Court Opinion

ID: 9581702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:17:39.735591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:11.863813
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because exclusion of the document proffered by defendant is not reversible error.
In general, rulings on the challenged admission or exclusion of evidence are in the sound discretion of the trial judge. Alexander v. State, 239 Ga. 108, 110 (1) (236 SE2d 83) (1977). If evidence is excluded which the offering party has a right to put before the jury, however, the exclusion will be error and reversible if material to the verdict. See, e.g., Georgia Bldg. Svc. v. Perry, 193 Ga. App. 288, 290 (1a & b) (387 SE2d 898) (1989); Minnick v. Lee, 174 Ga. App. 182, 184 (1) (329 SE2d 548) (1985).
Defendant sought to introduce, through the custodian of records at a clinical laboratory, a report which on its face shows an ethyl alcohol toxicology study was conducted on the blood of a James Oldham and the quantitation was “0.11% (toxic is > 0.20%).” Although there are several names and initials on the document, it is not indicated who performed the study or wrote the report. Nor is the type of study recorded. Some of the entries are handwritten and some are computer entries. One computer entry as “date collected” is “01/26/90” and “time” is “0542.” It does not indicate whether this is a.m. or p.m. Although all other times recorded on the document are p.m., it may reasonably be inferred that “0542” was the standard equivalent, as used in the military, of 5:42 a.m. Nevertheless, who took the blood sample is unknown and there is no chain of custody shown.
The phlebotomist who drew the sample which, according to the hospital medical lab technician, tested at .129 testified that she drew the blood at 5:40 a.m. and did not know of anyone taking another sample at 5:42 a.m.
The records custodian did not testify that the record was made at the time of the test or within a reasonable time thereafter, the third prerequisite to the entry of business records. OCGA § 24-3-14 (b). The notation on the document that a telephone report of the results was made at 11:20 p.m. on January 26, 1990, does not establish the *273time when the document was generated. Aside from this, however, the document would have been properly excluded. It was offered to prove that some unknown scientific test was conducted on blood which was drawn by some unknown person at 5:42 a.m. on January 26, 1990, and transmitted by some unknown means and method to a private laboratory some distance from where defendant was hospitalized and that the test showed that the blood contained 0.11 percent ethyl alcohol.
Without knowing what procedure was employed, the test for admissibility of scientific evidence cannot be applied. See Lattarulo v. State, 261 Ga. 124, 126 (3) (401 SE2d 516) (1991).
In addition, the absence of the test’s identity makes it impossible to conclude that the result was not based on opinion but was merely the recording of objective factual data. The majority assumes that the numerical result of 0.11 percent was determined by “the machine” used to administer the test, but the method of testing is unknown. Whether it was the type of test administered in the case of the hospital-tested blood, which the lab technician testified was a chemical reagent test conducted on a clinical analyzer known as an A.C.A. machine, or instead was a mass spectromoscope test, or a gas chromatography test or some other method, is not known. The report uses unexplained code in the block labeled “test.” According to the testimony of a forensic chemist who performed a gas chromatography test on the blood of the deceased and the same on the blood of appellant, the results of the type test he performed are opinion. Opinions drawn by experts in scientific testing must be subject to cross-examination. Eason v. State, 260 Ga. 445 (396 SE2d 492) (1990).
The three cases which the court disapproves to an extent do not deserve such disapproval and should be retained as they appear. They do not deal with the same question.
Bynum v. Standard Oil Co., 157 Ga. App. 819, 820 (2) (278 SE2d 669) (1981), dealt with a hospital record of a test ordered by the physician for the purpose of determining what type anesthesia to use. It thus had some foundation and demonstrated indicia of reliability besides being a hospital record. This case, on the other hand, deals with an outside laboratory test performed at an unknown person’s request (the report just shows that the donor’s doctor is Barlow; it does not show that he ordered this additional test). It also does not show that it was performed for medical treatment; the most it shows is that its result was given to an unidentified person as a telephone report over 17 hours after the wreck.
Spivey v. State, 184 Ga. App. 118 (361 SE2d 9) (1987), held that a computer printout documenting the results of a blood alcohol test would be admissible as a properly-foundationed business record but that it was not in this case because it contained a diagnostic conclusion. The latter would be subject to cross-examination, so the person *274who drew the conclusion would have to be present in order for the conclusion to be tested. In this case we are not even dealing with a blood testing machine’s computer printout of test results produced by the testing machine, but with a handwritten report. The latter is not a document produced by a testing machine.
Decided July 16, 1992
Reconsideration denied July 31, 1992
Frank J. Petrella, for appellant.
Robert E. Keller, District Attorney, Tracy G. Gladden, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
In Jackson v. State, 196 Ga. App. 724 (397 SE2d 13) (1990), the emergency room treating doctor testified that he ordered the test, and that he did so in order to take blood alcohol level into account in making medical treatment decisions. Thus again, the record had indicia of reliability even though it was hearsay, because it was made for the doctor to act on in treating his patient. That circumstance was not shown here. Moreover, the record in Jackson was the hospital’s record; here it is just the record of an outside laboratory.
Assuming a proper foundation was laid for a business record, it must be a business record which of itself contains the facts sought to be conveyed. Here, the business record is incomplete. Testimony would be needed to explain what defendant wishes it to show, i.e., that at 5:42 a.m. his blood alcohol content was 0.11 percent by weight, according to a judicially-recognized and objective scientific test conducted by a method which automatically and mechanically, produced that measurement without the necessity of expert opinion.
The court did not abuse its discretion in excluding it. Without even considering that the accuracy of the measurement, the reliability of the test, and the relevancy of the document (neither defendant nor anyone else testified that blood was drawn from him at 5:42 a.m.) could not be tested, which objections were not raised, the court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the document because it was not shown that its most crucial aspect was not a conclusion reached or an opinion drawn by the application of the tester’s expertise.
I arp authorized to state that Judge Johnson joins in this dissent.