Saturday, May 27, 2006

State Law Roundup

Some decisions from state high courts this past week:

The Mississippi Supreme Court held, in Webb v. Braswell, No. 2004-CA-01438-SCT (Miss. May 25, 2006), that evidence of lost future profits in an unestablished business failed Daubert's reliability test.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held, in Commonwealth v. Conklin, No. 5 MAP 2005 (Pa. May 24, 2006), that licensed clinical social workers are competent to offer expert testimony on the defendant's propensity to engage in violent sexual predation in proceedings under the state's Sexually Violent Predators Act. The defendant had contended that state law permitted only licensed psychologists or psychiatrists to do so.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court held, in State v. Day, No. 2003-143-C.A. (R.I. May 25, 2006), that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing the defendant's request to fund expert testimony on eyewitness identification. That result is consistent with Rhode Island precedent, but the defendant had hoped to carve out an exception for identifications based on newspaper photographs.

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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.