Court Opinion

ID: 9656551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:51:01.246779+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:33.268018
License: Public Domain

STUMBO, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I must dissent. As the majority correctly notes, a single hair, said to be consistent with Appellant’s, was found between the fingers of the victim’s hand. I find it disconcerting to think that Appellant’s future is, both literally and figuratively, hanging by a hair. It seems to me that before we permit Appellant to be convicted by testimony that in all likelihood “his” hair was found in the victim’s hand, we must be absolutely sure that the expert hair analysis testimony was sufficiently reliable to be presented to a jury. Unfortunately, no such reliability was established in this case, and the hair evidence went before the jury despite our clear mandate in Mitchell v. Commonwealth, Ky., 908 S.W.2d 100, 102 (1995), that “pursuant to KRE 702 and Daubert, expert scientific testimony must be proffered to a trial court. The trial court judge must conduct a preliminary hearing on the matter utilizing the standards set forth in Daubert.” (Emphasis added.)
The majority circumvents this requirement by proclaiming that because hair analysis has been admissible in Kentucky for many years, presumably because it met the Frye test of general acceptance, “trial judges in Kentucky may take judicial notice that [it has] achieved the status of scientific reliability.” In support of the proposition that judicial notice is appropriate in this case (and in any other case in which the scientific evidence at issue has been previously admitted in Kentucky’s courts) the majority cites a footnote from Daubert. To wit, the majority writes: “Daubert also recognized that some scientific methods, techniques and theories are so firmly established as to be proper subjects for judicial notice pursuant to FRE 201(b)(2).” See Daubert, 509 U.S. at 592 n. 11, 113 S.Ct. at 2796 n. 11. While not untrue, the majority takes this statement from Daubert entirely out of context in order to achieve its desired goal. What the Daubert court really said was this:
Although the Frye decision itself focused exclusively on “novel” scientific techniques, we do not read the requirements of Rule 702 to apply specially or exclusively to unconventional evidence. Of course, well-established propositions are less likely to be challenged than those that are novel, and they are more handily defended. Indeed, theories that are so firmly established as to have attained the status of scientific law, such as the laws of thermodynamics, properly are subject to judicial notice under Federal Rule of Evidence 201.
Daubert, 509 U.S. at 592 n. 11, 113 S.Ct. at 2796 n. 11 (emphasis added). It seems clear to me that the method of hair comparison analysis at issue here is not “so firmly established as to have attained the status of scientific law,” and, thus, it is in no way a proper subject of judicial notice. Rather, judicial notice of scientific evidence should be reserved for the rare occasion when the evidence sought to be admitted is seemingly beyond dispute, such as, for example, evidence that the sun rises every day in the east, or acknowledgment of the law of gravity.
Because judicial notice is not appropriate in a case, such as this, involving scientific evidence which does not rise to the level of scientific law, it follows that before the expert scientific evidence may be admitted at trial, it must first be scrutinized *268for its reliability and relevance, pursuant to Daubert’s guidelines. It matters not that the evidence in this case has long been accepted in this Commonwealth. Daubert created a separate and distinct new standard against which all expert scientific testimony must be tested before it may be admitted. It in no way limited the requirement of scrutiny for reliable and relevant methodology as a prerequisite to admissibility to only those types of scientific evidence considered “novel.”
Although both Mitchell and Daubert were specifically confronted with the admissibility of “novel” scientific evidence,1 the holding of Daubert (and of Mitchell) clearly applied to all scientific evidence sought to be admitted under FRE 702 (KRE 702). In fact, the Daubert Court acknowledged that scientific knowledge is not static and fixed, but rather, that our understanding of certain scientific theories and techniques is constantly evolving, and that scientific knowledge is ever-expanding. Daubert, 509 U.S. at 596-97, 113 S.Ct. at 2798-99, 125 L.Ed.2d at 485. Thus, as the Daubert Court put it, “[scientific conclusions are subject to perpetual revision” and “hypotheses ... that are incorrect will eventually be shown to be so.” Id.
It follows that, although a particular scientific theory, procedure or technique, such as hair comparison analysis, might have been solidly accepted by the relevant scientific community at one time, it is not outside the realm of possibility that such evidence might, with the development of more advanced techniques and testing procedures or the scrutiny of the scientific community, fall into disrepute or be proven to be unreliable. For this reason, the Daubert Court took pains to point out that its holding was not limited to “novel” scientific techniques, but that “well-established propositions” were also within the ambit of its holding. Daubert, 509 U.S. at 592 n. 11, 113 S.Ct. 2786.
Accordingly, I would hold the trial court in this case erred in denying Appellant’s request for a Daubert hearing into the reliability of the Commonwealth’s proffered hair comparison analysis evidence. The majority, on the other hand, declares that no such hearing is required if the evidence sought to be admitted has long-been accepted by Kentucky courts. Rather, the opponent of the evidence now has the burden to prove the evidence “is no longer deemed scientifically reliable.” I believe the majority’s holding improperly removes the burden of demonstrating admissibility from the proponent of the evidence, and instead requires the opponent of the evidence to prove its inadmissibility. Such has never been the law of this Commonwealth. Daubert, as did its predecessor Frye, establishes a hurdle of admissibility which must be overcome by the proponent of the evidence before it may be admitted at trial. While it is true that Daubert established a much more flexible standard of admissibility than did Frye, its standard must nevertheless be met before evidence may be deemed admissible.
The rule announced in Daubert and followed in Mitchell was designed to be flexible. Its purpose is to ensure that relevant and reliable evidence is not excluded from trial simply because the evidence is “novel” and has not yet gained general acceptance in the scientific community. At the same time, the rule provides litigants the opportunity to challenge the reliability of scientific evidence which, though once embraced by the courts and the relevant scientific community, might now prove to be less reliable than once thought. In my opinion, we have made an unwarranted and unwise departure from that rule today.
LAMBERT, C.J., joins.

. Mitchell was concerned with the admissibility of DNA evidence and Daubert revolved around the question of whether the drug Ben-dectin caused birth defects in humans.