State v. Eighth Judicial District Court ex rel. County of Clark

The majority’s analysis does not distinguish between the science of retrograde extrapolation and the legal standards by which the admissibility of expert testimony is judged and, as a result, falls into error. Only one toxicologist, Dr. Hiatt, testified at the hearing on Armstrong’s motion to suppress.1 (The other witness, Terry Cook, is a forensic chemist who tests blood for alcohol content; he does not perform retrograde extrapolation.) Dr. Hiatt testified that the known facts of this case “fit” the science of retrograde extrapolation, permitting an inference that, if Armstrong’s blood…