I’m not sure how relevant this case is, but I thought that it was interesting that the court makes a distinction between the expert making a “definitive” conlcusion versus a conclusion of “absolute certainty” or a statistical degree of certainty.
Defendant has not shown that Saggs, who as of the time of trial had at least 25 years of experience in the area of firearm and tool mark identification, was not qualified to employ that methodology or that he applied it incorrectly in this case. Defendant claims Saggs failed to establish that the same weapon was used in each instance, because Saggs “had no weapon to test fire.” But Saggs specifically testified that he does not always need the gun in order to establish that two bullets were fired from a single firearm. Saggs’s testimony was “reasonable in nature, credible, and of solid value,” and thus was substantial evidence.