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State v. Coon3/5/1999
tion over the admissibility of scientific evidence, and to a case-by-case determination of admissibility, with the possibility of inconsistent or unpredictable decisions. Butler suggests that Daubert may affect forensic sciences, such as fingerprint, handwriting, and hair comparison analyses, that are now admissible under Frye. While Butler frames this as a negative result of adopting Daubert, the New Mexico Supreme Court noted:
"Contrary to the assertion . . . that the Frye test places the responsibility of determining scientific validity upon scientists, in practice too many courts reference reported case law to determine what is generally accepted in the scientific community. It is improper to look for scientific acceptance only from reported case law because that amounts to finding a consensus in the legal community based on scientific evidence that is sometimes many years old." [ ]
Further, as the State notes, when an area of expertise is well-known and has been fully considered by the courts, a trial court may take judicial notice of its admissibility. The Supreme Court advocated this approach. Moreover, general acceptance remains a factor under Daubert. It also seems unlikely that methodologies that were admitted under Frye and that remain generally accepted in the appropriate community will be excluded, absent affirmative evidence of unreliability.
D. The Admissibility of Voice Spectrograph Evidence under Daubert
On remand, the trial court found that Cain's testimony regarding the applied forensic technique of using spectrography to analyze and identify voices was admissible under both Frye and Daubert. Coon and the APDA contend that the trial court erred in finding Cain's testimony regarding voice spectrography admissible under either test. Given our adoption of Daubert in Part III.C, there is no reason to review admissibility under Frye.
1. Standard of review
We review a trial court's ruling on the admissibility of expert testimony for abuse of discretion.
Although the parties agree on this standard of review, two amici curiae, Butler and the APDA, argue that we should review de novo a trial court's decision to admit or exclude scientific evidence. So arguing, APDA relies on a passage from Pulakis, where we stated that " n the basis of our study of the judicial authority and academic literature in this area, we conclude that the results of polygraph examinations should not be received in evidence over objection."
In addition, both Butler and APDA cite Contreras, in which the court of appeals stated that it was "free to exercise independent judgment" when reviewing the trial court's decision to admit evidence recovered from an eyewitness during hypnosis because the findings regarding memory and the effects of interrogative techniques on eyewitness testimony and hypnosis in general are legislative facts, rather than adjudicative facts.
Kesan and the Dissenting opinion propose adopting a hybrid standard of review, reviewing de novo a trial court's findings on the scientific knowledge prong of the Daubert test and retaining an abuse of discretion standard for the second prong relating to relevance or "fit" of the facts of the particular case to the scientific technique employed. They assert that implementing de novo review of scientific validity allows for more uniform adjudication at the trial and appellate levels, and for development of distinct validation criteria for expert testimony relating to different scientific or technical disciplines.
We see no present reason to adopt a new or hybrid standard for reviewing rulings on the admissibility of scientific evidence
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