Opinion ID: 614115
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Expert Testimony by Lay Witness

Text: Clarett next argues that the district court erred by allowing Officer Roberts, a lay witness, to offer expert testimony. Roberts was questioned about an inconsistency between the number of times he Tasered Clarett and the digital register retained in the Taser's internal memory. The parties agreed that Roberts Tasered Clarett three times and that each shock lasted for five seconds. But the printout from the Taser's digital memory recorded six separate deployments of the Taser, some just one second apart. When Clarett's counsel asked Roberts about the discrepancy, he disclaimed technical knowledge about the mechanics of the Taser or the computer download that produced the printout. At one point during this testimony, the judge instructed Clarett's attorney not to ask this witness a great many technical questions. He does not purport to be an expert, and it would be unfair to put words in his mouth. Under questioning from his own counsel, however, Roberts testified that based on his experience and training, it would be physically impossible to discharge the Taser multiple times just one second apart. He also testified more generally about the Taser printout, which registered 585 separate deployments occurring over the span of more than a year. He also said that [a]fter reviewing this printout, there does appear to be many different malfunctions in the printout. Clarett argues that this was impermissible expert testimony by a lay witness, offered without compliance with the requirements of Rule 702. We disagree. Roberts did not give technical testimony about how the Taser's internal memory operated or how data was uploaded from the Taser to the police department's central computersubjects that no doubt would have required some form of properly qualified expert testimony under Rule 702. Rather, his testimony was limited to his own experience in operating the Taser. He explained the steps required to fire the Taser in order to illustrate the incongruity of rapid, successive deployments only one second apart. Neither this testimony, nor his discussion of the Taser printout, was couched in terms of an expert opinion. See 29 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & VICTOR JAMES GOLD, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 6253, at 119-20 (1997) ([S]everal courts have held that, in cases involving opinions based on various types of extensive experience in a given industry or on a specific subject, the opinions properly could have been classified as either lay or expert.). Even if this testimony crossed the line into the domain of expert opinion, its admission was harmless. FED.R.EVID. 103(a) (Error may not be predicated upon a ruling which admits or excludes evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected....); Liu v. Price Waterhouse LLP, 302 F.3d 749, 756 (7th Cir.2002) ([A]n error is harmless if it did not contribute to the verdict in a meaningful manner.). The parties agreed that Roberts deployed the Taser three times for five seconds each; had there been a dispute on this subject, the evidence of the Taser printout discrepancy might have been more important. As it was, in light of the parties' agreement, this discrepancy had little significance. See Aguirre v. Turner Constr. Co., 582 F.3d 808, 814 (7th Cir. 2009). Indeed, the judge might have excluded the evidence of the Taser printout on grounds of irrelevancy; once the issue was raised, however, it was not an abuse of discretion to permit Roberts to testify about it to the limited extent that he did.