Court Opinion

ID: 9726042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:28:48.851704+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:23.103425
License: Public Domain

CHEZEM, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I agree with the majority’s opinion in every respect except in its resolution of the hair analysis issue. I do not agree with the majority that we must guard against the admission into evidence of any new science until we are more certain than we will ever be that 1) the theory is true and undisputed, 2) no human error contaminated the testing process, and 3) the person offering the results of a scientific process is an expert.
I see no reason for, or value in, adding to the complexity of the law of evidence in Indiana. Our supreme court cited the simplification of Indiana law as one of the reasons why it adopted the Indiana Rules of Evidence. I thought that meant that the new rules — rather than a host of cases written by the Court of Appeals — would provide the requirements for the admission of evidence in the cases which followed. Obviously, I am in error.
More importantly, I think the majority errs in taking a simple observation that barely qualifies as science yet has been accepted into evidence for over one hundred years, and attaching rigid requirements to the admission of that simple observation. If the testimony in question involved complicated testing, new theories, or new processes, I *805would agree with compelling the proponent of the evidence to set out the foundation required for the admission of new scientific evidence. However, the law should not make an impossibility of itself. Every time we add a needless requirement, we artificially complicate the law, making it less effective and less efficient.
The defendant was not unduly prejudiced by the admission of testimony that the pubic hair in question was substantially similar to the defendant’s. Such testimony, while admissible, is so inconclusive that without additional facts there is not sufficient evidence for a conviction. I would find the results of looking at two hairs under a microscope admissible, and would affirm the conviction.