Kutzly v. People, 2019 CO 55

Defendant William Kutzly was charged with sexual-assault offenses against a child who attended his wife's daycare; the child reported abuse and displayed sexualized behavior.
The People endorsed Gayle Christensen, a licensed clinical social worker with a master’s degree and ~31 years’ experience with ~1,000 alleged child victims and ~250 suspected offenders, as an expert in child sexual-assault dynamics and sex-offender characteristics.
Kutzly moved for a pretrial Shreck evidentiary hearing to challenge the reliability of Christensen’s experience-based testimony, arguing it lacked scientific foundation and confirmation that Christensen’s prior clients were actual victims/offenders.
The trial court held a motions hearing, heard arguments, found Christensen qualified, concluded a Shreck hearing was unnecessary, and admitted Christensen’s testimony; the jury convicted Kutzly.
The court of appeals affirmed; the Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari to review whether the trial court properly applied Shreck and CRE 702 to admit experience-based expert testimony.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Kutzly)	Defendant's Argument (People)	Held
Whether the trial court abused its discretion by denying a Shreck hearing and failing to make specific findings on relevance, reliability, and CRE 403	Trial court failed to make specific findings; expert testimony was unreliable and required a Shreck hearing	A Shreck hearing was unnecessary because experience-based testimony need not rest on scientific studies; any weaknesses go to weight and cross-examination	Trial court made specific findings of relevance, reliability, and that CRE 403 concerns were manageable; denial of a Shreck hearing was not an abuse of discretion
Whether Christensen’s experience-based testimony was reliable under CRE 702	Testimony was unreliable because Christensen’s opinions were not based on confirmed cases or statistical/peer-reviewed studies	Christensen’s extensive training and long clinical experience supplied a sufficient reliability basis for experience-based testimony	Under the totality of circumstances, Christensen’s education and extensive clinical experience made his testimony reasonably reliable; trial court did not abuse its discretion

People v. Shreck, 22 P.3d 68 (Colo. 2001) (establishes CRE 702/403 framework and Shreck hearing procedure for expert admissibility)
People v. Rector, 248 P.3d 1196 (Colo. 2011) (review of trial court’s expert-admissibility determinations for abuse of discretion)
LaFond v. Sweeney, 343 P.3d 939 (Colo. 2015) (explains standard of review for legal questions from lower courts)
Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923) (contrasted with modern CRE 702 reliability approach)