Court Opinion

ID: 9781914
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:37:47.672757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:41.407908
License: Public Domain

RODERICK T. KENNEDY, Judge (concurring in part and dissenting in part). KENNEDY, Judge (concurring in part and dissenting in part). {28} The majority is correct in finding that Enyart’s testimony about probabilities is error. In the absence of a chemical test result, she answered the prosecutor’s question about the “probability that [Defendant] would be at or above the legal limit” by testifying that “[depending on which study you look at” the field sobriety tests put such a probability “in the ninetieth percentile.” The testimony provided a numerical value for the probability of Defendant’s guilt of a crime with which he was not charged, since he was not charged with a per se offense and in fact was charged under Section 66-8-102(D) with refusing a chemical test. Enyart testified about three studies conducted by NHTSA “for over twenty years” that establish percentage probabilities of the correct prediction of BACs at or above the legal limit. See State v. Lasworth, 2002-NMCA-029, ¶¶ 2-4, 131 N.M. 739, 42 P.3d 844 (discussing these studies). She also testified about studies of the three standardized FSTs (SFSTs) and the probability of each test predicting a BAC above the legal limit. She testified about clues from each test and correlations among them. In the course of seventeen pages of trial transcript, she suffused her testimony about the facts of Defendant’s bleak physical performance on the SFSTs with an aura of scientific process supported by scientific research that we hold even one test — the HGN — could not meet for admissibility. Defendant objected to this testimony but was overruled. {29} The State, as pointed out in the majority opinion, defends this error, saying that Enyart just “repeated the NHTSA’s finding.” Repeating the facts asserted out of court by another and expecting such facts to be regarded as true seems to be the essence of hearsay. Rule 11-801(C) NMRA. {30} Enyart is unequivocally not an expert witness qualified to make these assertions. Her use of terminology is faulty. Stating that a probability would exist in the “ninetieth percentile” of a group of probabilities does not equate with a 90% probability of the corresponding proposition’s truth, or put another way, that the proposition is likely to be true 90% of the time. NHTSA refers specifically to the accuracies of the tests. See, e.g., J. Stuster and M. Burns, Validation of the Standardized Field Sobriety Test Battery at BACs Below 0.10 Percent, Final Report, no. DOT HS 808 839, U.S. Dep’t of Transportation, NHTSA (1998), p. 25, available at http://www.dwirob.com/articles/1998% 20San% 20Diego% 20Study.pdf.1 In stating that Defendant’s BAC was, to a high percentage of certainty, “above the legal limit,” Enyart injected a legal conclusion into prejudicial and irrelevant evidence for consideration by the jury under a false cloak of scientific terminology and expertise. Lasworth, 2002-NMCA-029, ¶ 25, 131 N.M. 739, 42 P.3d 844 (noting that to the extent that SFSTs are validated “solely as a means of discriminating between BACs at or above a given level,” they are not included by New Mexico statute for forensic determination BAC). {31} The remaining question then is not whether it was error that a witness exceeded her qualifications as a witness and recited hearsay that further testified to probabilities of Defendant’s guilt of an uncharged per se offense — because we have said that this was error — but whether such behavior was harmful error in light of the other evidence. This balance is hard to calculate but is more susceptible to a fast answer when the other evidence of guilt was sufficient to justify convicting the defendant independent of the tainted testimony, as I concur that it was here. {32} In a DWI trial where there is no chemical test, however, a strong witness who testifies repeatedly about the odds of a defendant being “above the legal limit” is testifying to a legal conclusion of guilt. I do not believe that the jury can separate a proper basis for finding guilt from the improper one presented by the State. In State v. Huff, 1998-NMCA-075, 125 N.M. 254, 960 P.2d 342, we held that the prosecutor’s purposeful eliciting of testimony concerning PTSD based on past sexual abuse that did not involve the defendant would have allowed the jury to make an unreasonable inference and was a course of misconduct likely to lead to a mistrial. Id. ¶ 24. Statistical testimony that lacks foundation and that can clearly distract the jury from its function of weighing the proper evidence of guilt encourages a departure from the legitimate elements of proof. See People v. Collins, 68 Cal.2d 319, 66 Cal.Rptr. 497, 438 P.2d 33, 38 (1968). Cases that express concerns about evidence of statistical probabilities couch such worry in terms that the evidence will become a measure of a Defendant’s guilt. See, e.g., State v. Boyd, 331 N.W.2d 480, 483 (Minn.1983) (noting the danger of a jury using population frequency evidence in such a manner). {33} Enyart’s testimony consisted of a percentage probability that a per se criminal offense was committed as a matter of law. Since the connection is explicit, it is even more dangerous. If the testimony elicited by the State had not been couched as a 90% probability that Defendant was guilty of a per se offense, I could perhaps regard this as harmless error. Under Huff, factually prejudicial testimony is unquestionably sufficient for a mistrial. See 1998-NMCA-075, ¶ 25, 125 N.M. 254, 960 P.2d 342. Prosecutors and police officers should avoid such overreaching so as to reduce the possibility of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Informing the jury of a legal conclusion as to Defendant’s guilt of a closely related but uncharged offense, as was done in this case, invades the jury’s ability to sufficiently decide the true facts. As a result, I regard this error as harmful to a point that should require retrial.  . "Estimates at ... the 0.08 level [for BAC] were accurate in 91 percent of the cases, or as high as 94 percent if explanations for [some] of the false positives are accepted.”