Colorado v. Ramos
Annotate this CaseIn 2006, respondent Ruben Ramos was riding in the front passenger seat of a car driven by his girlfriend. His girlfriend’s three children were seated in the backseat along with R.L., his girlfriend’s friend. The girlfriend and Ramos began to argue when Ramos turned his attention to R.L., where he punched R.L. in the face several times. Blood from Ramos’ hand ended up on R.L.’s jacket and baseball cap. Ramos’ theory of defense was that he had not struck R.L. and the blood stains were from waiving his hand around. This case, as in “Venalonzo v. Colorado,” presented for the Supreme Court’s review an issue of lay and expert testimony. Specifically, this case required the Court to resolve one issue: whether an ordinary person would be able to differentiate reliably between blood cast-off and blood transfer. Applying the test announced in “Venalonzo,” the Court held that an ordinary person would not be able to testify reliably about the difference between blood cast-off and blood transfer. Therefore, the Court upheld the Court of Appeals’ ruling that the trial court abused its discretion by not qualifying a police detective’s blood testimony as expert testimony.
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