Science and Technology Law Commons^™

The Intersections Among Science, Technology, Policy And Law: In Between Truth And Justice, Paolo Davide Farah, Justo Corti Varela

Book Chapters

Different visions on the interaction between science, technology, policy and law have been presented. As common axe, we can detect the continuous search for truth and justice. Science and Law as social constructs, the distinction between truths and opinions through procedural method based on evidence and rationality, or how natural science “things” became facts, and consequently “truth”, are examples of this search. The evidence-gathering process that integrates scientific evidence into trial (sometimes by procedure and other times by a more substantive approach) is another possible approach. Of course, that the game of mutual influence among the four elements creates contradictions …

The Acquisition Of Scientific Evidence Between Frye And Daubert. From Ad Hominem Arguments To Cross-Examination Among Experts, Lorenzo Zoppellari

OSSA Conference Archive

The Frye and Daubert rulings give us two very different ways to intend the relation between law and science. Through the contributions of Wellman and Walton, we will see how the main method to question the expert’s testimony before a judge deferent to science is to question her personal integrity by using ad hominem arguments. Otherwise, using Alvin Goldman’s novice/expert problem, we will investigate if other manners of argumentative cross-examinations are possible.

Uncovering Juror Racial Bias, Christian Sundquist

Articles

The presence of bias in the courtroom has the potential to undermine public faith in the adversarial process, distort trial outcomes, and obfuscate the search for justice. In Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held for the first time that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments required post-verdict judicial inquiry in criminal cases where racial bias clearly served as a “significant motivating factor” in juror decision-making. Courts will nonetheless likely struggle in interpreting what constitutes a "clear statement of racial bias" and whether such bias constituted a "significant motivating factor" in a juror's verdict. This Article will examine how …

The Technologies Of Race: Big Data, Privacy And The New Racial Bioethics, Christian Sundquist

Articles

Advancements in genetic technology have resurrected long discarded conceptualizations of “race” as a biological reality. The rise of modern biological race thinking – as evidenced in health disparity research, personal genomics, DNA criminal forensics, and bio-databanking - not only is scientifically unsound but portends the future normalization of racial inequality. This Article articulates a constitutional theory of shared humanity, rooted in the substantive due process doctrine and Ninth Amendment, to counter the socio-legal acceptance of modern genetic racial differentiation. It argues that state actions that rely on biological racial distinctions undermine the essential personhood of individuals subjected to such taxonomies, …

G2i Knowledge Brief: A Knowledge Brief Of The Macarthur Foundation Research Network On Law And Neuroscience, David L. Faigman, Anthony Wagner, Richard J. Bonnie, Bj Casey, Andre Davis, Morris B. Hoffman, Owen D. Jones, Read Montague, Stephen J. Morse, Marcus E. Raichle, Jennifer A. Richeson, Elizabeth S. Scott, Laurence Steinberg, Kim Taylor-Thompson, Gideon Yaffe

Faculty Scholarship

Courts are daily confronted with admissibility issues – such as in cases involving neuroscientific testimony – that sometimes involve both the existence of a general phenomenon (i.e., “G”) and the question of whether a particular case represents a specific instance of that general phenomenon (i.e., “i”).

Unfortunately, courts have yet to carefully consider the implications of “G2i” for their admissibility decisions. In some areas, courts limit an expert’s testimony to the general phenomenon. They insist that whether the case at hand is an instance of that phenomenon is exclusively a jury question, and thus not an appropriate subject of expert …

"Introduction" (Chapter 1) Of Stories About Science In Law: Literary And Historical Images Of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate 2011), David S. Caudill

David S Caudill

This is the introductory chapter of Stories About Science in Law: Literary and Historical Images of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate, 2011), explaining that the book presents examples of how literary accounts can provide a supplement to our understanding of science in law. Challenging the view that law and science are completely different, I focus on stories that explore the relationship between law and science, and identify cultural images of science that prevail in legal contexts. In contrast to other studies on the transfer and construction of expertise in legal settings, the book considers the intersection of three interdisciplinary projects-- law and …

"Introduction" (Chapter 1) Of Stories About Science In Law: Literary And Historical Images Of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate 2011), David S. Caudill

Working Paper Series

This is the introductory chapter of Stories About Science in Law: Literary and Historical Images of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate, 2011), explaining that the book presents examples of how literary accounts can provide a supplement to our understanding of science in law. Challenging the view that law and science are completely different, I focus on stories that explore the relationship between law and science, and identify cultural images of science that prevail in legal contexts. In contrast to other studies on the transfer and construction of expertise in legal settings, the book considers the intersection of three interdisciplinary projects-- law and …

On Race Theory And Norms, Christian Sundquist

Articles

This article has been adapted from an address given at the Albany Law Review Symposium in Spring 2009. This article discusses the judicial acceptance of DNA random match estimates, which uses DNA analysis to estimate the likelihood that a criminal defendant is the source of genetic material that is found at a crime scene. Relying on race, these tests demonstrate how such a re-inscription of race as a biological entity threatens the modern conception of race as a social construction, and how those estimates should be rejected as inadmissible on a doctrinal level under the Federal Rules of Evidence.

Torts And Innovation, Gideon Parchomovsky, Alex Stein

All Faculty Scholarship

This Essay exposes and analyzes a hitherto overlooked cost of the current design of tort law: its adverse effect on innovation. Tort liability for negligence, defective products, and medical malpractice is determined by reference to custom. We demonstrate that courts’ reliance on custom and conventional technologies as the benchmark of liability chills innovation and distorts its path. Specifically, the recourse to custom taxes innovators and subsidizes replicators of conventional technologies. We explore the causes and consequences of this phenomenon and propose two possible ways to modify tort law in order to make it more welcoming to innovation.

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

A Default-Logic Paradigm For Legal Reasoning And Factfinding, Vern R. Walker

ExpressO

Unlike research in linguistics and artificial intelligence, legal research has not used advances in logical theory very effectively. This article uses default logic to develop a paradigm for analyzing all aspects of legal reasoning, including factfinding. The article provides a formal model that integrates legal rules and policies with the evaluation of both expert and non-expert evidence – whether the reasoning occurs in courts or administrative agencies, and whether in domestic, foreign, or international legal systems. This paradigm can standardize the representation of legal reasoning, guide empirical research into the dynamics of such reasoning, and put the representations and research …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.