State v. Matthews, Minn.S.Ct., 7/27/2011. A jury convicted Mr. Matthews of the first degree murder of Blaine Christofferson. Sully, a police dog, starting at the location of the shooting, found a mask, black clothing, and a gun, all in the general area where police also found Mr. Matthews. (These items were tested for DNA. The DNA testing could not exclude Mr. Matthews from being a contributor of the DNA found on these items.)
Sully’s handler said that Sully’s behavior while tracking meant that he was tracking the scent of a person and not the smell of, say, a gun. Sully’s handler conceded, however, on cross examination, that if a person removes and discards a shirt then keeps going, then that shirt will exude the odor of a person which Sully would smell. However, Sully’s handler then threw in that humans also emit what he called a “fear scent” and he believed that it was this “fear scent” that Sully was tracking. The trial court sustained the defense objection to this additional observation but then, over objection, allowed the state, on re-direct, to elicit how people produce this “fear scent” and how dogs track it.
On appeal, Mr. Matthews complained that the trial court had erred in admitting this testimony about this “fear scent.” The state argued that Mr. Matthews had not adequately objected to this testimony so that plain error analysis applied. The appellate court ducked this complaint all together by saying that regardless of whether one applied harmless error or plain error Mr. Matthews was not entitled to a new trial on the basis of this claimed error. In doing so, the appellate court equated the harmless error requirement that there was a “reasonable possibility that the wrongfully admitted evidence significantly affected the verdict” with the plain error requirement that the plain error “affected the substantial rights of the defendant.” Even so, the court’s analysis was under harmless error” criteria.
The appellate court also rejected an evidence sufficiency argument.
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