Expert Testimony in Massachusetts DUI Cases

Commonwealth v. Shea, 356 Mass. 358, 361 (1969).

To be qualified as an expert witness, a person must have sufficient education, training, background, and experience. A sergeant, who had operated the breathalyzer in a Massachusetts OUI case, was properly qualified as an expert witness, and therefore allowed to provide opinion testimony, where he had taken a 40-hour infra-red breath test instructor's course and performed 100 breath tests. Any lack of knowledge or skill regarding evidential breath testing would affect the weight afforded to the sergeant's testimony and not its admissibility.

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