Opinion ID: 2319967
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Experts' Expressions of Certainty

Text: Appellant asserts that the trial court should have at least precluded the experts from stating their conclusions with absolute certainty excluding all other possible firearms. The government does not directly concede the point, but instead represents that the current policy of the United States Attorney's Office is to have firearms experts qualify their conclusions `to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty[.]' In light of the government's representation and the growing consensus that firearms examiners should testify only to a reasonable degree of certainty, see note 8, supra, we will assume, without deciding, that such experts should not be permitted to testify that they are 100% certain of a match, to the exclusion of all other firearms. Nevertheless, we agree with the government that any such error was harmless in this case. See Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). [11] Defense counsel thoroughly cross-examined the experts about three topics: their level of certainty; the subjective nature of their conclusions; and the lack of demonstrative evidence from which the jurors could assess their conclusions. Counsel pointed out, for example, that Morin was willing to conclude that a cartridge casing is matched to a particular gun to the exclusion of all other possible guns, even though he had not examined all those other firearms. Defense counsel emphasized that Mulderig had rendered an opinion of 100% certainty that [two casings were] fired from the same weapon[,] although he acknowledged there were inconsistencies between them. Counsel also questioned Mulderig about how he could tell with certainty that various marks were imparted to the case head by the gun instead of during the manufacturing process. Mulderig agreed that his conclusions were all subjective [based] on what you see in the microscope and concurred with defense counsel's assertion that none of you [examiners] are scientists[.] In a similar manner, Morin conceded that the concept of sufficient agreement is purely a subjective one[.] Morin agreed with the defense's observation that, in the firearms identification field, there's no universal agreement as to how many features of similarity constitutes sufficient agreement[.] Defense counsel also asked, [W]hat is there about this science that the average juror could look at to determine whether or not your conclusions are accurate? When Morin suggested that the jurors go back to [his] microscope, [where he] would show them the matching patterns, defense counsel pointed out that Morin didn't bring [his] microscope to court. In his closing argument, Jones's counsel used the examiners' expressions of certainty to his advantage. Counsel asserted that, in light of the completely and totally subjective nature of examiners' conclusions and the fact that neither examiner provided the jury with a visual depiction of the points of comparison where they found similarities[,] all [the jury] got from the experts was a trust me, this is the answer. The defense suggested that, as a result, when the experts said, I'm sure[, there's a match, h]undred percent[, t]ake it or leave it[,] the jury should leave it. In the face of this record, the jury's assessment of this evidence surely did not turn on the difference between a 100% certain conclusion and a reasonably certain opinion. Defense counsel did not present an expert to explain the difference or to opine that the government examiners' confidence in their results was unjustifiably exaggerated. Nor did the defense put on an expert to point out any weaknesses in the methodology employed by the government experts. In fact, even though the trial court made it possible for the defense to conduct an independent test, it chose not to have an expert testify at all. See Roberts v. United States, 916 A.2d 922, 931 (D.C.2007) ([W]hile `[n]o amount of attention to detail, auditing, and proficiency testing can completely eliminate the risk of error[,] ... the best protection an innocent suspect has from a false match is an independent test[.]') (quoting National Research Council, The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence (1996)). In sum, reversal is not warranted when the record is considered as a whole. An eyewitness to the murder identified appellant, who gave a detailed confession to a cellmate. Even if the government's experts had qualified their conclusions to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, the strength of the government's case would not have been appreciably diminished. In these circumstances, we can say, `with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened without stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error.' Goines v. United States, 905 A.2d 795, 802 (D.C.2006) (quoting Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239).