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Reed v. Maryland9/6/1978
r so unreliable and scientifically unacceptable that their admission into evidence was error." {PA}
Page 440} Id. at 70 (emphasis added). It concluded, "On appeal it is incumbent for defendant to show that the trial judge abused his discretion. This the defendant has failed to do." Id. at 71.
Another scientific technique which was welcomed into the courts without discussion of general acceptance is the process of X-ray photography. Soon after X-rays were discovered by William von Roentgen in 1895, an X-ray photograph was introduced into evidence in the case of Bruce v. Beall, 99 Tenn. 303, 41 S. W. 445 (1897). Surely the art of reading X-rays must have been in its developmental stage at that point in time. However, the reviewing court found no error in admitting the evidence, stating:
"New as this process is, experiments made by scientific men, as shown by this record, have demonstrated its power to reveal to the natural eye the entire structure of the human body, and that its various parts can be photographed, as its exterior surface has been and now is. And no sound reason was assigned at the bar why a civil Court should not avail itself of this invention, when it was apparent that it would serve to throw light on the matter in controversy. Maps and diagrams of the locus in quo, drawn by hand, are often used to aid a Judge or a jury to an intelligent conception of the matters to be determined, and no one would think of questioning the competency of the testimony of a witness who stated that he knew the map or diagram to be entirely accurate, and who then used it to illustrate or make plain his statement. The pictorial representation of the condition of the broken leg of the plaintiff gave to the jury a much more intelligent idea of that particular injury than they would have obtained from any verbal description of it by a surgeon, even if he had used for the purpose the simplest terms of his art." Id. at 307-08.
The theory behind the admissibility of this evidence was
discussed in 1 S. Greenleaf, Law of Evidence § 439 h (16th ed. J. Wigmore 1899):
"The use of photographs taken by the vacuum-tube -- Roentgen rays -- may involve slightly different principles. Since the operator will usually not have perceived the object -- usually a concealed bone -- with his ordinary organs of vision, he will not be able to put forward the photograph as corresponding to the results of his own observation; nevertheless, if he can testify that the process is known to him (by experience or otherwise) to give correct representations, the photograph is in effect supported by his testimony, and stands on the same footing as a photograph of an object whose otherwise invisible details have been rendered discernible by a magnifying lens." Id. at 548-49 (footnote omitted).
Moenssens et al., supra, note, referring to stereoscopic views, photographs, photomacrographs, photomicrographs, and X-rays, that " here seems to have been no objection, ever since this early period, to the admittance in evidence of photographs of any kind, provided the accuracy and relevancy of them were duly established." Id. at 500.
Courts have also admitted testimony based on microanalysis of human hairs as evidence of positive identification:
"Although there is no known way yet of positively identifying hair as having come from a particular individual, except in a few rare instances, an ascertainment of similarity in color, structure, pigmentation and other characteristics can be of considerable probative value when considered along with other evidence against an accused person." Id. at 357, Moenssens et al., supra.
"It must be reem
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