Opinion ID: 2153490
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Scope of Expert Testimony

Text: Clark asserts that the trial court erred in limiting the scope of his expert witness's testimony. Clark presented to the jury the testimony of Neil Rubin, a retired New York City fire marshall. Rubin testified about the nature of arson fires started with a gasoline accelerant. He stated that in this case one gallon of gasoline was poured in the entryway and began to evaporate, filling the closed entryway with gasoline vapors. Rubin testified that the gasoline would have exploded upon ignition, instantly creating temperatures above 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. Rubin further testified without objection that anyone burned in such an explosion would lose all facial hair, eighty percent of the time your ears are burnt off, and if you happen to be unfortunate and take a deep breath, you'll sear your lungs and it is almost always fatal. Record at 775. Clark's attorney then asked Rubin a series of questions intended to distinguish Clark's burns from those likely to be caused by such a gasoline vapor explosion. The State objected on grounds that Rubin was not a medical doctor and therefore could not testify as to Clark's burns. The court sustained the objection. Clark argues on appeal that Rubin, although not a medical doctor, was competent to testify about the probable cause of Clark's burns. In support, Clark argues that medical doctors should not be allowed to monopolize the field of expert evidence about burns. Clark also points out that as a result of his own indigency, his family pooled its resources to pay for Rubin to testify at trial, but could not have afforded to pay both a fire expert and a medical expert. The trial court denied Clark's request for public funds to hire expert witnesses, a request Clark says should have been granted under Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 105 S.Ct. 1087, 84 L.Ed.2d 53 (1985) (due process requires public funds to pay for a psychiatrist when insanity is an indigent defendant's only defense in a capital case). In light of that denial, he argues that the court should have afforded his sole expert considerable latitude. In response, the State argues only that Clark has waived this issue by failing to make an offer of proof at trial. The State is correct that an offer of proof is generally required in order to preserve on appeal a claim that the court improperly excluded evidence at trial. See, e.g., French v. State (1980), 273 Ind. 251, 258, 403 N.E.2d 821, 826. The offer to prove permits an appellate court to assess whether the erroneous exclusion of particular evidence caused the offering party any prejudice. When the content of the excluded evidence is already on the record, however, such a review can be undertaken. In this case, defense counsel asked Rubin whether Clark's skin looked like the skin of a man who had been exposed to a gasoline vapor explosion, and he answered, No... . There would be extensive scarring. Very deep burns. Severe burns almost to the bone. It takes years of grafting. Record at 783. The State objected, and the trial court struck Rubin's answer. Clark's attorney then attempted to get at the answer in a variety of other ways. The State objected to each subsequent question, and the court sustained each objection. It was not necessary for Clark to make an offer of proof after each objection was sustained because the substance of Rubin's testimony was already on the record as a result of his answer to the first question. Thus, Clark's failure to make a formal offer of proof does not prevent this Court from reaching the merits of his claim. Turning to the merits, this Court's standard of review is well settled. The determination of whether a witness is qualified to testify as an expert witness lies within the sound discretion of the trial court, and its decision will not be set aside unless there is manifest abuse of discretion. Niehaus v. State (1977), 265 Ind. 655, 359 N.E.2d 513, cert. denied, 434 U.S. 902, 98 S.Ct. 297, 54 L.Ed.2d 188 (1977); see also Martin v. Roberts (1984), Ind., 464 N.E.2d 896. An expert may be allowed to testify if the subject matter of the testimony is beyond the understanding of a layman, and if the expert has sufficient skill and knowledge in the field to aid the trier of fact in its search for the truth. Martin, 464 N.E.2d at 901. Because the specific effect of arson fires on humans and buildings is beyond the understanding of laymen, expert testimony on the subject would be helpful to the jury. Rubin appears to have had sufficient skill and knowledge in the field of arson investigations. Testimony at trial revealed that an arson investigator normally determines the cause of a fire by looking at its effects. An arson investigator may certainly use his contemporaneous observations of the inanimate objects consumed in the fire to form an opinion about the cause of a fire. For example, in this case, spalling of cement, alligatoring and other changes in the physical structure of the apartment building were often referred to as characteristic signs of an accelerated arson fire. Likewise, an arson investigator may observe the contemporaneous burns of persons injured in the fire, and reach conclusions from those observations, even though the arson investigator is not a medical doctor. Cf. Borden v. Cyphers (1985), Ind. App., 486 N.E.2d 635 (non-medical doctor permitted to testify regarding effects of polyvinyl chloride fumes on the human body). The record in this case shows that Rubin often traveled to hospitals and morgues to examine persons who had been burned in fires and that he relied upon these observations in determining the cause of fires. This is not to say, however, that the limitation placed on Rubin's testimony by the trial court was an abuse of discretion. Rubin testified without objection as to the immediate effects of a gasoline vapor explosion on the human body. Record at 775-80. The State's objections to the questioning began only when Clark's attorney asked Rubin to examine the current condition of Clark's burns at the time of trial. Clark had been burned nearly nine months before the trial. In those nine months, he had been hospitalized and treated for the burns. Clark's attorney did not establish that Rubin was capable of relating a nine-month-old healed or healing burn back to its original appearance, let alone all the way back to its cause. Absent some demonstration that Rubin was qualified to testify about the treatment and healing of human skin, it was rational for the trial court to conclude that such matters were not within his expertise. Moreover, the excluded testimony was cumulative. Rubin had already testified about the probable effects of a gas vapor explosion on the human body, and several witnesses had described the extent of Clark's burns. There was ample evidence in the record to show that Clark did not exhibit those injuries that Rubin testified were typical of a gas vapor explosion. Clark's hair was singed but intact, his ears were burned, but not burned off, and his facial hair and nasal hair were singed but not burned off. The trial court correctly allowed all of these facts into evidence; it merely refused to allow Rubin to contrast the burns one would likely receive in a gas vapor explosion with the appearance of Clark's burns nine months later. The contrast Clark's counsel wanted to make through Rubin was obvious to a layperson and did not require testimony from an expert. Clark's counsel was free to make the distinction at final argument, and did in fact do so. There is no doubt that the jury heard evidence on the defendant's theory that he could not have been present at the ignition of the fire because his burns were not consistent with burns usually suffered in the initial explosion of gasoline in a confined space. The jury rejected this theory, as it was free to do. Because the excluded testimony on this point was cumulative and not demonstrably within Rubin's expertise, the trial court's decision to limit Rubin's testimony was not an abuse of its discretion.