“When evaluating a trial judge’s gatekeeping decision, appellate courts may take judicial notice of other appellate opinions concerning a specific . . . technique.”
How later courts described this case
- “When evaluating a trial judge’s gatekeeping decision, appellate courts may take judicial notice of other appellate opinions concerning a specific . . . technique.”
- “[The expert] then agreed that EMIT is a reliable presumptive test to determine whether cocaine has been ingested.”
- “ the [EMIT] results indicated a possible positive for benzoylecgonine, or ‘cocaine and its metabolites’”
- "EMIT actually tests for the existence of benzoylecgonine, not cocaine.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
COCHRAN, J.,
concurring in which HERVEY, J., joined.
I join the majority opinion with the understanding that we are assessing only the general scientific reliability of an EMIT test. We are not addressing the question posed by Judge Meyers and Judge Johnson concerning the relevancy of this EMIT test to a disputed issue in appellant’s trial. We are not addressing whether such an unconfirmed EMIT test would be admissible when offered to show some purported connection between the results of the EMIT test and the accident victim’s cause of death. We are not addressing the ultimate admissibility of this “unconfirmed” EMIT test into evidence. And we are certainly not addressing the question of whether the trial court abused its discretion in excluding this evidence. Those are entirely distinct questions from the one that we resolve. And those questions are not before us.