State v. Koiyan

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA
No. COA19-951
Filed: 7 April 2020
Mecklenburg County, No. 16CRS238807
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
v.
JOSHUA KOIYAN, Defendant.
Appeal by Defendant from judgment entered 3 May 2019 by Judge Donnie
Hoover in Mecklenburg County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 18
March 2020.
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Assistant Attorney General Tien Cheng,
for State-Appellee.
Appellate Defender Glenn Gerding, by Assistant Appellate Defender Jillian C.
Katz, for Defendant-Appellant.
COLLINS, Judge.
Defendant appeals from judgment entered upon a jury verdict of guilty of
robbery with a dangerous weapon. Defendant argues that the trial court plainly erred
by admitting expert testimony because the testimony did not demonstrate that the
expert applied accepted methods and procedures reliably to the facts of the case. We
discern no plain error.
I. Background
STATE V. KOIYAN
Opinion of the Court
On 24 October 2016, a grand jury indicted Defendant Joshua Koiyan for
robbery with a dangerous weapon, in violation of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-87. On 29 April
2019, Defendant’s case came on for trial. The evidence at trial tended to show: On
12 October 2016, two employees were working at a Boost Mobile store in Charlotte,
North Carolina. The employees were Ana Torres and Guadalupe Morin, both of
whom worked the floor of the store as sales representatives. That afternoon, both
observed a young man—later identified as Defendant—enter the Boost Mobile store;
Defendant wandered the store for approximately 45 minutes and repeatedly asked
the employees whether the store sold iPhones. Torres noticed that Defendant seemed
nervous and she became suspicious that something was going to happen; in light of
her suspicion, Torres took all of the money out of her cash register except for the
dollar bills and hid the money. Torres also took pictures of Defendant with her
personal cell phone while he spoke with Morin.
Approximately 45 minutes after Defendant entered the store, and after all
other customers had exited, Defendant pulled out a silver gun and jumped over the
counter. Defendant ordered Morin to open the cash registers, and then told both
women to go to the corner while he put the money into a plastic bag. Defendant then
took Torres’ purse, which contained two of her cell phones, her passport, her jewelry,
and her wallet, along with several display phones. Defendant told the women, “I’m
not going to hurt you all today because you all are being good,” jumped back over the
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Opinion of the Court
counter, and ran out of the store. Torres followed Defendant out of the store but lost
sight of him, and then called 911.
Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Officers Kelly Zagar and David Batson arrived
at the store within four to five minutes. Torres provided them with a description of
Defendant, explaining that he was: a black male; approximately 5’7” tall; skinny
build; wore a black visor, black hoody, and jeans; and looked to be about 20 years old.
Zagar secured the crime scene for evidence and called the Charlotte Mecklenburg
Crime Scene Search. Keywana Darden, an investigator with the Crime Scene Search
team, collected, documented, and preserved all of the evidence found at the store. The
evidence included surveillance footage taken from cameras located inside the Boost
Mobile store and photographs of the scene. Darden also dusted areas throughout the
store and obtained latent fingerprints from the scene. Torres also gave the officers
the photographs she took of Defendant while he was in the store. Those photographs
were later obtained by the news media and broadcasted to the public.
On 14 October 2016, two days after the robbery, Defendant was apprehended
and arrested by the Charlotte Mecklenburg police. Torres independently viewed
Defendant’s mugshot online but did not participate in a photographic or in-person
lineup.
During the trial, Torres testified for the State and identified Defendant as
being the individual who committed the armed robbery of the Boost Mobile store.
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STATE V. KOIYAN
Opinion of the Court
Prior to trial, Defendant filed a motion to suppress Torres’ in-court identification,
arguing that Torres could not make an identification of him until just one week before
trial. Defendant argued that Torres admitted to viewing his mugshot prior to the
trial and thus could not independently identify him as the perpetrator. The trial
court denied Defendant’s motion to suppress, and Torres identified Defendant at trial
in the presence of the jury.
Todd Roberts, a latent fingerprint examiner with the State of North Carolina,
testified as an expert witness at trial. Roberts testified to his education, training in
the field of latent fingerprint analysis, and his conclusion that the latent fingerprints
found at the Boost Mobile store were a match to Defendant’s fingerprints.
On 3 May 2019, the jury found Defendant guilty of robbery with a firearm. The
trial court sentenced Defendant to 45-66 months’ imprisonment. Following
judgment, Defendant gave oral notice of appeal.
II. Discussion
Defendant’s sole argument on appeal is that the trial court plainly erred by
admitting Roberts’ expert opinion that Defendant’s fingerprints matched the latent
fingerprints left at the Boost Mobile store because Roberts’ testimony did not
demonstrate that he applied accepted methods and procedures reliably to the facts of
this case.
