Hernandez v. State

The central question in this case is whether, and to what extent, an appellate court may consider matters not in the record when reviewing a trial court’s decision to admit or exclude scientific evidence. The answer is that the appellate court should consider only material that is in the record and matters that may be judicially noticed. The reliability of a scientific theory or technique should be judicially noticed under the following circumstances: (1) when it is a matter of common knowledge, (2) when widely available court decisions show that reliability has been litigated elsewhere in…