Law Commons^™

Completing The Admissibility Equation, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up an evidence dispute from Georgia that promises to be one of the new term's most important nuts-and-bolts cases for litigators. General Electric Co. v. Joiner, no. 96-188, is expected to determine the standard of review that federal appellate courts must give to lower court decisions on the admissibility of scientific evidence. The Court's decision in Joiner promises to have an important effect on a broad range of cases in which causation often is a pivotal issue.

Scientific Testing & Proof Of Paternity: Some Controversy And Key Issues For Family Law Counsel, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

Blood and tissue testing, especially DNA matching, have become important elements of both criminal and paternity or maternity litigation. Such scientific testing has become so important that it has taken on aspects that may cause it to benefit or to do harm to the judicial process or to any given case. This article focuses on the value and the dangers surrounding this interesting subject.

The 1995 Louisiana Supreme Court decision in Pace v. State reemphasized the importance of DNA testing generally and the significance of blood and tissue genetic testing used to exclude paternity. The advances in and importance of …

Confrontation And The Definition Of Chutzpa, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

You may know the standard illustration of chutzpa - the man who kills both his parents and then begs the sentencing court to have mercy on an orphan. In this article, I discuss a case of chutzpa that is nearly as outlandish - the criminal defendant who, having rendered his victim unavailable to testify, contends that evidence of the victim's statement should not be admitted against him because to do so would violate his right to confront her. I contend that in a case like this the defendant should be deemed to have forfeited the confrontation right. On the same …