SAMPLE QUESTIONS FOR CROSS EXAMINATION

QUESTION(S) FOR EXPERT WITNESS

Does ballistics testimony from a forensic expert witness meet the

requirement of being sufficiently reliable so that it is admissible in a
criminal case?
EXPERT WITNESS RESPONSE #

In general, ballistics testimony presented by forensic expert witnesses has in the

past been held to be admissible in courts across the United States. Recently,
however, courts have held that ballistics testimony presented by forensic expert
witnesses is not based on sufficient rigor, and so it cannot be presented in court as
scientific. This new holding is based on the fact that there is no reliable scientific
methodology that can allow a forensic expert witness who is a ballistics analyst to
testify that a casing and a particular firearm are a match to an absolute certainty,
or to an arbitrary degree of statistical certainty. In addition, ballistics opinions by
forensic expert witnesses are highly subjective. This means that a forensic expert
witnesss assessment of the quality and quantity of resulting tool marks (i.e. the
marks imparted from the gun to the bullet and/or casing) and the decision of what
does or what does not constitute a match comes down to a subjective
determination based on the experts intuition and experience. Even though this is
the case, the gun manufacturing process causes differences between any two guns
that, while small, can still be detected by use of ballistics techniques. Because the
unique characteristics of each gun are to a great degree copied onto some or all
bullets and casings fired from that gun, ballistics technology has gained significant
empirical support.