Court Opinion

ID: 9738705
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:01:18.356679+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:08.016426
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result and in all but division IIA of the court’s opinion.
I am unable to agree that scientific evidence cannot sufficiently be identified, that admissibility of scientific evidence should be determined on an ad hoc basis, that reliability of a novel scientific technique can be established solely on the basis of the success of its leading proponent in peddling his wares to consumers, that the general acceptance standard is inconsistent with the Federal Rules of Evidence, or that the inference sought to be established in the present case was not of great breadth, sensitivity and importance. However, I concur in the result because I am willing to take judicial notice that the principles of physics upon which the blood spatter analysis depended in the present case are well enough established to be subject to judicial notice. Cf. Stupka v. Seheidel, 244 Iowa 442, 449, 56 N.W.2d 874, 878 (1953) (judicial notice taken of effects of weather on wood); Hemminger v. City of Des Moines, 199 Iowa 1302, 1310, 203 N.W. 822, 825 (1925) (judicial notice taken of effects of hydraulic pressure).
The anomaly in this case is that Professor MacDonell’s government-financed experiments are credited with demonstrating the necessity for exercising extreme caution in evaluating expert opinion based on blood spatter analysis:
Extensive research has recently been conducted in this area by the noted expert Herbert L. MacDonell. ... The results of the experiments were published in late 1971 and suggest that it is sometimes possible to reconstruct events which must have occurred to produce certain bloodstains. The report with accompanying illustrations demonstrate, however, that many of the conclusions drawn from blood spots which have been suggested by others do not stand the test of experimental verification.... Extreme caution would seem to be required in evaluating expert opinion on the subject.
*93(emphasis added). A. Moessens and F. In-bau, Scientific Evidence in Criminal Cases § 6.12(2) at 303 (2d ed. 1978).
I believe the governing principle is that a challenge to admissibility raising the reliability issue puts the burden on the proponent of the evidence to demonstrate that the state of the art or scientific knowledge permits a reasonable opinion to be asserted by an expert. See C. McCormick, Handbook of the Law of Evidence § 13 at 31 (2d ed. 1972).
I agree that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in receiving the evidence under this principle in the facts of this case.
UHLENHOPP, J., joins this special concurrence.