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Opinion of the Court
Defendant acknowledges his failure to object to Roberts’ testimony at trial but
specifically argues plain error on appeal. “For error to constitute plain error, a
defendant must demonstrate that a fundamental error occurred at trial.” State v.
Lawrence, 365 N.C. 506, 518, 723 S.E.2d 326, 334 (2012) (citation omitted). In order
to show fundamental error, a defendant must establish prejudice—that the error “had
a probable impact on the jury’s finding that the defendant was guilty.” Lawrence,
365 N.C. at 518, 723 S.E.2d at 334 (quotation marks and citation omitted).
Accordingly, we review whether the trial court erred in admitting Roberts’ testimony
for plain error.
It is the trial court’s role to decide preliminary questions concerning the
admissibility of expert testimony. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 104(a) (2019). Rule
702 of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence governs testimony by experts. Pertinent
to Defendant’s argument, Rule 702 provides as follows:
(a) If scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge
will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to
determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert
by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may
testify thereto in the form of an opinion, or otherwise, if all
of the following apply:
(1) The testimony is based upon sufficient facts or
data.
(2) The testimony is the product of reliable
principles and methods.
(3) The witness has applied the principles and
methods reliably to the facts of the case.
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STATE V. KOIYAN
Opinion of the Court
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rule 702(a) (2019). Prongs (a)(1), (2), and (3) together
constitute the reliability inquiry discussed in Daubert v. Merrell Dow
Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S.
136 (1997), and Kumho Tire Co., Ltd. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999). State v.
McGrady, 368 N.C. 880, 890, 787 S.E.2d 1, 9 (2016). “The primary focus of the inquiry
is on the reliability of the witness’s principles and methodology, not on the conclusions
that they generate[.]” Id. (internal quotation marks and internal citations omitted).
However, “conclusions and methodology are not entirely distinct from one another[;]”
thus, when the “analytical gap between the data and the opinion proffered” is too
great, the trial court is not required to admit the expert opinion evidence “that is
connected to existing data only by the ipse dixit of the expert.” Id. (internal quotation
marks and citation omitted).
In State v. McPhaul, 256 N.C. App. 303, 314, 808 S.E.2d 294, 304 (2017), this
Court recently examined expert testimony regarding latent fingerprint analysis
under the three-prong reliability test set forth in McGrady. In McPhaul, the State’s
expert witness testified that she had worked as a print examiner for more than nearly
a decade; explained that each fingerprint contains distinguishing characteristics
called “minutia”; and testified that it was possible to identify the source of a latent
print by comparing the print to an individual’s “known impressions” and evaluating
the “minutia points.” Id. She further explained that she uses an optic camera to
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Opinion of the Court
compare the minutia points and examine the print pattern type, and she stated that
the procedures she followed were commonly used in the field of fingerprint
identification. Id. at 315, 808 S.E.2d at 304.
However, when the expert testified to her ultimate conclusions, the expert was
“unable to establish that she reliably applied the procedure to the facts of this case[.]”
Id. The expert concluded that the latent print matched the defendant’s fingerprints,
and stated that she based that conclusion on her “training and experience.” Id. The
State asked the expert whether her other conclusions were based upon “the same
procedure” she described to the jury, and the expert stated that was correct. Id. at
316, 808 S.E.2d at 305. This Court determined that the expert’s testimony was
insufficient and failed to satisfy Rule 702’s three-pronged reliability test because the
testimony failed to show that the expert “reliably applied that methodology to the
facts of the case” and failed to explain “how she arrived at her actual conclusions in
this case.” Id. As the expert’s testimony “implicitly asked the jury to accept her expert
opinion that the prints matched[,]” this Court determined the testimony insufficient
and held that the trial court erred by admitting the testimony. Id.
We determine that the testimony here is similar to the testimony in McPhaul
and hold that Roberts’ testimony failed to demonstrate how he arrived at his
conclusion that Defendant’s fingerprints matched the fingerprints left at the Boost
Mobile store. On direct examination, Roberts first explained that he was a latent
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Opinion of the Court
fingerprint examiner, had worked in the field for more than 14 years, and that his
primary responsibilities were to “evaluate, compare, and attempt to identify latent
[fingerprint] lifts collected by a crime scene investigator . . . to its individual[.]”
Roberts has degrees in “correctional and juvenile services and criminal justice,” two
years of in-house training with the State Crime Lab, and has been trained in “logical
latent analysis, advanced palm print comparison techniques, forensic ridgeology, and
fingerprint comparisons.” At the time of trial in this case, Roberts had testified as an
expert witness in latent fingerprint identification more than 75 times in state and
federal courts and estimated that he had identified and analyzed “tens of thousands”
of fingerprints.
