Wednesday, September 10, 2003

Law Review Piece on Daubert & Child Abuse Cases

Via the Blawg Review, we learn of:

Joƫlle Anne Moreno, Einstein on the Bench?: Exposing What Judges Do Not Know About Science and Using Child Abuse Cases to Improve How Courts Evaluate Scientific Evidence, 64 Ohio St. L.J. 531 (2003).

Professor Moreno's work seems likely to prove invaluable for attorneys and judicial officers grappling with medico-scientific evidence in child abuse cases. But practitioners in other fields should take a peek too, if only because of footnote 42, which supplies a handy compendium of decisions from fifty states either adopting Daubert, sticking with Frye, or striking some third course.
Fed. R. Evid. 702: If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.