People v. Williams

Decision Date09 April 1990
Docket NumberNo. 88SC302,88SC302
Citation790 P.2d 796
PartiesThe PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Petitioner, v. Nancy WILLIAMS, Respondent.
CourtColorado Supreme Court

Duane Woodard, Atty. Gen., and John Milton Hutchins, First Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for petitioner.

David F. Vela, State Public Defender, and Douglas D. Barnes, Deputy Public Defender, Denver, for respondent.

Justice VOLLACK announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion in which Justice ROVIRA and Justice LOHR join.

In People v. Williams, 761 P.2d 258 (Colo.App.1988), the court of appeals reversed the defendant Nancy Williams' second degree murder conviction. The court of appeals held that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to qualify a defense witness as an expert in firearms identification, and remanded for a new trial. Id. at 260-61. Because it ordered a new trial, the court of appeals did not consider the defendant's argument that the trial court erred in denying her challenges for cause to prospective jurors. Id. at 261. We reverse the court of appeals judgment and remand with directions.

I.

On April 16, 1982, the defendant was charged in the District Court of Chaffee County with first degree murder after deliberation 1 in connection with her husband's death. See Williams v. District Court, 700 P.2d 549, 551 (Colo.1985). 2 After a change of venue the defendant was convicted in the District Court of Fremont County of second degree murder. 3 The defendant subsequently received a new trial based on newly discovered information from a witness who allegedly saw the victim alive after the day the prosecution alleged he was murdered by the defendant. Id. The case before this court involves a ruling by the district court in the defendant's second trial.

The prosecution attempted to prove at trial that the defendant murdered her husband with a .250 caliber Ruger Model 77 rifle from her husband's gun collection. The Ruger Model 77 was missing from the victim's gun cabinet when his body was discovered. The Model 77 was discovered at the Buena Vista rodeo grounds approximately two weeks after the murder. The Model 77 and a bullet recovered from a mattress at the crime scene were key pieces of evidence in both of the defendant's trials. During the defendant's second trial the prosecution, as it had in the first trial, called Cordell Brown, a Colorado Bureau of Investigations (CBI) lab agent, to testify. The district court recognized Brown as an expert in the fields of paint comparison, tool mark comparison, and firearms identification. Brown testified that he examined a smear of paint on the stock of the Model 77 and compared it to three paint samples he took from the defendant's Ford Bronco. Brown concluded that all three samples matched the paint smear on the stock of the Model 77.

Brown testified in the first trial that the bullet recovered from the mattress was so badly damaged that it did not contain sufficient individual markings for identification purposes. At the second trial, however, Brown testified that between the first and second trial he used the Model 77 to fire a test bullet which he later expanded by using a vise to compress the bullet from its nose to its base. Brown testified that after performing this test he was able to match the test bullet with the bullet recovered from the mattress.

During her case the defendant called Robert Lantz to testify. After an initial voir dire, defense counsel asked the district court to qualify Lantz as an expert in the fields of analytical chemistry and firearms identification. The prosecution did not object to having the court qualify Lantz as an expert in the field of analytical chemistry, but the prosecution did object to the defendant's request that the court qualify Lantz as an expert in firearms identification. Following a more extensive voir dire by the prosecution, defense counsel, and the court, the court qualified Lantz as an expert in the field of analytical chemistry but declined to qualify Lantz as an expert in the field of firearms identification.

The court of appeals held that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to qualify Lantz as an expert in firearms identification, and remanded the case for a new trial. Williams, 761 P.2d at 261.

II.

In this case we must decide whether the trial court abused its broad discretion to determine whether Lantz was qualified to testify as an expert in the field of firearms identification. We hold, based on the record of Lantz' qualifications, that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to qualify Lantz as an expert in the field of firearms identification.

A.

We begin our analysis with CRE 702, which is identical to Fed.R.Evid. 702 and provides that:

If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise.

