Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Underdog

Criminal Law

: Underdog

Maryland bars HGN evidence without expert testimony.

By Marks & Katz, LLC

Image from National Institute of Standards & Technology. If you are going to drive after drinking alcohol, why agree to perform the junk science "tests" requested by a cop suspecting you of drunk driving?  Ironically, today Maryland's highest court mandated expert testimony to present evidence on the junk science horizontal gaze nystagmus. Does not junk science preclude the possibility of expert testimony? Maryland v. Blackwell, __ Md. _ (May 14, 2009). Yes, if it were not for the slew of courts who do not view it as junk.  Enter Maryland's Court of Appeals, which ruled that HGN testimony is expert testimony, and requires that the witness first be qualified as an expert. Blackwell. Consequently, under the Maryland evidentiary rules, if the prosecutor fails to provide a timely and sufficiently detailed HGN expert witness designation, the testimony should be precluded...continue to full post

Full post as published by Underdog on May 14, 2009 (boomark / email).