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Reed v. Maryland9/6/1978
phasized, however, that it is impossible to definitely state that a hair belongs to
a given individual. The most that can be stated is that a questioned hair matches a hair sample of known origin in all microscopic characteristics." Id. at 358.
Despite the scientific inconclusiveness of identifications based on an examination of hair, an FBI expert was permitted to testify to a positive identification in Padilla v. People, 156 Colo. 186, 397 P. 2d 741 (1964), where the court stated:
"We fail to comprehend how defendant could characterize it as incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial. One of the expert witnesses testified that he was given a strand of hair identified as having been found in the defendant's automobile, and that he took from the alleged victim samples of her hair and matched them in the FBI laboratory under procedures developed there. He testified unequivocally that the hairs were from one and the same person." Id. at 188.
The court said, "We agree with the trial court's ruling that the testimony and the exhibits were admissible and relevant; the weight to be given to the particular evidence, however, was for the jury." Id. at 189.
A similar result was reached in State v. Andrews, 86 R. I. 341, 134 A.2d 425, cert. denied, 355 U.S. 898 (1957), a case involving the rape and murder of an 86 year old retired school teacher. Hair analysis was employed to identify the defendant as the perpetrator.
"The defendant, at the request of the police, gave them some of his public hairs and Dr. Harrison testified that he compared them with other hairs which he obtained from a pair of shorts and a red shirt which were taken from defendant's bedroom, and which defendant admitted had been worn by him, and also from the bed in which Miss Franklin was assaulted, and that they originated from the same source. The doctor also testified that a white hair which was taken from the red shirt of defendant had come from the head of Miss Franklin." Id. at 345.
On appeal, the defendant argued that Dr. Harrison should not have been allowed to give his opinion. The court rejected the argument:
"Doctor Harrison who had studied this subject for many years gave his opinion, as defendant says, 'by microscopic comparison' of the hairs in question. This was something he was better able to do than a jury.
"A hundred years ago in Buffum v. Harris, 5 R.I. 243, 251, Chief Justice Ames laid down the law which we believe has been uniformly followed here as to the use and the qualification of experts to assist the jury. The trial justice has rather wide discretion as to whether the subject matter admits of expert testimony. See 20 Am. Jur., Evidence, § 798, p. 671." Id. at 350-51.
Moenssens et al. state that by examining the hair from an individual "it may usually be established whether he is Caucasian, Negroid, Mongoloid, or of mixed race. This is done primarily by a study of pigment distribution, cross section, and physical characteristics." Id. at 360. In People v. Kirkwood, 17 Ill. 2d 23, 160 N.E.2d 766 (1959), cert. denied, 363 U.S. 847 (1960), a police officer who had performed laboratory tests using microanalysis testified that hair found on the coat of a Negro defendant to a rape charge was from a white person. Although the expert admitted that the authorities disagreed as to the reliability of such a determination, the court found no error in permitting him to express his opinion on the subject:
"Defendant did object to the question of whether the hairs were from a white person or a colored person on the ground that there was no scientific basis for such a distinction. The witness then
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