Scientific Evidence - Contributing Factors, Novel Scientific Evidence, Frye V. United States, Relevancy Test, Reliability Test
crime aspects techniques psychological
The first American crime laboratories were established about 1930. The principal techniques used in these laboratories were fingerprinting, handwriting comparisons, toolmark and firearms ("ballistics") identifications, drug analysis, blood tests, and trace analysis (hair, fiber, and glass). However, by the late 1960s the nature of scientific evidence had changed dramatically; new techniques had been developed, and courts faced decisions about the admissibility of testimony based upon a much wider array of scientific techniques: sound spectrography ("voiceprint"), neutron activation, atomic absorption, electrophoretic blood testing, scanning electron microscopy, mass spectrometry, gas chromatography, and bite mark comparisons. Even fingerprint identification had moved into the high-tech age with laser technology for visualizing latent prints and powerful computers for searching databases including millions of sets of prints.
PAUL C. GIANNELLI
EDWARD J. IMWINKELRIED
Additional Topics
Funding. Several factors may have contributed to this increased use of scientific evidence. At one time there was substantial funding for "forensic" science research?the application of science in a legal setting. The creation of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) in 1968 undoubtedly played a significant role. In the 1970s the LEAA underwrote a number of research projects designed…
In any event, what is clear is that reliance on scientific proof has increased. One survey concluded: "About one quarter of the citizens who had served on juries which were presented with scientific evidence believed that had such evidence been absent, they would have changed their verdicts?from guilty to not guilty" (Peterson et al., p. 1748). Voiceprints. During the last quarter of the twentieth…
When the courts began confronting new and more sophisticated scientific evidence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they needed a legal test for determining admissibility. Three different approaches emerged. One treats the validity of the underlying principle and the validity of the technique as aspects of relevancy. A second approach, ultimately adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court, is known as the …
One alternative approach to Frye is to treat scientific evidence in the same way as other evidence, weighing its probative value against countervailing dangers and considerations. Charles McCormick, a noted evidence scholar, advocated this position. In his 1954 text, he wrote that "Any relevant conclusions which are supported by a qualified expert witness should be received unless there are other …
A third admissibility test eventually emerged from the Frye debates; the new test rejected the Frye standard but demanded proof of reliability. The Supreme Court adopted this approach in 1993, ruling that the Federal Rules of Evidence had displaced the Frye test. The case, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. , involved the admissibility of expert epidemiological testimony concerning wheth…
At the same time that DNA evidence was being closely scrutinized by the courts and Kumho was prompting renewed judicial interest in nonscientific expert testimony, several notorious cases of scientific malfeasance received extensive treatment in the news media (Giannelli, 1997). One case is illustrative. Fred Zain, the former head serologist of the West Virginia State Police crime laboratory, fals…
Scientific evidence is often superior to other types of evidence, such as eyewitness identifications and confessions. The Justice Department report of twenty-eight convicts released from prison during the 1990s due to exculpatory DNA evidence dramatizes this point. Most of these convictions were based on eyewitness identifications. One involved a mentally limited defendant who falsely confessed…
American Psychiatric Association. Brief Amicus Curiae, Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880 (1983). ??. "The Admissibility of Laboratory Reports in Criminal Trials: The Reliability of Scientific Proof." Ohio State Law Journal 49 (1988): 671?701. ??. "'Junk Science': The Criminal Cases." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 84 (1993): 105?128. ??. "Daubert: Interpreting the Federal Rules of Evidenc…
Andrews v. State, 533 So.2d 841 (Fla. App. 1988), rev. denied, 542 So. 2d 1332 (Fla. 1989). Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880 (1983). Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 U.S. 432 (1957). Commonwealth v. Lykus, 327 N.E.2d 671 (Mass. 1975). Commonwealth v. Mamay, 553 N.E.2d 945 (Mass. 1990). Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993). Escobedo v Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 (1964). Franklin v. …
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