Opinion ID: 844218
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Admission of Testimony Concerning the Perception of the Direction of Gunfire

Text: Defendant next contends the trial court erred by admitting Sergeant Harris's testimony concerning his opinion, based upon his experience as a deputy and firearms examiner in the sheriff's department, that a person might mistakenly identify the location from which a firearm was fired based upon the sound of the gunshot. Defendant's contention lacks merit. The prosecutor asked Sergeant Harrisin a hypothetical question paralleling Deputy Lyons's testimonywhether, in essence, a person who heard gunshots in such circumstances might mistake the direction from which the shots were fired. Defense counsel objected on the grounds that the question call[ed] for speculation and was not his expertise. After a brief sidebar conference, the trial court overruled the objections and the prosecutor repeated the question. Sergeant Harris testified that, drawing from his experience when [he] was working at the training academy investigating, from a tactical standpoint we investigated officer involved shootings and deputy involved shootings in the actual training of deputies under stress conditions, that once we put people under stress and shots are being fired, the determination of where a shot came from, even though we know the shot came from the right, the person might say it came from the left or vice versa. So under times of stress, determining where a shot came from often is not possible. Sergeant Harris agreed that although an individual might have said that he or she did not know where the shot came from but [he or she] heard it from the left, based upon that alone you can't necessarily say whether the shot was coming from the right or left. On appeal, defendant urges that the foundation for Sergeant Harris's opinion was too vague and skimpy. According to defendant, because Harris had no training or credentials in the science of acoustics or auditory perceptions, which was the subject of his testimony, his opinion was no better than a guess. To the contrary, as we will explain, Sergeant Harris's testimony was not based on the science of acoustics or auditory perceptions, but rather on his specialized expertise gained from his involvement in the training of deputies. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the testimony. (See People v. Catlin (2001) 26 Cal.4th 81, 131 [109 Cal.Rptr.2d 31, 26 P.3d 357] ( Catlin ) [the trial court's admission of expert opinion testimony is reviewed for abuse of discretion].) (14) `A person is qualified to testify as an expert if he [or she] has special knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education sufficient to qualify him [or her] as an expert on the subject to which his [or her] testimony relates.' (Evid. Code, § 720, subd. (a).) An expert witness's testimony in the form of an opinion is limited to a subject `that is sufficiently beyond common experience that the opinion of an expert would assist the trier of fact. . . .' (Evid. Code, § 801, subd. (a).) ( Catlin, supra, 26 Cal.4th at p. 131.) The witness's qualifications may be established by his or her own testimony. (Evid. Code, § 720, subd. (b).) In the present case, Sergeant Harris's testimony stemmed from his special knowledge [and] experience in training deputies at the academy. His opinions (that people under stress often are unable accurately to determine from where a shot came, and that if a person were to say that he or she heard a shot from the left this would not necessarily mean the shot did, in fact, come from the left) were sufficiently beyond common experience so as to assist the jury in assessing the significance of Deputy Lyons's testimony that it sounded to him like the first shots were fired from behind him and to his left. Accordingly, admitting this testimony was not an abuse of the trial court's discretion.