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Reed v. Maryland9/6/1978
ark as that appearing on the shell found at the scene of the homicide," and that " he rifling marks made by the lands
and grooves in the barrel of the pistol were the same." The court said:
"It seems to be a well-established rule that it is largely within the discretion of the trial court to permit experiments to be made, and that caution should be exercised in receiving such evidence. It should be admitted only where it is obvious to the court from the nature of the experiments that the jury will be enlightened, rather than confused. Such evidence should not be excluded merely because it is not necessary in establishing the facts sought to be shown by the prosecution, if it tends to corroborate the position taken by the expert witness whose evidence has been received; for whenever the opinion of a person is admitted to be relevant the grounds on which it is based are also relevant." Id. at 494.
As we have already indicated, the Supreme Court of Illinois initially was not favorably disposed toward reception of ballistics testimony. In Berkman, 307 Ill. 492 (1923), a police officer who purported to be an expert on firearms maintained that he could state positively that a given bullet had been fired by a given gun. That court scoffed at this "remarkable evidence," stating:
"[The officer] gave it as his opinion that the bullet introduced in evidence was fired from the Colt automatic revolver in evidence. He even stated positively that he knew that that bullet came out of the barrel of that revolver, because the rifling marks on the bullet fitted into the rifling of the revolver in question, and that the markings on that particular bullet were peculiar, because they came clear up on the steel of the bullet. There is no evidence in the case by which this officer claims to be an expert that shows that he knew anything about how Colt automatic revolvers are made and how they are rifled. There is no testimony in the record showing that the revolver in question was rifled in a manner
different from all others of its model, and we feel very sure that no such evidence could be produced. The evidence of this officer is clearly absurd, besides not being based upon any known rule that would make it admissible. If the real facts were brought out, it would undoubtedly show that all Colt revolvers of the same model and of the same caliber are rifled precisely in the same manner, and the statement that one can know that a certain bullet was fired out of a 32-caliber revolver, when there are hundreds and perhaps thousands of others rifled in precisely the same manner and of precisely the same character, is preposterous." Id. at 500-01.
Prof. Inbau refers to Evans v. Commonwealth, 230 Ky. 411, 19 S.W.2d 1091 (1929), as "the first exhaustive opinion treating firearms identification as a science while sanctioning its use for the purpose of establishing the guilt of an accused individual." 24 J. Crim. L. & C. at 837. The Kentucky court noted at 415 that the "storm center" of the appeal was the testimony and evidence presented by the ballistics expert, Colonel (then Major) Calvin Goddard. Although Goddard's
testimony was highly technical in nature, the court made no reference to any requirement of scientific acceptance. Rather, the standard used appeared to be that applied to expert testimony generally. The court said at 427: "The defendant says the evidence of Goddard was highly technical, unreasonable, extremely doubtful, and therefore inadmissible, but the same could just as plausibly be said of evidence of finger prints, and that is admitted every day."
In People v. Fisher, 340 Ill. 216, 172 N. E. 743 (1930), the court,
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