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North Carolina v. Robinson10/3/1991
47, 362 S.E.2d at 528. This testimony merely offers a scientific explanation as to why fingerprints are sometimes not left behind after an object has been touched. This testimony, as defendant argues, explains the mechanics of fingerprinting.
North Carolina Rule of Evidence 401 provides:
"Relevant evidence" means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.
N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 401. While it may be helpful to the jury to understand general, scientific explanations regarding why a fingerprint may or may not be found at a crime scene, it is simply not relevant to the issues in this case that Sergeant Lance has found identifiable fingerprints in only three percent of the cases he has personally investigated. If this testimony is allowed, fingerprint experts might be asked the next logical question, e.g., were the other cases in which fingerprints were not found similar to the case at hand? We decline to extend Holden to allow the testimony at issue in this case.
Although we find error in the admission of this testimony, we do not find the error prejudicial. Defendant was placed at the scene of the crime by three eyewitnesses. The fact that the State used this testimony to explain an absence of fingerprints does not create a "reasonable possibility" that a "different result would have been reached" had the evidence not been admitted. N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443(a) (1988).
In defendant's next argument he contends that the trial court committed prejudicial error by sustaining the State's objection to testimony by witness Dr. Cole that ninety-one percent of the subjects in a particular identification experiment selected one of six black individuals as the perpetrator of a violent incident when
the actual perpetrator of that incident was not presented to the participants in the experimental identification. Defendant argues that he called Dr. Cole as a witness to attack the weight and credibility of the State's identification testimony, and because Dr. Cole had been found by the trial court to be an expert in the field of clinical psychology with emphasis in the area of perception and eyewitness identification, Dr. Cole should have been allowed to testify about the results of the experiment. The State contends that the testimony was not admissible because it concerns results of an experiment about which the witness had not given an opinion, and was therefore inadmissible hearsay.
Rule 703 of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence provides:
The fact or data in the particular case upon which an expert bases an opinion or inference may be those perceived by or made known to him at or before the hearing. If of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field in forming opinions or inferences upon the subjects, the facts or data need not be admissible in evidence.
N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 703 (1986). This rule allows experts to rely on the opinions of other experts or upon facts or data not itself admissible as the basis of their own expert opinions. When a witness testifies to results of experiments after giving an opinion which was based on such experiments, such testimony is not hearsay because it is not offered for the truth of the matter, but to show the basis of the opinion. State v. Jones, 322 N.C. 406, 411-14, 368 S.E.2d 844, 846-48 (1988).
A review of the record reveals that Dr. Cole did express an opinion on "cros
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