MARTAZ JOHNSON v. STATE OF MARYLAND
Court of Appeals, McDonald, February 21, 2018,
Expert Testimony – GPS – Expert testimony is not required in order to explain the times and locations reflected in GPS data in a business record
(Dissent- Watts with Adkins- Under these circumstances, the underlying record and testimony should not have been admitted)
Facts:
In 2014, a car was struck by a bus at Central and Monument in Baltimore City.
MTA police officers, including Officer Martaz Johnson, responded to the scene and made contact with the driver of the vehicle, “Ms. K.” Ms. K reported that she had been drinking and MTA Officer Johnson told her that she would not be driving any more that night.
Johnson instructed her to sit in the back of his police car and said that he needed to “release” her to someone or else he would have to take her “downtown,” which Ms. K. interpreted to mean jail.
Ms. K tried to get in contact with a friend to pick her up, but was unable to do so.
Johnson then drove Ms. K back to her home on Duncan Street.
MTA communications showed no call by Johnson reporting that he would be transporting anyone during that time frame.
According to Ms. K, Johnson asked her, “what are you going to do to make this up”? She testified that when they got to her home, Johnson followed her inside without being invited to do so, used his flashlight to make sure that nobody else was there, and raped her. When she tried to take a picture of him with her cell-phone, she testified that Johnson made her unlock the phone and went through her pictures to make sure that he was not in there.
After Johnson left, Ms. K called 911 to report the rape.
Ms. K spoke with BPD detectives and informed them of what had occurred.
Forensic testing of Johnson revealed skin cells from Ms. K on the shaft of his penis.
Johnson was charged with rape and related crimes.
At trial, the State used GPS coordinates from the “Pocket Cop” program used by MTA to show that Johnson spent 37 minutes in the area of Ms. K’s home that evening.
The GPS coordinates were introduced through an MTA sergeant who testified about how the Pocket Cop program worked, how he used “Field Force Manager” to access the GPS of officers, and how a report showing the officer’s GPS coordinates was generated. When asked questions on cross-examination, the sergeant admitted that he was “not the technical person” for the agency and did not know about the accuracy or calibration of the system.
Johnson objected, arguing a number of things including that the sergeant was not an expert. The trial judge allowed the GPS evidence.
Johnson was convicted by jury of misconduct in office and second-degree assault.
Johnson appealed, arguing that the State should not have been allowed to introduce GPS evidence without an expert.
Held: The Court of Appeals held that an expert is not necessary to testify about GPS coordinates generally, as GPS systems are commonly used and understood by ordinary people.
Expert Testimony – Expert testimony may be admitted if the testimony will assist the judge or jury understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue
Expert Testimony – Testimony relying on specialized knowledge or training must be introduced through an expert, whether it is an opinion or not.
Expert Testimony – To decide whether expert testimony will be admitted, the court must consider:
(1) whether the witness is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education,
(2) the appropriateness of the expert testimony on the particular subject, and
(3) whether a sufficient factual basis exists to support the expert testimony.
Expert Opinion – An expert is only needed when the subject is beyond the understanding of the average person
Expert Opinion – Expert opinion is “not required on matters of which the jurors would be aware by virtue of common knowledge.”
GPS – GPS technology is “pervasive and generally reliable.”
GPS – GPS technology is also “familiar to the general public,” who use it for tracking their location.
From the Case: Although a user may not understand precisely how a GPS device works, the same is true for other commonly used devices such as clocks, scales, and thermometers. The general public has a common sense understanding of what information the device conveys – time, weight, temperature – and of the margin of error to which such devices are ordinarily subject.
From the Case: The general public is also aware that a GPS device may not be absolutely precise. Moreover, any of these devices may be broken or provide erroneous information for reasons that only an expert would explain. But that does not mean that lay jurors are incapable of comprehending the information provided by the device and its usual margin of error.
CSLI – Cell-Site Location Information (CSLI) requires “knowledge, skill, experience, training or education” to understand the “technical language of the entries” in a CSLI record to hone in on the pertinent entries and eliminate extraneous data
CSLI – CSLI is “not decipherable based on common experience” and an expert would be needed to use CSLI information
From the Case: “By contrast, in this case, Sergeant Schauman was literally reading the entries as they appeared in the report. Those entries do not use technical language and are decipherable without specialized knowledge. The entries were street addresses and times written in plain language. They were not beyond the ken of the average juror.”
DNA – While DNA evidence is commonly referred to in high-school science classes and television shows, DNA analysis is not used by people in their daily lives and common people have “little experience on which to evaluate the information conveyed by DNA analysis and little sense of the margin of error associated with such analysis.”
DNA – DNA evidence requires expert testimony