BRADFORD, J.
During trial the prosecutor asked Officer Hornyak about “mannerisms or behaviors” that he observed in Woodard at the hospital. Following defense counsel’s objection, the prosecutor attempted to qualify Officer Hornyak as a skilled witness who, based upon his training in the “Reed Technique” of interrogation, was able to interpret Woodard’s body language for the jury. In permitting Officer Hornyak to testify as a skilled witness, the trial court stated the following:
This witness is uniquely qualified beyond the skills of ordinary people, to determine and interview a person and read body language and words spoken, and he’s in a much better position to make a determination of whether the truth is being told than the average person. Therefore State, you have laid the foundation.
Tr. p. 238. The trial court nevertheless admonished the jury that Officer Hornyak’s testimony was entitled to no greater weight and that his credibility was to be judged “just like every other witness in the trial.” Tr. p. 239.
Although the trial court indicated that the purpose of Officer Hornyak’s body language interpretation was to indicate Woodard’s truthfulness or lack thereof, Officer Hornyak did not make a direct statement regarding Woodard’s truthfulness. Instead, Officer Hornyak testified that Woodard, while lying on the stretcher, had rolled away from him, that Woodard became angry and said he was not a “snitch” and would “handle it himself,” and that Woodard was “kind of closed up,” and uncooperative and did not want to have anything to do with speaking to Officer Hornyak. Tr. pp. 239, 242. . . . .
As the State acknowledges, other courts have disapproved of “body language testimony,” which portrays the testifying officer as a “human lie detector.” See U.S. v. Williams, 133 F.3d 1048, 1052-53 (7th Cir. 1998); People v. Henderson, 915 N.E.2d 473, 477-79 (Ill. Ct. App. 2009). We are similarly skeptical of body language testimony and join those courts in expressing our disapproval of such evidence. We must therefore conclude that the trial court’s finding Officer Hornyak to be a “skilled witness” who was somehow “uniquely qualified” to assess Woodard’s truthfulness was error.
While this error placed the entirety of Officer Hornyak’s testimony regarding the subject matter of Woodard’s behavior in peril, we must observe, as the State points out, that Officer Hornyak did not testify regarding Woodard’s specific truthfulness. Rather, he merely observed, as any lay witness might have observed, that Woodard was “uncooperative” based upon the simple facts that Woodard rolled away from him, became angry with him, and did not wish to speak to him. Such a commonsense conclusion did not require a “skilled witness” foundation and would have been admissible pursuant to Rule 701 as a lay opinion rationally based upon perception and helpful to a clear understanding of the facts of the case. In addition, in spite of the trial court’s preliminary endorsement of Officer Hornyak’s truth-finding skills, it later cured this endorsement by admonishing the jury, before Officer Hornyak testified, that his testimony was instead entitled to no greater weight, and that his credibility was to be judged on the same level as every other witness’s.
Error is harmless if the conviction is supported by substantial independent evidence of guilt such that there is no substantial likelihood that the questioned evidence contributed to the conviction. Cook, 734 N.E.2d at 569. Here, while there was clear error in the trial court’s endorsement of Officer Hornyak’s truth-finding skills, the trial court immediately cured this endorsement with a subsequent instruction. Perhaps more importantly, Officer Hornyak’s testimony, however improperly set up, ultimately constituted lay observations admissible under Rule 701. In addition, regardless of the admissibility of Officer Hornyak’s testimony, two independent eyewitnesses—Bailey and Henry—whose testimony was wholly unrelated to and unaffected by Officer Hornyak’s testimony or Woodard’s truthfulness, identified Tolliver as the shooter, and Henry connected Tolliver to a gun like the one used to kill Woodard. We must therefore conclude that the trial court’s errors relating to body language testimony constituted harmless error.
DARDEN, J., and BROWN, J., concur.