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Evidentiary Relevance, Morally Reasonable Verdicts, And Jury Nullification, Todd E. Pettys
Evidentiary Relevance, Morally Reasonable Verdicts, And Jury Nullification, Todd E. Pettys
Todd E. Pettys
In Old Chief v. United States, the Supreme Court stated that evidence offered by the Government in a criminal case has “fair and legitimate weight” if it tends to show that a guilty verdict would be morally reasonable. This Article focuses on that proposition. First, it discusses the ways in which Old Chief’s analysis rests upon a broadened understanding of evidentiary relevance. Second, it argues that significant theoretical difficulties impede any effort to determine whether evidence tends to show that a guilty verdict would be morally reasonable. Third, it argues that adopting Old Chief’s conception of relevance would necessitate significant …
Why Legal Scholars Get Daubert Wrong: A Contextualist Explanation Of Law's Epistemology, Alani Golanski
Why Legal Scholars Get Daubert Wrong: A Contextualist Explanation Of Law's Epistemology, Alani Golanski
Alani Golanski
Daubert requires the court to make judgments about scientific evidence. But judges, like jurors, are lay persons in relation to such evidence. So Daubert has been criticized as requiring too much of the court, and such alternatives as blue ribbon panels have been proposed. This article shows that, notwithstanding any problems that Daubert itself might have, the Daubert scholarship is significantly hampered by the way legal scholars categorize knowledge. A "contextualist" (as opposed to "invariantist") theory of knowledge is both philosophically best, and makes sense of law's relation to science.