Federal Judicial Center The results of 3 surveys (1 each of federal judges in 1991 and 1998 and another of attorneys in 1999) indicate that practices and beliefs concerning expert testimony have changed in the wake of the 1993 Supreme Court decision on admissibility in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Reporting both on their general experience with expert testimony and on their most recent civil trial involving such testimony, judges and attorneys indicated that judges were more likely in 1998 than in 1991 to scrutinize expert testimony before trial and then limit or exclude proffered testimony. The results describe common problems with expert testimony, the characteristics of trials in which expert testimony is introduced, and the types of experts who testify.
Several recent decisions by the US Supreme Court have strengthened the ability of federal courts to consider medical testimony regarding injuries associated with exposure to toxic substances. Judges are expected to examine the basis of all expert testimony before it is introduced at trial to ensure that it meets the same standards of intellectual rigor that professionals use outside the courtroom. However, courts have been inconsistent in measuring this testimony against the standards of medical practice, especially when courts consider testimony that is not supported by clinical trials or epidemiological studies. A number of courts have required standards for expert testimony that exceed those that physicians use in ordinary clinical decision making. In this article, we illustrate such inconsistencies across federal courts by contrasting different decisions in cases involving similar facts and expert testimony. We argue that there may be good reason to require a standard of admissibility that exceeds the standards of ordinary clinical decision making, but such requirements are not faithful to the mandate of the Supreme Court. Courts with especially demanding standards are misled if they believe that they are fairly representing medical practice. Physicians should respond by correcting courts' misinterpretations of medical practice and assisting in the development of legal standards that encourage thoughtful and informed consideration of medical testimony by judges and juries.
This article considers the ethical problems engendered by random assignment and privacy concerns in randomized field experiments. The particular focus is on procedural, legislative, and technical approaches to reducing or avoiding the problems. Examples are given from a variety of disciplines, although the main emphasis is on research in crime and delinquency.
In the ten years since Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc, the standards for admissibility at trial of expert testimony in general and scientific evidence in particular have become more demanding. Reviews of recent cases and empirical studies of federal judges' and attorneys' practices indicate that judges are more likely to consider the admissibility of expert evidence prior to trial, to inquire more deeply into the reasoning and methodology that supports the expert opinions, and to limit or exclude such evidence from presentation at trial. Studies of published cases confirm this finding. Recent cases consider more difficult questions arising from the differing methodologies used in various areas of science. The current legal framework that assesses admissibility in terms of professional practice outside the courtroom is poorly suited to cases that require expertise across a wide range of specialties and force judges to choose from among different scientific methodologies. Future research should focus on the pretrial screening of expert testimony and interactions between the attorneys and experts in shaping that testimony.
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