Ballard v. State

MANNHEIMER, Judge.

This appeal requires us to decide whether the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, or “HGN” test, satisfies the standard for admissibility of scientific evidence established in Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923), and reaffirmed as the governing standard in Alaska in Contreras v. State, 718 P.2d 129, 134-36 (Alaska 1986).

In the HGN test, the subject is asked to cover one eye and then use the remaining eye to track the lateral progress of an object (usually a pen) as the officer moves the object at eye-level across the subject’s field of vision. As the moving object…