The "crucial question" trial courts must answer when determining the admissibility of proffered expert testimony is: " 'On this subject can a jury from this person receive appreciable help?' " 3 J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence p 702, at 702-7 to 702-8 (1988) (emphasis in original) (quoting Wigmore, Evidence § 1923, at 21 (3d ed. 1940)). "There is no more certain test for determining when experts may be used than the common sense inquiry whether the untrained layman would be qualified to determine intelligently and to the best possible degree the particular issue without enlightenment from those having a specialized understanding of the subject involved in the dispute." Fed.R.Evid. 702 advisory committee's note (quoted in E. Cleary, et al., McCormick on Evidence § 13, at 33 n. 9 (3d ed. 1984)). As the Fifth Circuit stated in In re Air Crash Disaster at New Orleans, Louisiana, 795 F.2d 1230, 1233 (5th Cir.1986), the "trial judge ought to insist that a proffered expert bring to the jury more than the lawyers can offer in argument." "A decision excluding expert testimony offered by a criminal defendant is perhaps somewhat more susceptible of reversal because of the courts' sensitivity to the defendant's need and lack of access to the personnel available to the state." 3 J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence p 702, at 702-47 to 702-48 (1988) (footnote omitted).

A trial court has broad discretion to determine the admissibility of expert testimony, and appellate courts may not overturn a trial court's ruling unless it is manifestly erroneous. Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 108, 94 S.Ct. 2887, 2903, 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974); In re Air Crash Disaster, 795 F.2d at 1233; People v. DeLuna, 183 Colo. 163, 165, 515 P.2d 459, 460 (1973). In United States v. Bermudez, 526 F.2d 89, 98 (2d Cir.1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 970, 96 S.Ct. 2166, 48 L.Ed.2d 793 (1976), the Fifth Circuit stated that the trial court's "quite wide discretion in determining the qualifications and competency of a witness to express an opinion as an expert" should not be disturbed unless there is a clear showing of abuse of discretion. See also King v. People, 785 P.2d 596, 603-04 (Colo.1990); People v. Hampton, 746 P.2d 947, 952-53 (Colo.1987); People v. District Court, 647 P.2d 1206, 1209 (Colo.1982). "This deference reflects the superior opportunity of the trial judge to gauge both the competence of the expert and the extent to which his opinion would be helpful to the jury." In re Air Crash Disaster, 795 F.2d at 1233.

B.

The record in the present case contains substantial support for the district court's ruling that Lantz was not qualified to testify as an expert in the field of firearms identification.

Lantz testified that the only instruction he received in firearms identification consisted of one course he audited on the subject in 1971 or 1972 at Michigan State University. Lantz was unable to remember the name of the course, and he admitted that in earlier testimony he had been unable to remember the name of the instructor of the course. Lantz testified that he did not receive a grade in the course and that he could not remember taking any examinations in the course.

Defense counsel asked Lantz: "What is your experience and training in the area [of comparing a bullet] to the weapon it may have been fired from?" Lantz replied that he had "done a great deal of research work in the area[,] particularly starting with my work at the University of Michigan where I did a goodly amount of work in the area of electron microscopy." Lantz testified that this research involved "finding out whether or not the old work on much of the ballistics, much of the ballistics comparison was done now was indeed valid using much more modern techniques." Lantz testified that at Michigan State University he received a grant "from the university electron-optics committee to use scanning electron-microscopy to work out newer techniques for bullet and cartridge case comparison to see whether those bullets are indeed the same." Lantz testified that he "wanted to see whether or not we could still differentiate bullets really well or were we going to get confused because of much more modern steels and much more modern rifling techniques, and for that matter the use of much more modern electron-microscopic comparison techniques."

Lantz' descriptions of his research did not establish that it involved identifying particular bullets as having been fired from particular weapons. Lantz' descriptions of his electron microscope research fairly suggest that the research involved determining whether differences in bullets which were apparent under an optical microscope were also detectable with an electron microscope.

Lantz admitted that part of his academic research involved elemental composition analysis, which does not involve comparing...

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