State v. Ahern
| Decision Date | 17 August 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 81-220,81-220 |
| Citation | 449 A.2d 1224,122 N.H. 744 |
| Parties | The STATE of New Hampshire v. Patricia M. AHERN. |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
Gregory H. Smith, Atty. Gen. (Peter C. Scott, Asst. Atty. Gen., on the brief and orally), for the State.
Holland & Aivalikles, Nashua (William E. Aivalikles, Nashua, on the brief and orally), for defendant.
The defendant appeals from a non-jury trial in Superior Court (Bean, J.), in which she was found guilty of operating a motor vehicle in excess of the speed limit. See RSA 265:60. We affirm the trial court's decision.
On January 4, 1980, the defendant was charged with operating her motor vehicle at a speed of seventy-four miles per hour in a fifty-five-mile-per-hour speed zone. At trial, the State troopers who had stopped the defendant testified that they had clocked her on radar as having been driving at seventy-four miles per hour. In addition, one of the troopers testified that, based on his visual observations, he believed the defendant was traveling well above sixty-five miles per hour. The defendant objected to this testimony, claiming that the State had failed to lay a proper foundation for the evidence. The trial court overruled the defendant's objections and denied her subsequent motion to dismiss. Following the rendering of a guilty finding, the defendant appealed to this court.
The defendant's argument rests upon the fundamental principle that the results of scientific tests are inadmissible unless there is proof that the test device was operating accurately and that the test was performed by qualified individuals. See J. Wigmore, The Science of Judicial Proof § 220, at 450 (3d ed. 1937); see also State v. Wojtkowiak, 170 N.J.Super. 44, 46, 405 A.2d 477, 478 (Law Div. 1979), rev'd on other grounds, 174 N.J. 460, 416 A.2d 975 (App.Div.1980); State v. Blaney, 284 S.E.2d 920, 924 n. 3 (W.Va. 1981). See generally State v. Roberts, 102 N.H. 414, 415-16, 158 A.2d 458, 459-60 (1960).
The defendant first contends that the State failed to offer sufficient evidence concerning the qualifications of the trooper who operated the radar machine. The testimony however, revealed that the operator of the radar had been a State trooper for approximately four years prior to the day in question and that he had initially spent eight weeks at the New Hampshire State Police Academy. The evidence indicated that the trooper was familiar with the use of radar and that he had often correctly set up and tested radar equipment. The evidence also showed that the trooper had completed a two-day course and was certified in operating radar. Although it was not clear whether the trooper had completed the two-day course and received his certification prior to the day in question, we hold that the other evidence before the court sufficiently established the officer's qualifications to operate the radar equipment.
The defendant further argues that the trial judge erred in admitting the results of the radar unit because the State allegedly failed to introduce evidence regarding the accuracy of the unit on the day in question. Specifically, the defendant contends that the State demonstrated neither that the radar unit was properly calibrated, nor that the tuning forks, the instruments used to test the unit, were accurate.
We reject this argument. The trooper who set up the radar testified that he had calibrated the unit before and after the...
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