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Full-Text Articles in Law
Ultracrepidarianism In Forensic Science: The Hair Evidence Debacle, David H. Kaye
Ultracrepidarianism In Forensic Science: The Hair Evidence Debacle, David H. Kaye
Journal Articles
For over 130 years, scientific sleuths have been inspecting hairs under microscopes. Late in 2012, the FBI, the Innocence Project, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers joined forces to review thousands of microscopic hair comparisons performed by FBI examiners over several of those decades. The results have been astounding. Based on the first few hundred cases in which hairs were said to match, it appears that examiners “exceeded the limits of science” in over 90% of their reports or testimony. The disclosure of this statistic has led to charges that the FBI “faked an entire field of forensic …
Cell Phones, Brain Cancer, And Scientific Outliers In Murray V. Motorola, David H. Kaye
Cell Phones, Brain Cancer, And Scientific Outliers In Murray V. Motorola, David H. Kaye
Journal Articles
Pending before the District of Columbia's highest court in a case asking whether cell phones can cause cancer is whether to replace the jurisdiction's venerable Frye standard for reviewing the admissibility of scientific evidence with the approach adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in Daubert v. Merrell Dow. The author analyzes one aspect of the two evidentiary standards that leads him to question the trial judge's suggestion in Murray v. Motorola that adopting the Daubert perspective would allow greater leeway in excluding the plaintiff's evidence.