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The Hidden Daubert Factor: How Judges Use Error Rates In Assessing Scientific Evidence, John B. Meixner Jr., Shari Seidman Diamond
The Hidden Daubert Factor: How Judges Use Error Rates In Assessing Scientific Evidence, John B. Meixner Jr., Shari Seidman Diamond
Scholarly Works
In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, the United States Supreme Court provided a framework under which trial judges must assess the evidentiary reliability of scientific evidence whose admissibility is challenged. One factor of the Daubert test, the “known or potential rate of error” of the expert’s method, has received considerably less scholarly attention than the other factors, and past empirical study has indicated that judges have a difficult time understanding the factor and use it less frequently in their analyses as compared to other factors. In this paper, we examine one possible interpretation of the “known or potential rate of …
Daubert & Danger: The "Fit" Of Expert Predictions In Civil Commitments, Alex Scherr
Daubert & Danger: The "Fit" Of Expert Predictions In Civil Commitments, Alex Scherr
Scholarly Works
The opinions of experts in prediction in civil commitment hearings should help the courts, but over thirty years of commentary, judicial opinion, and scientific review argue that predictions of danger lack scientific rigor. The United States Supreme Court has commented regularly on the uncertainty of predictive science. The American Psychiatric Association has argued to the Court that "[t]he professional literature uniformly establishes that such predictions are fundamentally of very low reliability." Scientific studies indicate that some predictions do little better than chance or lay speculation, and even the best predictions leave substantial room for error about individual cases. The sharpest …