Check Your Crystal Ball at the Courthouse Door, Please: Exploring the Past, Understanding the Present, and Worrying About the Future of Scientific Evidence

Authors

David L. Faigman, University of California, Hastings College of Law
Elise Porter, Assistant Attorney General, State of Ohio
Michael J. Saks, University of Iowa College of Law

Abstract

Since the earliest days of the use of expert witnesses, judges (and more recently legislatures) have struggled to design the juridical intersection where law and science cross paths. The effort has not met with notable success. This situation could be changing, however. Last term, in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the Supreme Court adopted a novel approach to the age-old problem of scientific evidence. The -Court determined that the Federal Rules of Evidence require scientific evidence to be scientifically valid before it enters the courtroom. The Court has served notice that experts should trade in their crystal balls for electron microscopes. But the success of this move into the twentieth century largely depends on the law's proper understanding of the crossroads at which law and science meet. Becoming scientifically literate should prove to be a continuing challenge to the law.

Keywords

Courts, Evidence, Expert Witnesses and Scientific Evidence, Witnesses, Science and Technology Law, Testimony, Legal Practice and Procedure, Scientific Evidence, Scientific Research

Disciplines

Courts | Evidence | Law | Science and Technology Law

Recommended Citation

David L. Faigman, Elise Porter & Michael J. Saks, Check Your Crystal Ball at the Courthouse Door, Please: Exploring the Past, Understanding the Present, and Worrying About the Future of Scientific Evidence, 15 Cardozo L. Rev. 1799 (1994).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/clr/vol15/iss6/4