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Forensic Evidence Admissibility and Expert Witnesses
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| bet | 15/17 | | Sana | 21.05.2024 | | Hajmi | 430,06 Kb. | | #248066 | | Turi | Guide |
Bog'liq DigitalEvidence
How or why some scientific evidence or expert witnesses are allowed to be presented in court and some are not can be confusing to the casual observer or a layperson reading about a case in the media. However, there is significant precedent that guides the way these decisions are made. Our discussion here will briefly outline the three major sources that currently guide evidence and testimony admissibility.
The Frye Standard – Scientific Evidence and the Principle of General Acceptance
In 1923, in Frye v. United States[1], the District of Columbia Court rejected the scientific validity of the lie detector (polygraph) because the technology did not have significant general acceptance at that time. The court gave a guideline for determining the admissibility of scientific examinations:
Just when a scientific principle or discovery crosses the line between the experimental and demonstrable stages is difficult to define. Somewhere in this twilight zone the evidential force of the principle must be recognized, and while the courts will go a long way in admitting experimental testimony deduced from a well-‐recognized scientific principle or discovery, the thing from which the deduction is made must be sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs.
Essentially, to apply the “Frye Standard” a court had to decide if the procedure, technique or principles in question were generally accepted by a meaningful proportion of the relevant scientific community. This standard prevailed in the federal courts and some states for many years.
Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 702
In 1975, more than a half-‐century after Frye was decided, the Federal Rules of Evidence were adopted for litigation in federal courts. They included rules on expert testimony. Their alternative to the Frye Standard came to be used more broadly because it did not strictly require general acceptance and was seen to be more flexible.
The first version of Federal Rule of Evidence 702 provided that a witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or otherwise if:
[1] 293 Fed. 1013 (1923)
the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue;
the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data;
the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and
the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.
While the states are allowed to adopt their own rules, most have adopted or modified the Federal rules, including those covering expert testimony.
In a 1993 case, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the United States Supreme Court held that the Federal Rules of Evidence, and in particular Fed. R. Evid. 702, superseded Frye’s "general acceptance" test.
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