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Full-Text Articles in Evidence
Who Must Testify To The Results Of A Forensic Laboratory Test? Bullcoming V. New Mexico, Richard D. Friedman
Who Must Testify To The Results Of A Forensic Laboratory Test? Bullcoming V. New Mexico, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
Does the Confrontation Clause permit the prosecution to introduce a forensic laboratory report through the in-court testimony of a supervisor or other person who did not perform or observe the reported test?
Bayes' Law, Sequential Uncertainties, And Evidence Of Causation In Toxic Tort Cases, Neal C. Stout, Peter A. Valberg
Bayes' Law, Sequential Uncertainties, And Evidence Of Causation In Toxic Tort Cases, Neal C. Stout, Peter A. Valberg
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Judges are the gatekeepers of evidence. Arguably, the most difficult duty for a judicial gatekeeper is to screen the reliability of expert opinions in scientific fields such as medicine that are beyond the ken of most judges. Yet, judges have a duty to scrutinize such expert opinion evidence to determine its reliability and admissibility. In toxic tort cases, the issue of causation-whether the alleged exposures actually caused the plaintiffs injury-is nearly always the central dispute, and determining admissibility of expert causation opinion is a daunting challenge for most judges. We present a comprehensive review of the courts' struggles with the …
Daubert's Backwash: Litigation-Generated Science, William L. Anderson, Barry M. Parsons, Drummond Rennie
Daubert's Backwash: Litigation-Generated Science, William L. Anderson, Barry M. Parsons, Drummond Rennie
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In the 1993 landmark case Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, the United States Supreme Court articulated its position on the admissibility of scientific evidence. The Court reasoned that federal judges should rely on the processes scientists use to identify unreliable research, including the process of peer review, to determine when scientific evidence should be inadmissible. In response, lawyers and their clients, seeking to rely on such evidence, have begun funding and publishing their own research with the primary intention of providing support to cases they are litigating. This Article examines the phenomenon of litigation-generated science, how it potentially undermines …
Dna As Evidence: Viewing Science Through The Prism Of The Law, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman
Dna As Evidence: Viewing Science Through The Prism Of The Law, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
In this article, we analyze a problem related to DNA evidence that is likely to be of great and increasing significance in the near future. This is the problem of whether, and how, to present evidence that the suspect has been identified through a DNA database search. In our view, the two well-known reports on DNA evidence issued by the National Research Council (NRC) have been badly mistaken in their analysis of this problem. The mistakes are significant because the reports have carried great authority with American courts; moreover, the DNA Advisory Board of the FBI has endorsed the second …
Dna Database Searches And The Legal Consumption Of Scientific Evidence, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman
Dna Database Searches And The Legal Consumption Of Scientific Evidence, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
DNA evidence has transformed the proof of identity in criminal litigation, but it has also introduced daunting problems of statistical analysis into the process. In this Article, we analyze a problem related to DNA evidence that is likely to be of great and increasing significance in the near future. This is the problem of whether, and how, to present evidence that the suspect has been identified through a DNA database search. In our view, the two well-known reports on DNA evidence issued by the National Research Council ("NRC"), each of which has carried great authority with the American courts on …
The Death And Transfiguration Of Frye, Richard D. Friedman
The Death And Transfiguration Of Frye, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
The rule of Frye v. United States was seventy years old, and had long dominated American law on the question of how well established a scientific principle must be for it to provide the basis for expert testimony. Even after the passage of the Federal Rules of Evidence, several of the federal circuits, as well as various states, purported to adhere to Frye's "general acceptance" standard. But now, unanimously, briefly, and with no apparent angst, the United States Supreme Court has held in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. that the Frye rule is incompatible with the Federal Rules.