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Judicial gatekeeping and the social construction of the admissibility of expert testimony
Author(s) -
Merlino Mara L.,
Murray Colleen I.,
Richardson James T.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.806
Subject(s) - gatekeeping , criminology , admissible evidence , human factors and ergonomics , computer security , psychology , poison control , political science , law , computer science , medical emergency , medicine
Content analysis of 192 U.S. District Court cases was conducted to investigate judges' evaluations of expert characteristics and evidence characteristics for toxicology, psychological/psychiatric, and damages testimony. Judges evaluated more expert characteristics, but not more evidence characteristics, as the number of months post‐ Daubert increased (Hypotheses 1 and 2). More evidence characteristics were evaluated when evidence was quantitatively rather than qualitatively based (Hypothesis 3). The greatest number of evidence characteristics examined was for toxicology evidence (Hypothesis 4). Fewer expert characteristics were evaluated for admissible evidence, but more evidence characteristics were evaluated for inadmissible evidence (Hypothesis 5). All analyses were significant at .05. Implications for judges, attorneys, and experts are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.