A civil case decided by the court of appeals last week, Blackwell v. Hatley, addresses when a witness may testify as to his or her opinion of how fast a vehicle was traveling. In Blackwell, the court held that an accident report prepared by a town police officer estimating the defendant’s speed at the time of the crash was inadmissible because the officer had not seen the accident. The court likewise held inadmissible testimony about the defendant’s speed proffered by the plaintiff’s accident reconstruction expert on the basis that the expert had not seen the accident, which occurred in 2004. The date of the crash was significant with respect to the latter ruling as the court recognized that N.C. R. Evid. 702 was amended in 2006 to permit a witness qualified as an expert in accident reconstruction who has performed a reconstruction of a crash or who has reviewed the report of investigation, with proper foundation to give an opinion as to the speed of a vehicle—even if the witness did not observe the vehicle moving. See N.C. R. Evid. 702(i). Because the Blackwell accident occurred before the effective date of this provision (August 21, 2006), the court applied the rule from pre-amendment case law that permitted the admission of such evidence only if the expert witness saw the accident. State v. Davis, ___ N.C. App. ___, 678 S.E.2d 385 (2009) demonstrates how Rule 702(i) applies in a criminal case involving a post-amendment crash. In Davis (discussed here), a state trooper [...]
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