The Kentucky Supreme Court is being asked to limit the language firearms experts can use when testifying about a match between a bullet casing and a specific gun.

The request stems from a case involving Joshua Ward, a Boone County man who was convicted of a double murder.

The murder weapon was never found.

Bullet casings found at the scene were compared to bullet casings found at a farm where Ward would practice shooting.

A ballistics expert testified the bullets came from the same gun.

Representatives for Ward want the justices to limit the degree of certainty.

A ballistics expert can say a bullet matched a certain gun, arguing that ballistics analysis evidence was not reliable.

Representatives for the Commonwealth said it's a sound scientific method.

If an expert gets up and says these came from the same firearm.

A jury is more likely to think that is correct and lead to a conviction, which is why we're asking for the language of cannot be excluded.

So in reference to Joshua's case, it would be that the case in the crime scene casings cannot be excluded as being fired from the same gun, which even though it uses the word sane, it's putting a qualifier in there that is consistent with the class characteristics.

So saying they could have come from this gun, but we're also saying we don't know because there is no database of all the markings that are consistent with all of the guns in the world and all of the guns in Kentucky.

It has been tested over and over.

The studies have been published in peer reviewed journals, and study after study has shown that firearms and tool mark examiners rarely air when applying the controls and standards applicable to their methodology.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in 2017 the ballistics analysis evidence could be used in trials.