Evidence Commons^™

The "Damned" In A Flashover State: Arson And The Use Of Scientific Methods And Expert Testimony In West Virginia, Christopher W. Maidona

West Virginia Law Review Online

The fire moved quickly through the house as Cameron Todd Willingham screamed for his children from the front porch. Inside the blaze were his three children. Firefighters arrived, uncoiled hoses, and aimed water at the raging fire. However, all three Willingham children died that night from smoke inhalation.

News of the December 23, 1991, tragedy spread throughout Corsicana, Texas. Meanwhile, investigators sought to determine what caused the fire. The investigators “toured the perimeter of the house, taking notes and photographs, like archeologists mapping out a ruin.” In the kitchen, they found smoke and heat damage—signs the fire had not originated …

Psychosocial Analysis Of An Ethnography At The Cuyahoga County Public Defenders Office, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

Too often, social science majors become jaded with their field of study due to a misperception of the nature of many potential jobs which they are qualified for. Such discord is prevalent amongst undergraduates who strive for work in the criminal justice system. Hollywood misrepresentations become the archetypes of the aforementioned field, leaving out the necessity and ubiquity of accompanying desk work. Still other social science majors struggle to identify theoretical interpretations in praxis.

Law And Modern Technology: Lack Of Tech Knowledge In Legal Profession May Cause Injustice, Md Wahidur Rahman, Marissa Moran

Publications and Research

There is no such field where technology hasn’t reached. It will be a dream to think something without technology. In today’s world every field requires tech knowledge. The courtroom and law offices have changed with the evolution of technology. Most courts don’t accept paper files anymore. Law offices use virtual file to store client information. However, due to old age or other reason a significant number of attorneys and judges are not competent in technology.

This paper will examine the use of technology in our legal system and what problem arises due to lack of proper tech knowledge. Increasing use …

Forensic Science: Complex Admissibility Standard For Scientific Evidence And Expert Witness's Testimony, Md Wahidur Rahman, Marissa J. Moran

Publications and Research

Modern science forces the world to accept new theories and invention. Science has invented several tools, which are used in the legal system to dispute criminal cases. Scientific evidence and expert witness testimony have weight in the courtroom because those are scientifically proved to be true. Even though there are few case laws and Federal rule of evidence 1975, still the admissibility standard is complex which may lead injustice.

This article examines the Federal rule of evidence, case laws and scholars’ opinion to address the complexity of the admissibility standard of scientific evidence and expert testimony. The first legal question …

Sb 127 - Criminal Procedure, Adriana C. Heffley, Allison S. Kim

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act introduces procedure by which victims who were not provided notice criminal proceedings, after requesting notice, may file a motion to be acknowledged by the court. This Act is meant to create a means by which a victim’s rights, as introduced by the constitutional amendment in SR 146, may be raised or enforced.

Where Are The Gatekeepers? Challenging Utah’S Threshold Standard For Admissibility Of Expert Witness Testimony, Samuel D. Hatch

Utah Law Review

Utah’s Rule 702 on the admissibility of expert witness testimony is far too low. Utah trial courts cannot to fulfill their role as gatekeepers because the threshold standard forces them to admit almost everything without ensuring reliability. Accordingly, Utah evidence law will benefit from amending Rule 702 whether it reverts to the federal rule or elects the Minnesota approach. Either is preferred to the almost nonexistent standard currently in place, which has drifted far from the “inherent[ly] reliab[le]” tradition and is no longer “the touchstone of admissibility” in Utah. The State should amend Rule of Evidence 702 to allow judges …

Maine Sexual Assault Kit Study, Alison Grey, Erika Arthur, Viacheslav Tomenko, George Shaler Mph, Elisabeth Snell

Justice Policy

The Cutler Institute recently released the Maine Sexual Assault Kit (SAK) Study Report. This report was produced for the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MECASA). In 2018 MECASA contracted with researchers at the Cutler Institute, with funding in part from a grant from the Office on Violence Against Women STOP Violence Against Women Formula Grant Program, through the Maine Department of Public Safety.

Researchers employed a mixed-methods approach to gather comprehensive data about the current status of sexual assault kits in Maine; the challenges and successes of processing and storing kits in Maine; and nationally recognized best practices.

Findings from …

Judicializing History: Mass Crimes Trials And The Historian As Expert Witness In West Germany, Cambodia, And Bangladesh, Rebecca Gidley, Mathew Turner

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Henry Rousso warned that the engagement of historians as expert witnesses in trials, particularly highly politicized proceedings of mass crimes, risks a judicialization of history. This article tests Rousso’s argument through analysis of three quite different case studies: the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial; the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia; and the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. It argues that Rousso’s objections misrepresent the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, while failing to account for the engagement of historical expertise in mass atrocity trials beyond Europe. Paradoxically, Rousso’s criticisms are less suited to the European context that represents his purview, and apply more …

Neuromarks, Mark Bartholomew

Journal Articles

This Article predicts trademark law’s impending neural turn. A growing legal literature debates the proper role of neuroscientific evidence. Yet outside of criminal law, analysis of neuroscientific evidence in the courtroom has been lacking. This is a mistake given that most of the applied research into brain function focuses on building better brands, not studies of criminal defendants’ grey matter. Judges have long searched for a way to measure advertising’s psychological hold over consumers. Advertisers already use brain imaging to analyze a trademark’s ability to stimulate consumer attention, emotion, and memory. In the near future, businesses will offer a neural …

