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Reed v. Maryland9/6/1978
istics
Although the accuracy of firearms identification is common knowledge today, see Moenssens et al., supra, § 4.16 at 149, the Illinois Supreme Court at one point labeled the claims of ballistics experts as "preposterous." People v. Berkman, 307 Ill. 492, 501, 139 N. E. 91, 94 (1923). See generally Inbau, {PA}
Page 423} Scientific Evidence in Criminal Cases (I), 24 J. Crim. L. & C. 825 (1934). Professor Inbau notes: "A Virginia case decided in 1879, Dean v. Commonwealth, [32 Gratt. (Va.) 912 (1879),] is the first in which an appellate court approved of testimony regarding the similarity between fatal and test bullets -- although weight, rather than any characteristic markings, constituted the basis for comparison." Id. at 830. "The first semblance of firearms identification evidence as we know it today, was presented in the 1902 Massachusetts case of Commonwealth v. Best [, 180 Mass. 492, 62 N. E. 748 (1902)]." Moenssens et al., supra, § 4.16 at 147. The writer of the opinion in Best was Oliver Wendell Holmes, then Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. He there said for the court:
"The government contended that Bailey was shot with a Winchester rifle that was in the kitchen. Two bullets were found in his body, and the government was allowed to prove that another bullet of the same calibre had been pushed through the rifle on or shortly after October 24. It then was allowed to put this bullet in evidence, and also photographs from this and the two bullets from the body, in order to show that the marks from the rifle in the two cases coincided so closely as to prove that all three bullets had passed through the same rifle barrel. This evidence was excepted to. The main ground seems to be that the conditions of the experiment did not correspond accurately with those of the date of the shooting, that the forces impelling the different bullets were different in kind, that the rifle barrel
might be supposed to have rusted more in the little more than a fortnight that had intervened, and that it was fired three times on October 10, which would have increased the leading of the barrel. We see no other way in which the jury could have learned so intelligently how that gun barrel would have marked a lead bullet fired through it, a question of much importance to the case. Not only was it the best evidence attainable but the sources of error suggested were trifling. The photographs avowedly were arranged to bring out the likeness in the marking of the different bullets and were objected to on this further ground. But the jury could correct them by inspection of the originals, if there were other aspects more favorable to the defence." Id. at 495-96.
Prof. Inbau notes that " State v. Clark, [99 Or. 629, 196 P. 360 (1921)], appears to be the first one approving of identification by means of markings upon fatal and test shells." 24 J. Crim. L. & C. at 833 (emphasis in original). In Clark the court said:
"The admission of testimony concerning tests of this character rests very largely within the sound discretion of the court: State v. Holbrook, 98 Or. 43 (188 Pac. 947). That discretion was properly exercised in the case at bar. The tendency of this testimony was to prove that the cartridge that was found near the boulder was from the defendant's gun." 99 Or. at 665.
In State v. Vuckovich, 61 Mont. 480, 203 P. 491 (1921), decided the same year as Clark, the court found no difficulty in approving the admission of expert testimony identifying the defendant's gun as the murder weapon. Having fired a test bullet from the defendant's gun, the experts testified that the shell "showed the same peculiar crimp or m
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