State v. Truong

The party offering the scientific evidence at issue has the burden of establishing that it is scientifically valid.

Defendant appealed convictions for having sold batteries on eBay labeled and packaged as made by Sony Corporation. He appealed a judgment of conviction for one count of trademark counterfeiting in the second degree, count 2, and three counts of trademark counterfeiting in the third degree, counts 6, 7, and 8 and raised six assignments of error. In the first five assignments of error, the Defendant argued that the trial court improperly admitted testimonial, documentary, and physical evidence regarding a technology used by Sony to conduct authentication tests on batteries sold by the Defendant. The Defendant argued that the counterfeit evidence was scientific evidence, and the foundation for its validity was not established. The State argued that the evidence was not scientific evidence and any error was harmless. The issue is whether evidence regarding Trustgram technology is scientific evidence and therefore subject to the adequate-foundation requirements. The Court established that the party offering the scientific evidence at issue has the burden of establishing that it is scientifically valid. To conduct the test to verify whether the batteries were counterfeit, one would need specialized training and experience. The Court concluded that Trustgram technology was scientific evidence that should not have been admitted without the required foundational showing of scientific validity. The Court reversed and remanded for resentencing, but otherwise affirmed.