Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
State v. Green, 209 N.C. App. 669 (Mar. 1, 2011)
(1) In an impaired driving case, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing the State’s witness to testify as an expert in pharmacology and physiology. Based on his knowledge, skill, experience, training, and education, the witness was better informed than the jury about the subject of alcohol as it relates to human physiology and pharmacology. (2) The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the trial court erred by allowing the expert to give opinion testimony regarding the defendant’s post-driving consumption of alcohol on grounds that such testimony was an opinion about the truthfulness of the defendant’s statement that he consumed wine after returning home. The court concluded that because the expert’s testimony was not opinion testimony concerning credibility, the trial court did not err by allowing the expert to testify as to how the defendant’s calculated blood alcohol content would have been altered by the defendant’s stated post-driving consumption; the expert’s statements assisted the jury in determining whether the defendant’s blood alcohol content at the time of the accident was in excess of the legal limit. (3) The trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the expert’s opinion testimony regarding retrograde extrapolation in a case where the defendant asserted that he consumed alcohol after driving. The defendant’s assertions of post-driving alcohol consumption went to the weight of the expert’s testimony, not its admissibility.