APRI Highlights - Autumn 2003

Tips for Defusing Jurors’ Unrealistic Expectations about Firearms Evidence

Increasingly, prosecutors are experiencing a new burden beyond proving the elements of a crime in court. They are coping with the “savvy juror as forensic scientist” phenomenon which has developed in the wake of many popular television documentary or fictionalized forensic science programs. Jurors hear the facts of a trial and think that all local law enforcement is equipped with thermal imagers to detect the presence of a recently fired firearm or a cyranose device to detect odors of gunshot at a crime scene. While such devices do exist, they are seldom part of the routine equipment presently available for most firearms case investigations. Further, in some jurisdictions, evidence collected from these devices may not always be admitted.

Firearms prosecutors in particular are spending more time during voir dire educating jurors about the realities of what their investigative staff can and cannot do with the resources available to them. It is important that jurors do not deliberate with unrealistic expectations of what the gun crime investigator “should have” collected. For example, jurors must understand that, despite what they may have seen in the popular media, usable fingerprints are often difficult or impossible to lift from the butt-end surface of many firearms, and that most law enforcement vehicles do not carry a portable crime scene lab in the trunk.

Prosecutors should work with their expert or law enforcement witnesses to educate jurors as to why certain evidence could not be recovered or did not exist. Without these efforts, the defense may be able to create reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds, for example, as to why there was no evidence of prints on a firearm.

Prosecutors should discuss with their local law enforcement and investigators what is expected in a thorough firearms investigation, given the available resources. For instance, law enforcement officers may be able to photograph firearm recovery incidents and to include brief descriptions of the photos in firearms incident reports. Such photographs can be very helpful to juries.

To learn more about community gun violence prosecution, please visit APRI’s Web site at www.ndaa-apri.org or call (703) 549-4253.