Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
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State v. Denton, ___ N.C. App. ___, 829 S.E.2d 674 (Jun. 4, 2019)
In this felony death by vehicle case, the trial court committed reversible error by admitting lay opinion testimony identifying the defendant as the driver of the vehicle, where the expert accident reconstruction analyst was unable to form an expert opinion based upon the same information available to the lay witness. The defendant and Danielle Mitchell were in a car when it ran off the road and wrecked, killing Mitchell. The defendant was charged with felony death by vehicle and the primary issue at trial was whether the defendant was driving. At trial, Trooper Fox testified that he believed the defendant was driving because “the seating position was pushed back to a position where I did not feel that Ms. Mitchell would be able to operate that vehicle or reach the pedals.” Fox, however, acknowledged that he was not an expert in accident reconstruction. Trooper Souther, the accident reconstruction expert who analyzed the accident, could not reach a conclusive expert opinion about who was driving. The defendant was convicted and he appealed, arguing that the trial court erred by allowing Fox, who was not an expert, to testify to his opinion that the defendant was driving. The court noted that accident reconstruction analysis requires expert testimony and it found no instance of lay accident reconstruction analysis testimony in the case law. Here, Fox based his lay opinion on the very same information used by Souther but without the benefit of expert analysis. The court concluded: “the facts about the accident and measurements available were simply not sufficient to support an expert opinion — as Trooper Souther testified — and lay opinion testimony on this issue is not admissible under Rule 701.” Having found error, the court went on to conclude that it was prejudicial, requiring a new trial.