Roberts explained that he examines fingerprints by looking for three levels of
detail, with “level 1 being the basic just ridge flow. The level 2 detail is what we use
for identification, that is, consists of ending ridges and bifurcations and their spatial
relationship to each other. And then the level 3 [] detail is more on the microscopic
level, but it’s actually the structure of the ridge. It’s the pores located within the
ridge[.]” Roberts explained that he takes the latent fingerprints, puts it beside an
inked fingerprint, magnifies the prints, and examines the likenesses or
dissimilarities. Roberts testified that an example of “level 1 detail . . . is a right loop,
meaning that the ridge is just coming from the right side of the finger. They loop
around the core and then back out the right side.” “[L]evel 2 detail . . . , they’re located
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within the print . . . . The ending ridges and the bifurcations is what makes that print
unique. There are places that you can see a bifurcation come over to another
bifurcation, creating an enclosure.” “The level 3 detail . . . includes the pores within
the print. . . . [T]hose holes that are in the ridge are pores, they’re actually in the top
of ridge, and that’s what secretes sweat, allows the fingerprint to print. That is the
level 3 detail.” This testimony sufficiently explained Roberts’ qualifications, training,
and expertise, and showed that Roberts uses reliable principles and methods.
However, Roberts testified to his conclusions later on direct examination:
[State]: The latent-print cards that were in State’s Exhibit
6, did you compare those to [Defendant’s prints] that were
State’s Exhibit 11?
[Roberts]: Yes, ma’am.
[State]: Did any of those latent prints match [Defendant’s]
prints?
[Roberts]: They did.
[State]: Which ones?
[Roberts]: 2-4-2, 2-4-3, 2-4-4, and then 2-11-1. All were
identified to [Defendant].
Pursuant to Rule 702, this testimony is insufficient as it fails to show that
Roberts applied accepted methods and procedures reliably to the facts of this case in
order to reach his conclusion that the fingerprints were a match. While Roberts
testified earlier that he generally examines prints for “three levels of detail” and looks
for “ridges and bifurcations and their spatial relationship” on each print, Roberts
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STATE V. KOIYAN
Opinion of the Court
failed to provide any such detail when testifying as to how he arrived at his
conclusions in this case. Moreover, he never explained what—if any—characteristics
from the latent fingerprints matched with Defendant’s fingerprints. Instead, when
asked whether any of the prints matched, Roberts merely stated that they did and
provided no further explanation for his conclusions. Like in McPhaul, Roberts’
testimony had the impermissible effect of “implicitly ask[ing] the jury to accept [his]
expert opinion that the prints matched.” McPhaul, 256 N.C. App at 316, 808 S.E.2d
at 305. As Roberts failed to demonstrate that he “applied the principles and methods
reliably to the facts of the case,” as required by Rule 702(a)(3), we determine that the
trial court erred by admitting the testimony.
However, under plain error review, we do not conclude that the trial court
plainly erred by admitting the testimony. Defendant cannot show that he was
prejudiced as a result of this error because of the otherwise overwhelming evidence
that he was the perpetrator of the robbery.
Torres provided two photographs of Defendant, which she took with her cell
phone while Defendant was in the Boost Mobile store, and the State entered the
photographs into evidence and published them to the jury. Torres also provided
testimony that Defendant was the individual who robbed her and the Boost Mobile
store. The State entered into evidence the surveillance video footage taken from the
store, played the video for the jury, and Torres identified Defendant when he
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Opinion of the Court
appeared on screen. Torres further identified Defendant by pointing him out in the
courtroom as the perpetrator of the robbery, and stated that she was “a hundred
percent” certain that Defendant was the person who robbed her. Torres noted that
she spent nearly 45 minutes with Defendant while he robbed the Boost Mobile store,
and that she would not “forget his face.”
Altogether, Torres’ testimony and in-court identification of Defendant, along
with the photographs of Defendant and surveillance video footage showing Defendant
rob the Boost Mobile store, provided sufficient evidence that Defendant was the
perpetrator of the robbery. In light of this overwhelming evidence, we are not
persuaded by Defendant’s argument that the trial court’s error was so great as to
have had “a probable impact on the jury’s finding that the defendant was guilty.”
Lawrence, 365 N.C. at 518, 723 S.E.2d at 334 (citation omitted). As such, we conclude
that the trial court’s admission of Roberts’ expert testimony was not plain error.
NO PLAIN ERROR.
Judges DILLON and BROOK concur.
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