The Age of Expert Testimony Science in the Courtroom: Report of a Workshop (2002) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Supreme Court Trilogy
2 The Supreme Court Trilogy
Pages 5-9
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This ruling held that expert opinion based on a scientific technique is only admissible if the technique is "generally accepted" in the relevant scientific community.7 General acceptance, however, was sometimes determined on the basis of the testimony of a self-validating expert. The "Supreme Court trilogy," discussed below, encourages trial judges to decide admissibility not solely on this standard of consensus or general acceptance, but on whether the testimony is grounded in the principles and methods of a particular field.
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The court disallowed the evidence of eight other experts who argued that Bendectin could indeed cause birth defects. The evidence of these experts was based on animal studies, chemical structure analyses, and the unpublished "reanalysis" of previously published human statistical studies.
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The infant mice in the studies had had massive doses of PCBs injected directly into their peritoneums or stomachs. Joiner was an adult human being whose alleged exposure to PCBs was less than the exposure in the animal studies." In addition, ".
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The District Court, referring to the Daubert criteria, disallowed the testimony of the tire expert because it was not considered sufficiently reliable or "scientific." The Supreme Court agreed that the testimony should be excluded, emphasizing that technical evidence need not be judged by standards appropriate to research results that are published in the scientific literature: "We conclude that Daubert's general holding setting forth the trial judge's general 'gatekeeping' obligation applies not only to testimony based on 'scientific' knowledge, but also to testimony based on 'technical' and 'other specialized' knowledge."9 The Court made it clear that evidence is to be measured against the level of intellectual rigor that characterizes the practice of an expert in the relevant field outside the courtroom, thereby expanding on the four criteria suggested under Daubert for "scientific" evidence. A significant outcome of the opinion was to expand the trial judge's gatekeeping role to all expert testimony, even testimony that might not be considered "scientific" in a strict sense.
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Following the Kuhmo decision, the Federal Court codified this emerging body of law by amending Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, as follows: 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)
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