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Full-Text Articles in Law

How Good Is Good Enough?: Expert Evidence Under Daubert And Kuhmo, David H. Kaye, David L. Faigman, Michael J. Saks, Joseph Sanders Jan 2000

How Good Is Good Enough?: Expert Evidence Under Daubert And Kuhmo, David H. Kaye, David L. Faigman, Michael J. Saks, Joseph Sanders

Journal Articles

This essay is a response to Professor Edward Imwinkelried's article, "Should the Courts Incorporate a Best Evidence Rule into the Standard Determining the Admissibility of Scientific Testimony?: Enough is Enough When it is not the Best." The authors have two basic points. First, the authors wish to make it clear that they never proposed the "best evidence rule" that he so vigorously attacks, and they think his suggestion that they did so is strained. Second, they wish to reiterate that courts sometimes should do more than they have to ensure that expert testimony is reasonably sound. The important debate underway …


Dna Evidence: Probability, Population Genetics, And The Courts, David H. Kaye Jan 1993

Dna Evidence: Probability, Population Genetics, And The Courts, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

To help meet the challenge of presenting properly performed DNA tests within the post-Daubert legal framework, this article outlines the statistical procedures that have been employed or proposed to provide judges and juries with quantitative measures of probative value, describes more fully how the courts have dealt with these procedures, and evaluates the opinions and the statistical analyses from the standpoint of the law of evidence.

Specifically, the article outlines the procedure used to declare whether two samples of DNA "match," and how shrinking the size of the "match window," as some defendants have urged, will decrease the risk of …


Proof In Law And Science, David H. Kaye Jan 1992

Proof In Law And Science, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

This article addresses proof in both science and law. Both disciplines utilize proof of facts and proof of theories, but for different purposes and, consequently, in different ways. Some similarities exist, however, in how both disciplines use a series of premises followed by a conclusion to form an argument, and thus constitute a logic. This article analyzes the ways in which legal logic and scientific logic differ. Finding facts in law involves the same logic but quite different procedures than scientific fact-finding. Finding, or rather constructing, the law is also very different from scientific theorizing. But such differences do not …


The Admissibility Of Dna Evidence, David H. Kaye Jan 1991

The Admissibility Of Dna Evidence, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

In contrast to the widespread acceptance of red blood cell grouping, blood serum protein and enzyme analysis, and HLA typing, the evidentiary status of forensic applications of recombinant-DNA technology is in flux. A proper evidentiary analysis must attend to the fact that there is no single method of DNA typing. As with the more established genetic tests, the probative value of the laboratory findings depends both on the procedure employed and the genetic characteristics that are discerned. This paper describes some of these procedures and the theory that lies behind them, and then considers the developing case law. Given the …


Credal Probability, David H. Kaye Jan 1991

Credal Probability, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

This article responds to Paul Bergman and Al Moore's doubt that ideal triers of facts would be Bayesians. They argue that Bayes' rule, and probability theory in general, fails as a theoretical factfinding model. While probability has long been an accepted measure of belief in empirical propositions and the validity of inductive arguments, this articles addresses Bergman and Moore's doubts directly. It shows how their examples demonstrating the "frequentist" character of Bayesian methodology or the fallacies in Bayesian analysis are easily handled without a frequentist interpretation of probability. Then it shows that an ideal juror's partial beliefs will conform to …


What Is Bayesianism? A Guide For The Perplexed, David H. Kaye Jan 1988

What Is Bayesianism? A Guide For The Perplexed, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

Bayes' Theorem, Bayesian statistics and Bayesian inference have been the subject of sharp dispute in various writings about legal rules of evidence and proof. This article disentangles the many meanings of "Bayesianism." It sketches several competing interpretations of probability, some leading schools of statistical inference, and the elements of Bayesian decision theory. In the process, it notes the aspects of Bayesian theory that have been applied in studies of forensic proof.


Plemel As A Primer On Proving Paternity, David H. Kaye Jan 1988

Plemel As A Primer On Proving Paternity, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

Although in the past courts only permitted genetic evidence in paternity suits to prove that an accused man was not the father, with the advent of new genetic tests, which easily can exclude ninety to nitey-five percent of the population in most cases, the supreme courts of Massachusetts, Oregon, and Utah have held that various genetic tests may be used to prove paternity. While a positive move, the admissibility of genetic proof of paternity raises serious questions as to the manner in which this evidence should be presented in court. In the interests of efficiency, some jurisdictions seem to dispense …


The Validity Of Tests: Caveant Omnes, David H. Kaye Jan 1987

The Validity Of Tests: Caveant Omnes, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

A great debate swirls about the use of polygraph tests in criminal cases. Similar concerns about individual privacy and freedom arise with proposals and projects involving widespread testing of government employees for drugs and deception. Required diagnostic testing for certain diseases - most notoriously, for AIDS - raises similar concerns. Incorrect conclusions about who has taken illicit drugs, who has AIDS, and who is lying can be devastating. Yet, perfect knowledge is unattainable. Errors are inevitable. Questions of what the tendency is for these tests to err, which measures are appropriate for deciding whether to use a screening test, and …


Is Proof Of Statistical Significance Relevant?, David H. Kaye Jan 1986

Is Proof Of Statistical Significance Relevant?, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

The classic treatises on evidence note that the court or jury must weigh the evidence, and upon weighing it, determine whether the plaintiff or the defendant prevails. Some courts, however, have indicated that statistical evidence should not be admitted unless it is subjected to a procedure known as 'hypothesis testing.' There are many rather mechanical procedures for performing these tests and a number of judges, attorneys, and law professors have suggested that hypothesis testing provides an objective, scientific means of settling disputed questions on which statistical evidence is brought to bear. Yet, many circumstances arise in which courts or administrators …


Probabilities And Proof: Can Hla And Blood Group Testing Prove Paternity?, David H. Kaye, Ira Mark Ellman Jan 1979

Probabilities And Proof: Can Hla And Blood Group Testing Prove Paternity?, David H. Kaye, Ira Mark Ellman

Journal Articles

Advancing medical technology has produced tests which offer the opportunity to resolve paternity disputes with more accuracy than unaided traditional evidentiary techniques are likely to obtain. Because the biology underlying the statistical evidence in paternity cases offers a wealth of previously unavailable information which is certain to revolutionize the adjudication of paternity suits, but it is important that the courts not become so mesmerized by these new sources of evidence that they neglect to subject them to traditional principles of evidence applicable to all testimony. Additionally, for some time scholars have disagreed on the proper application of a probability formula …