Opinion ID: 202113
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Stroop report and expert testimony

Text: 30 In the proceedings before the district court, Zajanckauskas based much of his defense on the Stroop Report — in particular, the section of the report in which the author, SS Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, wrote that the average daily deployment of Trawniki men in Warsaw was 335. As we describe in greater detail below, Zajanckauskas attempted to use this figure to undermine the government's claim that he was present at Warsaw. In its opinion, the district court rejected Zajanckauskas's argument. The court, however, also rejected the government's argument regarding the significance of this same average daily deployment figure. In rejecting the arguments of both parties, the court went on to provide its own opinion about the meaning of the average daily deployment number. 31 The appellant's first argument in this appeal is that the district court committed error when it interpreted the Stroop Report without the aid of expert testimony. Under Fed.R.Evid. 702, a qualified expert may testify when specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or determine a fact in issue. According to the appellant, the precise meaning of the numbers in the Stroop Report, a report written by a German general during World War Two, was a topic for an expert historian and was not to be resolved by resort to common knowledge. Therefore, the appellant argues, the district court should have relied on expert testimony to support its interpretation. 32 We do not believe that the appellant's argument here helps his case, because even assuming that he is correct and that the district court was not permitted to make a determination about the potential meaning of numbers in the Stroop Report without the aid of expert witnesses, we do not think that the district court based its eventual finding on its own interpretation. In its Memorandum of Decision, the court recognized that it could offer no definitive explanation of the numbers in the Stroop Report. This derived, in large part, from the fact that there was no way to replicate Stroop's precise calculations. Several factors were unknown to the court, including the number of days Stroop had used to calculate the average in the report's average daily deployment, the exact criteria for declaring a man available for duty, and whether kitchen staff were counted as being available. This uncertainty prevented its own view from being anything more than an interpretation. Nonetheless — to use the court's precise terminology — it was confident that whatever the true meaning of the Stroop Report, under any acceptable reading of that document, it did not in any way detract from the reliability of the Roster as evidence that the Defendant was deployed to Warsaw. Thus, the court did not rely on its own view of the numbers in the Stroop Report in arriving at its conclusion that the report did not support Zajanckauskas's argument. 33 Even if, arguendo, the court had done so, we believe that this was a factual determination that the court was able to make without the aid of any expert testimony. Expert testimony does not assist where the [trier of fact] has no need for an opinion because it easily can be derived from common sense, common experience, the [trier of fact's] own perceptions, or simple logic. 29 Charles Alan Wright & Victor James Gold, Federal Practice and Procedure § 6264 (2005). Having heard the proffered explanations of Zajanckauskas and the government as to the meaning of the average daily deployment figure in the Stroop Report, and having rejected them as illogical, the district judge was able to rely on his own perceptions of the circumstances behind the Stroop Report, his common sense, and his use of simple logic to arrive at what he believed was the most plausible meaning of the average daily deployment number in the report. Therefore, there was no need for the judge to support his factual determination by making reference to any expert testimony.