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Byrd v. State

Te fact that an expert's opinion was based on hearsay went to the weight, not the admissibility of the evidence.

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Due to health reasons, the forensic chemist from the state crime lab who tested contraband recovered from Patrick O’Neil Byrd, and determined it was cocaine, was unavailable to testify during Byrd’s trial for possession of cocaine, possession of a firearm during a violation of the Georgia Controlled Substances Act, and criminal trespass. Over Byrd’s hearsay objection, the trial court allowed the chemist’s supervisor to testify instead. Byrd appeals. The supervisor, Mark Burns, had previously testified as an expert approximately 300 to 400 times. He was accepted as an expert in drug identification without objection. He then admitted that he did not personally test the evidence at issue in this case; Lisa Olive had performed a thin-layer chromatography test and a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry test. And her work had been peer-reviewed. Burns described each technique, and then explained that he reviewed Olive’s file including the output generated during the two different tests. The results had to be further interpreted, and he compared the results to published data to determine whether the substance tested was cocaine. Burns went on to testify over objection that based on the results of both tests, the substance tested positive for cocaine. Byrd was convicted.

We review a trial court’s evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. See Jones v. State , 270 Ga. 25, 29 8 505 SE2d 749 1998.

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