Will Blood Tell? Genetic Markers in Criminal Cases, 31 Emory L.J. 833, 880 (1982): While experiments with laboratory-prepared bloodstains indicate that blood group factors persist in aged samples, there is no guarantee that these markers will remain unchanged in evidential material. Phenotypes in some contaminated, dried, or putrified blood may be in an altered and degraded state which gives an unambiguous but false reading. (emphasis in original) (footnote omitted) (quoting Zajac, Bloodstain Phenotyping in Crime Laboratory Casework, Handbook for Forensic Individualization of Human Blood and Bloodstains at 160 (B. Grunbaum ed. 1981)). We conclude that Riis' testimony regarding the acceptance by forensic serologists of the tests that he employed in this case constituted an adequate basis for the trial court's determination that the results of those tests should be presented to the jury. Although we are satisfied that the Frye test of admissibility was satisfied in the case before us, we note that with the advent of the Federal Rules of Evidence, and in particular Rule 702, the time may have come to reexamine the Frye standard. For excellent discussions of this issue, see McCormick, Scientific Evidence: Defining a New Approach to Admissibility, 67 Iowa L.Rev. 879 (1982) and State v. Brown, 297 Or. 404,687 P.2d 751 (1984). We need not make that reexamination here, however, given our holding on the admissibility of the challenged testimony.