Court Opinion

ID: 9528635
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:42:44.971911+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:08.623996
License: Public Domain

GRODIN, J.
I concur in the judgment and in the reasoning of the majority opinion with one small qualification. While Dr. Morrison’s extensive experience performing blood alcohol tests on dead bodies may well qualify him as an expert on many matters relating to alcohol, I cannot accept that either such experience, or his asserted awareness of “the extensive medical literature dealing with alcohol and behavior,” qualified him as an expert on the question whether “a person who performed the acts ascribed to defendant would have the requisite intent to commit robbery regardless of whether such person had been drinking or was drunk. ” (Majority opn., ante, p. 828 italics added.)
Whatever Morrison is an expert at, he is surely not an expert in the behavioral sciences or in judging the mental capabilities of individuals based on their overt behavior apart from the effects of alcohol. At the very least, defendant’s objections to this testimony should have been sustained. I am skeptical also about the adequacy of the foundation to establish Dr. Morrison’s expertise with respect to the balance of his rebuttal testimony as described in the majority opinion, but I agree that in both respects any error was harmless on this record.