Facts
- Army Private Lorenzo Broadnax was accused of forging a check.
- At Broadnax’s court-martial, the prosecution offered a written forensic laboratory report prepared by a document examiner.
- The examiner had reviewed: (1) the questioned check, (2) known examples of Broadnax’s handwriting, and (3) known examples of the checking-account owner’s handwriting.
- The report stated the examiner believed Broadnax wrote everything on the forged check except the date.
- The handwriting examples reviewed by the examiner were not submitted as evidence at trial.
- Broadnax objected to admission of the report.
- The military judge admitted the report under the public-records-and-reports exception to hearsay in Military Rule of Evidence 803(8).
- Broadnax was convicted and appealed, arguing that the report should have been excluded.
Issues
- Whether a government document examiner’s forensic laboratory report identifying Broadnax as the writer of the forged check was admissible under Mil. R. Evid. 803(8) (public records and reports) over Broadnax’s objection.
- Whether the report’s admission was improper given that the handwriting exemplars the examiner relied on were not admitted into evidence.
Decision
- The Court of Military Appeals reviewed Broadnax’s challenge to the admission of the document examiner’s report under Mil. R. Evid. 803(8).
- The publicly available sources provided for this rewrite do not include the opinion text or a non-paywalled summary of the court’s holding, reasoning, or case disposition; therefore, the precise outcome on appeal cannot be stated here without guessing.
Legal Principles
- Mil. R. Evid. 803(8) is the military hearsay exception governing certain public records and reports.
- In a forgery prosecution, a document examiner’s written conclusion about authorship is offered to prove who wrote the questioned instrument.
- When the government offers a forensic report without calling the examiner, the admissibility question commonly turns on whether the hearsay exception cited actually covers an evaluative forensic conclusion prepared for litigation.
- Where an expert opinion is based on comparison materials (such as handwriting exemplars), disputes may arise about how the factfinder can assess the opinion if those materials are not themselves admitted.
Conclusion
United States v. Broadnax, 23 M.J. 389 (1987), involves a court-martial forgery conviction in which the prosecution introduced a government document examiner’s lab report stating Broadnax wrote the forged check (except the date), even though the handwriting exemplars used for comparison were not admitted. Broadnax objected, the military judge admitted the report under Mil. R. Evid. 803(8), and Broadnax appealed contending the report should have been excluded; the specific appellate holding and disposition are not available from the accessible materials used for this rewrite.