Court Opinion

ID: 9533339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:30:44.51205+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:01.208370
License: Public Domain

KIRSCH, Judge,
concurring in result as to issue III.
I fully coneur in the majority opinion as to all issues except for Issue III involving the admission of the skilled witness testimony. Although I believe such admission was error, I also believe on the facts before us that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. I, therefore, concur in result as to this issue.
Since the United States Supreme Court decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993), the topic of expert opinion testimony has been the subject of intense legal debate, hundreds of scholarly articles in legal journals and countless seminars on the admissibility of expert scientific evidence. Daubert assigned a "gatekeeper" role to federal judges who were directed to sereen expert scientific testimony to assure not only that the expert was qualified, but that the methodology employed by the expert was "reliable." In Indiana, our supreme court adopted Indiana Evidence Rule 702(a) which antedated the Daubert decision but assigned the same role to Indiana trial judges, namely, that they determine that the expert testimony will assist the trier of fact and that the scientific principles and methodology upon which expert testimony is based is reliable.
I believe that there is no question that Officer Scarber's testimony about grooming techniques of child molesters would not be admissible under Ind. Evid. Rule 702. By his own admission, Officer Scarber was not an expert, and nothing in the record before us establishes that the scientific principles or methodology on which his testimony is based are reliable. The question thus becomes whether a proponent of opinion testimony which is clearly inadmissible under Ind. Evid. Rule 702 can have such opinion testimony admitted as lay opinion testimony under Ind. Evid. Rule 701. I believe that the proponents of such evidence should not be permitted to evade the safeguards of Dawbert and Ind. Evid. Rule 702 and get in through the back door what they cannot get admitted through the front.
To me, it is anomalous to admit opinion testimony by a witness unqualified as an expert without a showing of scientific reliability when one qualified as an expert would not be allowed to give such testimony. I believe the proper construction of Ind. Evid. Rule 701 leads to the same conclusion. The rule provides:
If the witness is not testifying as an expert, the witness's testimony in the form of opinions or inferences which are
*216(a) rationally based on the perception of the witness and (b) helpful to a clear understanding of the witness's testimony or the determination of a fact in issue.
Here, Officer Scarber's opinions were not rationally based upon his perceptions. Rather, they were based upon his lay understanding of social science which has not been shown to be reliable. As a result, I believe the admission of Officer's Searber's opinion testimony under Ind. Evid. Rule 701 was error.