Court Opinion

ID: 9656281
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:45:19.925055+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:31.136512
License: Public Domain

WOLLE, Justice
(dissenting).
I would affirm the defendant’s conviction. The sole evidentiary question preserved for this appeal was whether the trial court was required by Iowa Rule of Evidence 702 to exclude the testimony of two persons whom the defendant concedes were qualified to testify as experts. In my view, the testimony of those two witnesses did not amount to the expression of an opinion on the ultimate fact of defendant’s guilt or innocence. They did not express an opinion on an essential element of the crime charged. Neither did they express an opinion on the credibility of the female victim herself.
I would leave to the discretion of the trial court the determination whether their testimony would be helpful to the jury in performing its function, the critical rule 702 test. State v. Halstead, 362 N.W.2d 504, 506 (Iowa 1985). I find no abuse of that discretion in the trial court’s overruling of defendant’s rule 702 objection.