5th Circuit Says Forensic Expert's Report Need Not Specify Protocols

In an unpublished opinion, the Fifth Circuit has rejected a criminal defendant's complaint that the reports of the prosecution's forensic experts failed to disclose the protocols used in testing contraband substances. The relevant paragraph from the opinion:

Ashlock's main critique of the government's forensic testimony centers on the experts' failure to disclose the protocols they followed in testing the substances they identified as contraband, rendering it impossible for anyone other than a chemist to examine the test results independently and reach a conclusion regarding the identity of the substances tested. Nothing in Rule 702 requires an expert to provide this level of detail, however. Instead, Rule 702 simply dictates that the party presenting the expert testimony must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the testimony is reliable. See United States v. Fullwood, 342 F.3d 409, 412 (5th Cir. 2003). At trial, the government met this burden by eliciting testimony revealing that: (1) each expert held a bachelor's degree in chemistry and had extensive on-the-job training in forensic chemistry; (2) each of the tests performed by the experts was generally accepted in the field of forensic chemistry; (3) each of the tests was performed in accordance with the standard procedures used in the laboratory; and (4) each expert had his or her results reviewed by another chemist in the laboratory or by a laboratory administrator. Based on this evidence, we hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the government's expert-witness testimony under Rule 702.

See United States v. Ashlock, No. 03-10615 (5th Cir. Aug. 3, 2004) (King, Barksdale, & Pickering, JJ.).

It is sometimes contended, in civil litigation, that an expert's report should be stricken because it supplies insufficient detail to permit independent investigators to reproduce the expert's results. That position is apparently so uncontroversially untrue, in the Fifth Circuit, that its rejection does not call for a published opinion. We note that under Fifth Circuit Rule 47.5.4, unpublished opinions issued after January 1, 1996, may be cited as persuasive authority.