Enhanced Disclosure & Gate-Keeping Standards for Historic Cell-Site Evidence:
Commentary on Shawn Hollingsworth, Jr. v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, Supreme Court of Kentucky (2025)

Introduction

The Supreme Court of Kentucky’s decision in Shawn Hollingsworth, Jr. v. Commonwealth confronts four discrete trial-error claims, but its lasting significance lies in the Court’s detailed treatment of historical Cell-Site Location Information (CSLI) testimony offered by a law-enforcement “digital forensics” detective. The opinion—authored by Justice Thompson— affirms the life sentence imposed on Hollingsworth for the murder of R.O. and first-degree assault of S.H., but more importantly clarifies:

• When a CSLI witness may testify as a lay versus an expert witness;
• What disclosures the Commonwealth must make under RCr 7.24(1)(c); and
• The “gate-keeping” role trial courts must play in light of burgeoning mapping software such as “Trax” and federal tower-location databases (NDCAC).

The ruling therefore refines the framework first sketched in Holbrook (2017) and Torrence (2020) and effectively establishes a new procedural directive: timely and comprehensive disclosure of CSLI methodology and technological tools is now mandatory so that defendants can meaningfully decide whether to launch a Daubert challenge.

Summary of the Judgment

The Court unanimously affirmed the trial court on all four issues:

1. CSLI Testimony: Detective O’Daniel’s mapping testimony, although premised on specialized knowledge, was admissible. The Court held he could have been qualified as an expert but, under Torrence, could also testify as a lay witness so long as he limited himself to “mapping plus commonsense inferences.” No Daubert hearing was requested; therefore no abuse of discretion occurred.
2. Failure to Strike Jurors for Cause: Sixteen prospective jurors allegedly overheard a deputy’s joking remark (“If you want to sit on this jury, sit there and don’t say anything”). The Court found no showing of bias or prejudice and upheld the trial judge’s refusal to excuse them.
3. Alleged Photographing of Jurors: Two seated jurors believed someone in the gallery may have photographed them. After individual voir dire they affirmed impartiality; retaining them was within the trial court’s discretion.
4. Admission of Jail Call: Portions of a recorded call between Hollingsworth and his father were admissible as adoptive admissions under KRE 801A(b)(2). Whether the “yes, sir” responses truly adopted the father’s incriminatory remarks was properly left to the jury.

Analysis

1. Precedents Cited & Their Influence

• Holbrook v. Commonwealth, 525 S.W.3d 73 (Ky. 2017) – Recognised general scientific reliability of historic CSLI, but warned about overstating precision.
• Torrence v. Commonwealth, 603 S.W.3d 214 (Ky. 2020) – Allowed officers to present historic cell-tower mapping as lay testimony provided it “went no further than marking coordinates.”
• Daubert v. Merrell Dow (U.S. 1993) & KRE 702 – Framework for expert reliability. Though no hearing was sought, the Court reiterated the trial judge’s “gate-keeper” duty.
• Clay, Adkins, Rowe, English, et al. – Guided the juror-bias analysis and harmless-error standards.

Collectively, these precedents provided both substantive and procedural touchstones. The Court synthesized them to craft more granular guidance on where CSLI testimony falls on the lay–expert spectrum and how disclosure obligations interlock with Daubert.

2. Legal Reasoning

a. Lay vs. Expert Dichotomy

The Court acknowledged an “in-between” category—mirroring Indiana’s “skilled witness” concept— for detectives possessing training beyond common experience but not necessarily requiring formal expert designation. Key determinants:

1. Whether the witness offers opinions beyond observable facts (e.g., “the phone moved from X to Y”).
2. Whether those opinions rely on “scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge” (KRE 701(c)).
3. Whether the defense raises a Daubert challenge.

Because O’Daniel’s mapping could theoretically be recreated by “hand” using public tools, and because defense counsel did not contest the underlying methodology, the Court treated the testimony as permissible lay narration supplemented by commonsense inferences.

b. Disclosure & Gate-Keeping

Justice Thompson devoted an entire subsection—“Judicial Safeguards for Call Detail Record Witnesses and Evidence”—to outline new procedural expectations. Highlights include:

• CSLI raw data must be produced “promptly” after indictment.
• The Commonwealth must disclose the witness’s identity, qualifications, and a summary of any software, databases, or technological “shortcuts” (e.g., Trax, NDCAC) used to create mapping exhibits.
• Only after full disclosure can a defendant intelligently elect to file a Daubert motion challenging either (i) the witness’s expertise or (ii) the reliability of the tech tools.
• Trial courts “must remain vigilant” to police the line between lay mapping and expert opinion testimony; once the line is crossed, KRE 702 and Daubert apply.

c. Harmless-Error Framework

Even had any evidentiary decision been erroneous, the Court underscored that reversal requires the appellant to show the error “substantially swayed” the verdict (Winstead). Given the corroborative nature of the CSLI evidence and S.H.’s eyewitness account, any theoretical misclassification of O’Daniel’s testimony would have been harmless.

3. Anticipated Impact

• Higher Discovery Compliance Burden: Prosecutors must now embargo no portion of their mapping methodology; late disclosure risks continuances or suppression.
• Increased Daubert Litigation: Defense counsel, armed with software identifications such as Trax or NDCAC, can mount methodological challenges—particularly on coverage-sector assumptions and database accuracy.
• Trial-Court Vigilance: Judges must scrutinize mid-trial testimony to ensure a witness does not slip from “mapping” into impermissible technical opinions without having first cleared KRE 702 hurdles.
• National Persuasive Value: Sister jurisdictions grappling with the lay/expert divide for digital-forensics detectives may cite Hollingsworth for its pragmatic, disclosure-oriented approach.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• CDR vs. CSLI vs. RTT: Think of Call Detail Records as a phone-company “spreadsheet” listing which tower handled each call/text. It shows where the phone wasn’t far from—nothing more precise. Real-Time Tool (RTT) data uses “pings” to measure actual distance in live time; it is more exact but wasn’t used here.
• Sector Mapping: Most towers broadcast like a pie sliced into thirds (three 120-degree sectors). Mapping simply colors in the slice corresponding to a call—narrowing the possible location but never pinpointing it.
• Trax Software: A law-enforcement-only program that automates input of CDRs and overlays tower sectors on a Google Earth base map—saving hours of manual plotting.
• Adoptive Admission: If someone accuses you of wrongdoing and you respond in a way that indicates acceptance (“Yeah, that’s right”), their statement and your reaction can be used against you, even if the original speaker is not in court.

Conclusion

Hollingsworth does not revolutionize substantive criminal law, but it materially clarifies procedural obligations surrounding rapidly evolving digital-forensics evidence. By marrying the pragmatic “lay mapping” rule of Torrence with a robust disclosure regime, the Court ensures that:

1. Defendants receive timely, granular information about the technological tools marshalled against them; and
2. Trial judges retain the tools necessary to filter unreliable or overstated CSLI testimony.

Given the exponential growth of location-based prosecutions, these refinements will echo well beyond Kentucky borders. Counsel and courts must now tread carefully: CSLI evidence can be both powerful and potentially misleading. The Supreme Court’s message is clear: transparency first, gate-keeping second, precision always.