A "Bad Rap":R. V. Skeete And The Admissibility Of Rap Lyric Evidence, Ngozi Okidegbe

Faculty Scholarship

The use of accused-authored rap lyric evidence is no longer rare in Canadian criminal proceedings. Adduced by Crown prosecutors, rap lyrics written or co-written by an accused are increasingly used in criminal trials as evidence of the accused’s intent, knowledge, motive, identity, or confession to the commission of the specific offence charged. The practice is not without controversy. The introduction of an accused’s artistic work in the form of rap lyrics at trial engages trial fairness concerns. Without a keen awareness of the social and cultural context that produces rap music, trial actors risk inflating their probative value and underestimating …

A Game Of Katso And Mouse: Current Theories For Getting Forensic Analysis Evidence Past The Confrontation Clause, Ronald J. Coleman, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause ensures that an “accused” in a “criminal prosecution[]” has the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him [.]” Although perhaps a simple concept, defining the scope of confrontation rights has proved extremely difficult. The law has had particular difficulty scoping confrontation rights in forensic analysis cases, such as those where the prosecution seeks to utilize a laboratory report of DNA, blood alcohol content, narcotics, or other “CSI” type analysis. In this connection, Justice Gorsuch recently authored an opinion dissenting from denial of certiorari in Stuart v. Alabama, in which he recognized the …

Assessing The Viability Of Implicit Bias Evidence In Discrimination Cases: An Analysis Of The Most Significant Federal Cases, Anthony Kakoyannis

Florida Law Review

The theory of implicit bias occupies a rapidly growing field of scientific research and legal scholarship. With the advent of tools measuring individuals’ subconscious biases toward people of other races, genders, ages, national origins, religions, and sexual orientations, scholars have rushed to explore the ways in which these biases might affect decision-making and produce broad societal consequences.

The question that remains unanswered for scholars, attorneys, and judges is whether evidence of implicit bias and its effects can or should be used in legal proceedings. Although the study of implicit bias dates back several decades, only recently have judicial opinions begun …

When Daubert Is The Way: The Road Less Traveled By, Cynthia Ford

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

No abstract provided.

Revenge Porn, Thomas Lonardo, Tricia P. Martland, Rhode Island Bar Journal

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Expert Witness Malpractice, Michael Flynn

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The (Not-So) “Brave New World Of International Criminal Enforcement”: The Intricacies Of Multi-Jurisdictional White-Collar Investigations, Emily T. Carlson

Brooklyn Law Review

We have entered a new age of international white-collar crime and are seeing the growing interdependency of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and parallel foreign agencies to conduct investigations and subsequent prosecutorial proceedings. This coordination to combat these crimes, however, has revealed a troubling question—how can enforcement agencies work effectively together if they have fundamental differences in the legal authority governing testimony-gathering and what evidence is allowed before a grand jury? The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in United States v. Allen, confronted this issue directly as it overturned two indictments arising out of suspected manipulation of a …

Introduction, Shari S. Diamond, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

Experts bedeviled the legal system long before seventeenth-century Salem, when the town's good citizens relied on youthful accusers and witchcraft experts to identify the devil's servants in their midst. As in Salem, claims of expertise have often been questioned and objections raised about the bases of expert knowledge. Expertise, then and now, did not have to be based on science; but the importance of science and the testimony of scientific experts has since medieval times been woven into the fabric of the English jurisprudence that Americans inherited. In cases as long ago as 1299 we find examples of courts seeking …

Avoiding The Wrecking Ball Of A Disastrous Cross Examination: Nine Principles For Effective Cross Examinations With Supporting Empirical Evidence, Harry M. Caldwell, Deanne S. Elliot

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Do You See What I See? Problems With Juror Bias In Viewing Body-Camera Video Evidence, Morgan A. Birck

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In the wake of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, advocates and activists called for greater oversight and accountability for police. One of the measures called for and adopted in many jurisdictions was the implementation of body cameras in police departments. Many treated this implementation as a sign of change that police officers would be held accountable for the violence they perpetrate. This Note argues that although body-camera footage may be useful as one form of evidence in cases of police violence, lawyers and judges should be extremely careful about how it is presented to the jury. Namely, the …

Throwing Out Junk Science: How A New Rule Of Evidence Could Protect A Criminal Defendant's Right To Confront Forensic Scientists, Michael Luongo

Journal of Law and Policy

As the forensic science industry grows, so do the scandals – overburdened crime labs, unverified science, corrupt analysts, and diminishing federal oversight. Given the need to ensure that valid forensic science-based evidence is used at trial, a criminal defense attorney typically has the opportunity to cross-examine the scientist who conducted the forensic analysis. However, the 2012 Supreme Court decision of Williams v. Illinois has muddied an otherwise cohesive Confrontation Clause doctrine, allowing for the admission of forensic evidence without the testimony of the forensic scientist, but with no clear holding and different interpretations about what is considered “testimonial evidence.” To …