State v. McLean

In this matter, we address the permissible scope of lay opinion testimony in the context of prosecutions involving alleged street-level narcotics transactions. More specifically, we consider whether a police officer, who observed defendant Kelvin McLean engage in behavior that the officer believed was a narcotics transaction, should have been permitted to testify about that belief pursuant to the lay opinion rule. See N.J.R.E. 701. Because we conclude that the opinion offered by the officer does not meet the requirements needed to qualify it as a lay opinion, and because we conclude that…