Court Opinion

ID: 9523788
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:46:55.106228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:07:47.978960
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE STOUDER, dissenting: I do not agree with the majority that Officer Ganda’s testimony as a blood-flight specialist should have been admitted at the trial. I base my opinion on several factors. First, I do not believe that Officer Ganda’s three-week training course in New York qualified him as an expert in blood spattering. I also believe that the study of blood-flight characteristics is based upon the laws of physics and finally that the State’s failure to notify the defense that Ganda was testifying as an expert further undermined the reliability of the testimony. I therefore conclude that the State did not lay an adequate foundation and that Officer Ganda’s testimony should not have been admitted. The study of blood patterns is not a widely-recognized field of expertise. The three-week course which Ganda testified that he had taken was taught by Professor MacDonald (MacDonnell) of Elmira College in New York. Mr. MacDonnell has testified in several out-of-State cases, and his testimony has been accepted in the following jurisdictions, Iowa, Louisiana, and Tennessee. (See State v. Hall (Iowa 1980), 297 N.W.2d 80; State v. Graham (La. 1982), 422 So. 2d 123; State v. Melson (Tenn. 1982), 638 S.W.2d 342.) However, in State v. Philbrick (Me. 1981), 436 A.2d 844, 861, the Supreme Court of Maine ruled that an officer’s blood-spatter testimony who had attended a three-week training course in New York taught by Prof. MacDonnell was inadmissible both because his qualifications were questionable and because the blood-spatter evidence raised serious questions as to relevance, helpfulness and potential prejudicial effect. Officer Ganda would not have been considered an expert by MacDonnell who stated in Hall that there are few persons in the United States qualified in his field. State v. Hall (Iowa 1980), 297 N.W.2d 80, 83. Further, MacDonnell described his area of expertise as one based upon the laws of physics and mathematics (State v. Hall (Iowa 1980), 297 N.W.2d 80, 83), and on another occasion MacDonnell stated that “in physics it makes very little difference as to what the origin of the blood is ***” (State v. Melson (Tenn. 1982), 638 S.W.2d 342, 364), indicating that blood spattering is based largely upon physics. I, therefore, conclude that the State’s foundation was inadequate to establish Officer Ganda as a blood-spatter expert. In People v. Driver (1978), 62 Ill. App. 3d 847, 379 N.E.2d 840, the only Illinois case to consider blood-spatter testimony, the defense had attempted to have Prof. MacDonnell testify. The appellate court referred to MacDonnell as an “alleged expert” but did not decide whether the excluded testimony would properly be the subject of expert evaluation. Normally, the defendant’s opportunity to cross-examine the “expert” would increase the reliability of the expert testimony by casting doubt on the qualifications, etc. However, the assurances normally afforded by the opportunity to cross-examine were undermined in this case by the failure of the State to inform the defense that Ganda was planning to testify as a blood-flight expert. Therefore, I would have ruled that the blood-spatter testimony of Officer Ganda should have been excluded.