In this DWI case, the trial court erred by admitting retrograde extrapolation testimony by the State’s expert witness. To reach her conclusion, the expert assumed that the defendant was in a post-absorptive state at the time of the stop. The expert conceded that there were no facts to support this assumption. The expert’s testimony was inadmissible under the Daubert standard that applies to Evidence Rule 702. The court added: “Although retrograde extrapolation testimony often will satisfy the Daubert test, in this case the testimony failed Daubert’s ‘fit’ test because the expert’s otherwise reliable analysis was not properly tied to the facts of this particular case.”
North Carolina Office of Indigent Defense Services