- Collection:
- Georgia Law Review
- Title:
- Through Smoke and Mirrors: Excluding Malingering Expert Testimony Under the Daubert Standard
- Creator:
- Leonhard, Chunlin
Leonhard, Christoph - Date of Original:
- 2024-01-01
- Subject:
- University of Georgia. School of Law
Law--Study and teaching
Georgia Law Review Association - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Clarke County, Athens, 33.96095, -83.37794
- Medium:
- articles
- Type:
- Text
- Format:
- application/pdf
- Description:
- Because of science’s claim to objectivity, scientific testimony is persuasive and often outcome-determinative. Our adversarial system incentivizes litigants to proffer scientific evidence to support their positions. The task falls on trial judges as gatekeepers to distinguish valid scientific evidence from junk science. Drawing this line is difficult because scientific evidence covers a broad spectrum. The United States Supreme Court has set forth the standard of admissibility of scientific evidence in Daubert and its progeny (the Daubert Standard). Trial judges are supposed to admit scientific evidence only if reliable and relevant under the Daubert Standard. But three decades after Daubert, despite the Court’s expressed confidence in trial judges’ abilities as gatekeepers, they have a mixed record: trial judges have failed to exclude junk science related to forensic feature-comparison methods, resulting in convictions of people later proven to be innocent. Has the Daubert Standard failed the trial judges? To answer this question, this article takes a deep dive into three decades of Daubert jurisprudence. Based on an extensive caselaw review, this article suggests that the Daubert Standard can be a proper tool to exclude junk science if trial judges focus on the letter and spirit of the Daubert Standard. Using malingering expert testimony as an example, this article illustrates how trial judges can see through smoke and mirrors and exclude malingering expert testimony despite all the trappings of science.
Daubert Standard -- malingering test -- Expert Testimony -- Evidence -- neuropsychology -- forensic neuropsychology -- Law - External Identifiers:
- Metadata URL:
- https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/glr/vol59/iss1/2
- Holding Institution:
- Alexander Campbell King Law Library
- Rights:
-
