Court Opinion

ID: 9630460
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:11:30.133683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:03.560847
License: Public Domain

Dissenting opinion by
Justice WINTERSHEIMER.
I respectfully dissent from that part of the majority opinion which reverses the judgment of conviction. The trial judge did not abuse his discretion by admitting evidence of the comparative bullet lead analysis conducted by the F.B.I. The due process rights of Ragland under both the United States and Kentucky Constitutions were not violated by the trial judge when he denied a motion for a new trial based on the newly discovered evidence of perjured testimony given by the F.B.I. laboratory analyst. The perjured testimony did not affect the outcome of the trial. The trial judge did not violate the constitutional due process rights of Ragland by admitting evidence of other Wetherby Vanguard rifles.
The trial judge did not abuse his discretion by admitting evidence of the comparative bullet lead analysis conducted by the F.B.I. Pursuant to a pretrial motion in limine, the trial judge conducted an evi-dentiary hearing following the directions of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993) and Mitchell v. Commonwealth, 908 S.W.2d 100 (Ky.1995).
The trial judge properly permitted the expert testimony by the F.B.I. analyst for the prosecution that comparative bullet lead analysis indicated that the composition of the fatal bullet was analytically indistinguishable from the unspent cartridges found in Ragland’s residences and that all the bullets could have had a common manufacturing source. She did not testify that the bullet and the cartridges came from the same source.
The trial judge determined that the comparative bullet lead analysis given by the F.B.I. expert had a scientific basis which met the requirements of KRE 702 and KRE 104(a). Such an analysis had been performed on a routine basis only by the F.B.I. laboratory. The opinion of a retired F.B.I. agent employed by the defense, the rebuttal expert, agreed in large measure with the original testimony of the F.B.I. The only real difference between the two expert testimonies was that Rag-land’s expert emphasized that, while the murder bullet and Ragland’s unspent cartridges could have had a common lead source, they also could have come from different sources. As such this is not a scientific difference but only a difference in emphasis. In addition, other jurisdictions have acknowledged the scientific validity of comparative bullet lead analysis. Cf. United States v. Davis, 103 F.3d 660 (8th Cir., 1996) and State v. Noel, 157 N.J. 141, 723 A.2d 602 (1999), which noted various cases on the subject.
*598The trial of this case occurred in March 2002. Since that time, the defense expert Tobin as well as others have criticized the conclusion of the comparative bullet lead analysis such as those presented in this case. The scientific dispute has raged for a number of years. On September 1, 2005, following a 14-month review of the findings and recommendations of the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, the F.B.I. indicated that it would no longer conduct comparative bullet lead analysis tests. There continues to be a scientific and legal debate about the sufficiency of the evidence to support parts of the comparative bullet lead analysis as noted in the concurring opinion by Justice Roach. He believes that the evidence offered here was not scientifically reliable. However, I must respectfully disagree.
The trial judge did not abuse his discretion in admitting the evidence. There was no violation of the rights of Ragland under the due process clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution or Section 11 of the Kentucky Constitution.
The due process rights of Ragland under the United States and Kentucky Constitutions were not violated by the trial judge when he denied a motion for new trial based on the newly discovered evidence of perjured testimony given by the F.B.I. laboratory analyst. There was no abuse of discretion or error by the trial judge.
The perjured testimony did not affect the outcome of the trial. The perjury occurred at a pretrial hearing when the expert for the Commonwealth testified that the Winchester ammunition plant had changed its bullet manufacturing process in 1996, when in fact, the change occurred in 1994. Only the trial judge, and not the jury, heard the perjury during the Dau-bert hearing. The trial judge found that the perjury related only to a collateral or background fact and that his Daubert ruling had not been affected by the perjury. The expert for Ragland, relying only on the correct dates, reached essentially the same conclusion as the expert for the prosecution. Therefore, the deliberations and the verdict could not have been directly affected by the perjury.
In a situation where perjured testimony is introduced without the knowledge of the prosecutor, the use of the perjury is treated like newly discovered evidence and a new trial is proper only if the newly discovered evidence is of “such decisive value or force that it would, with reasonable certainty, have changed the verdict or that it would probably change the result if a new trial should be granted.” See Commonwealth v. Spaulding, 991 S.W.2d 651 (Ky.1999). In this ease, Ragland has failed to demonstrate that the Daubert hearing perjury affected the outcome of the case. The perjury did not relate to a controlling fact and did not have any impact on the pretrial ruling to admit the bullet analysis.
The trial judge did not violate the due process rights of Ragland under the United States and Kentucky Constitutions by admitting evidence of other Wetherby Vanguard rifles. The trial judge permitted evidence regarding ballistics tests performed on three other .243 Wetherby rifles from Ohio because the results of these tests, when considered together with the results of ballistics tests performed on Ragland’s .243 Wetherby rifle helped show the jury that Ragland had the means to commit the murder. The firearms examiner testified that markings on test bullets fired from Ragland’s .243 Wetherby matched markings on a fragment of the bullet that killed the victim. He qualified this opinion by stating that he could not conclusively match the samples because of the fragmentation of the fatal bullet. The *599examiner then testified he was able to rule out a match between the fatal bullet and test bullets fired from three Wetherby rifles from Ohio. Those rifles were apparently manufactured at or about the same time as the rifle seized from the residence of Ragland’s mother. The purpose of this testimony was that it showed that Rag-land’s rifle could have been the murder weapon. The evidence was relevant and any prejudicial effect did not outweigh its probative value. The jury was not confused or misled by the testimony. There was no abuse of discretion. Cf. Simpson v. Commonwealth, 889 S.W.2d 781 (Ky. 1994).
A review of the evidence in the record requires that the conviction should be affirmed in all respects.
GRAVES, J., joins.