State v. Langill

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · 2008 · Evidence

157 N.H. 77 (2008)

Updated August 22, 2026

EvidenceExpert testimonyDaubertRule 702Fingerprint identificationRSA 516:29-aexpert reliabilityACE-V

Facts

Police investigated a burglary in Derry and lifted latent prints from the complainant's bureau, bottle, and safe. A level one criminalist at the New Hampshire State Police Forensic Laboratory, Lisa Corson, identified a latent print from the bureau as the defendant's fingerprint using ACE-V methodology, and another examiner verified her conclusion. Before trial, the defendant moved to exclude her testimony, arguing among other things that ACE-V was unreliable as applied because Corson did not memorialize her observations in contemporaneous bench notes and the verification was not blind. At a two-day Daubert hearing, Corson and NHSPFL criminalist Steven Ostrowski testified that bench notes and blind verification were not components necessary to reliable application of ACE-V, while the defendant's expert disagreed.

Issue

Under RSA 516:29-a, I(c) and Rule 702, may a trial court exclude otherwise generally reliable fingerprint-identification testimony because the examiner did not create contemporaneous bench notes and the laboratory used non-blind verification? More broadly, how searching is the trial court's inquiry into the expert's application of a reliable methodology to the facts of the case?

Rule

RSA 516:29-a, I(c) requires the trial court to examine whether the witness actually applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case. But reliability in this context means trustworthiness, not correctness, and when the methodology itself is otherwise sufficiently reliable, exclusion is proper only if a deficient application so infected the procedure as to make the results unreliable or so altered the methodology as to skew the methodology itself; lesser flaws go to weight and credibility, to be tested through cross-examination and contrary evidence.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In a robbery prosecution in Manchester, New Hampshire, the trial court finds that a firearms-mark comparison method is generally reliable and that examiner Dana Mercer is qualified. The judge nonetheless excludes Mercer’s opinion because the court believes RSA 516:29-a permits review only of whether the methodology is reliable in the abstract, not whether Mercer actually applied it reliably in this case.

On appeal, which statement best describes the proper interpretation of the court’s gatekeeping role?

Explanation. RSA 516:29-a, I(c) requires the trial court to examine whether the witness has actually applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case. The majority rejected the view that the inquiry is limited to abstract applicability. But the inquiry is about reliability of application, not ultimate correctness.