Court Opinion

ID: 9635182
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:40:29.060482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:20.742352
License: Public Domain

TOM GRAY, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I agree that the trial court’s judgment should be affirmed.
I do not agree with the re-eharacterization of Zacharias’s testimony from expert opinion testimony to lay opinion testimony.
This same re-characterization occurred in a previous opinion to which I dissented. See Roberson v. State, 100 S.W.3d 36, 45-46 (Tex.App.-Waco 2002, no pet.)(Gray, J., dissenting). But unlike Roberson, it is clear from the simple recitation of the officer’s years of experience and training that he was qualified to give this opinion as an expert.
*685A lay witness can give an opinion regarding things that are within the type that the average person would form based upon first hand observations. This is commonly referred to as a shorthand-rendition-of-operative-facts. The speed of a car, the height of a tree, the distance between objects, etc. are the proper subject of lay opinion testimony. See Hulen D. Wendorf et al., Texas Rules of Evidence MaNual, VII-3 & VII-8, (6th ed., Juris, 2002). But if a witness’s personal observations are being joined with the witness’s training and experience, training and experience that the average person does not possess, then the testimony being given is expert testimony and must be evaluated under rule 702. See Tex.R. Evid. 702.
Officer Zacharias’s testimony based upon his personal observations was that King’s lips and fingers were not burned. He also testified about the quantity of drugs found. And he testified about the amount of cash and the places that it was found in King’s clothes. This was not opinion testimony at all. This testimony was all based upon Zacharias’s personal knowledge obtained through personal observation of these facts.
Zacharias also testified that based upon his training and ten years of experience as a police officer, including two years on a neighborhood narcotics enforcement team, that these observations were consistent with King being a drug dealer and that the cocaine he possessed was for delivery, an element of the offense as charged, and not for personal use.
I was unaware that bum marks are usually found on the lips and fingers of those who smoke crack cocaine. I was unaware that drug dealers normally carry their money separated by denominations in different pockets. I was unaware of the amount of crack that is normally held for personal use. So none of Zacharias’s personal observations meant anything to me. I do not think my level of knowledge about these topics is unusually low. But it was Zacharias’s testimony based upon his training and experience that these observations were converted from information that was meaningless, to opinion evidence helpful to decide a disputed issue of fact by the jury. This is the essence of expert testimony. Thus, Zacharias’s testimony should be evaluated under rule of evidence 702, as expert testimony, and not as lay testimony, under rule 701. See Morrow v. State, 757 S.W.2d 484, 487-488 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1988, pet. ref'd)(“Evidence of a large quantity of cocaine seized (in the amount of 1,025 grams), coupled with a police officer’s expert witness testimony as to the amount of cocaine a user would normally and customarily possess for personal use, is sufficient to show possession with intent to deliver.”).
King contends that “[i]t was error for the court to allow the officer to give expert testimony on the sale and distribution of cocaine when the officer was not qualified as an expert.” The qualification of an expert is a separate issue from reliability under rule 702. Tex.R. Evid. 702; Helena Chemical Co. v. Wilkins, 47 S.W.3d 486, 499 (Tex.2001). Zacharias’s testimony established that he was qualified as an expert to give this expert testimony. Accordingly, his testimony was properly admitted. With this note, I concur only in the result.