CLPEX Chat Board

Would you consider it testifying outside of your area of expertise if the following fact occurred: You were asked a question (and answered it)about the original collection of evidence by another agency from the crime scene of which you were not a participant. The agency had submitted an incident report a year ago along with the evidence and it was retained in your case file which you now have with you in court and are using to answer the question.

Consider that this was a year ago and this incident report may not even be correct or the final/official agency incident report.
Consider that no objections were raised by the opposing side to the question asked.

Is this testifying outside of your area of expertise. Professionally/ethically what would you have responded?

I wouldn't say it's testifying outside my expertise, because I consider myself adequately qualified to read and understand a scene examination report
However, it is testifying outside of my persoanl knowledge. I would be expecting someone wearing a wig and gown to jump out of thier seat and stop me from introducing hearsay. At least, it should be made perfectly clear that I am reading from someone else's report and that I cannot attest the accuracy of the information.

Like David, I would make it clear that I wasn't there, so I couldn't say for sure what happened, but I could read the report that was included in my file. I would not consider it outside my expertise, because I'm just reading what the report says. I would probably also state that any questions about the report should be directed to the report's author.

My response would be the statement that I could only relate what a report of the crime scene investigation contained, because I was not present when the evidence was collected. I would consider that statement a necessary conditioning of whatever I might say about the recovery. If I am then asked to relate what that report says, I am answering as I must and accurately representing the answer. I am also giving both attorneys an opportunity to consider the nature of my knowledge. While I dislike becoming part of a potential error, this is all I can do, and, the rule commonly being imposed, I'm may not be privy to any pre-trial discussions and possible not aware of previous testimony and evidence that might already have addressed the issue. It might be a trivial issue if the crime scene tech has already testified, and the question was asked only to clarify which piece of evidence we were talking about.

It's not an issue of testifying outside of expertise. It's strictly a matter of providing accurate testimony and perhaps, in the process, also making the prosecutor aware that they are asking for hearsay. That's both all I can do and the correct answer. It's an expert witness' responsibility to know enough to avoid blindly creating or helping to create error, but it's not the expert's job to be responsible for a problem resulting from an accurate answer to a deliberate question.

If, as you seem to relate, I had been asked the plain question and had answered it with the information, without explaining where it came from, if I then realized that it might have been taken for personal knowledge, I would inform the prosecutor or an assistant. They could then do whatever they thought appropriate. If there's a hearsay problem, such things are often adequately cured by clarifying and the judge admonishing the jury. I suspect, though, that most of that sort of thing is either harmless or is rendered harmless when the crime scene investigator testifies, if they haven't already.

Caveat: I am not an attorney, & do not profess to be qualified to give legal advice.

This is an interesting question, although I'm not clear on whether you just quoted from the outside agency report, & that was clear to everyone in the courtroom (& in the record). Or did you paraphrase, or perhaps even interpret what was in the report (reports can sometimes be rather cryptic, or contain terminology not well known or understood outside of the specialty field).

In the first instance, I would add to previous comments that since there was no objection, the court & parties involved may have previously agreed to a stipulation allowing what otherwise may have been 'hearsay' evidence. This might also apply even if you did not give exact quotes, but testimony was limited to what could be directly attributed to the report.

If you were asked to interpret and/or comment on what was contained in the report, to the extent that you may rely on the report to determine what examinations you perform, would seem to be within your area of expertise. If you have crime scene training/experience yourself, it could also be valid to answer questions related to a comparison of your personal training/experience to what was contained in the report, although you would want that clear in the record.
Regards, RLT