Opinion ID: 882840
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: officer schumacher's qualifications

Text: The defendant also asserts that the officer's testimony is speculative and without foundation. We disagree. There is no question that Officer Schumacher was well qualified to testify as an expert regarding traffic accidents. She spends approximately ¼ to 1/3 of her job investigating accidents. She graduated from the highway patrol recruit academy in 1978 and has been an officer since 1979. She had additional training in 1985, 1986 and 1987 in on-scene accident investigation and technical accident investigation. In addition, she received 80 hours of training in accident reconstruction in 1989. She has personally investigated several hundred traffic accidents and testified in hundreds of traffic accident cases. She is well qualified to testify to accident investigations and to accident reconstruction. She has the training and experience to testify regarding her investigative work and conclusions based upon her investigations. Not only was the officer well qualified to testify regarding her reconstruction of the accident, the defendant was able to fully cross-examine her on her conclusions and she was listed as an expert on the State's witness list. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it allowed Officer Schumacher to testify. She did not provide information from the excluded report nor did she testify concerning any area in which she did not have sufficient expertise. AFFIRMED. TURNAGE, C.J., and HARRISON, GRAY and TRIEWEILER, JJ., concur.