 | The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(January 2017) |
Hedonology (Hedonics), is the study of the impact an injury or incident had on a person's lifestyle.
The Hedonology Institute was developed by Jeffrey Francis Magrowski, Ph.D., CRC, CRE. A trademark for Hedonology was registered in 1990 and abandoned in 1999 while Magrowski attended college and his studies in Vocational Rehabilitation.
The development and use of Hedonics admissibility of scientific evidence for use in the legal system is set by the standard of Hedonic damages to evaluate non-economic damages using the American Juris Jurisprudence method (1988), based on the Frye Standard and supported by the Daubert Test. The determination of present and future pain and suffering is taken into account. Generally, the fact that statistics can be used, but must get the same result was proven in the use of Hedonics.
The Hedonics model and analysis was first accepted in 1991 in United States Claims Court: Joshua Wasson V. Secretary of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, No. 90-208V. The second case accepting Hedonics in the legal system was in Gary D. Wyatt, Sr. V. The United States of America (Veteran's Administration) 4:94CV1567-DJS September 23, 1996.
An Economist, Stan V. Smith, developed a theory of economic damages (as opposed to non-pecuniary, or non-economic damages) for Hedonic Damages based on the value of a human life by statistical analysis, which has not met the Frye or Daubert Test under admissibility in a court of law in several states.
An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as an expert. The judge may consider the witness's specialized opinion about evidence or about facts before the court within the expert's area of expertise, to be referred to as an "expert opinion". Expert witnesses may also deliver "expert evidence" within the area of their expertise. Their testimony may be rebutted by testimony from other experts or by other evidence or facts.
Medical malpractice is professional negligence by act or omission by a health care provider in which the treatment provided falls below the accepted standard of practice in the medical community and causes injury or death to the patient, with most cases involving medical error. Claims of medical malpractice, when pursued in US courts, are processed as civil torts. Sometimes an act of medical malpractice will also constitute a criminal act, as in the case of the death of Michael Jackson.
In United States federal law, the Daubert standard is a rule of evidence regarding the admissibility of expert witness testimony. A party may raise a Daubert motion, a special motion in limine raised before or during trial, to exclude the presentation of unqualified evidence to the jury. The Daubert trilogy are the three United States Supreme Court cases that articulated the Daubert standard:
In economics, hedonic regression, also sometimes called hedonic demand theory, is a revealed preference method for estimating demand or value. It decomposes the item being researched into its constituent characteristics, and obtains estimates of the contributory value for each. This requires that the composite good can be reduced to its constituent parts and that those resulting parts are in some way valued by the market. Hedonic models are most commonly estimated using regression analysis, although some more generalized models such as sales adjustment grids are special cases which do not.
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), is a United States Supreme Court case determining the standard for admitting expert testimony in federal courts. In Daubert, the Court held that the enactment of the Federal Rules of Evidence implicitly overturned the Frye standard; the standard that the Court articulated is referred to as the Daubert standard.
Parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is a term introduced by child psychiatrist Richard Gardner in 1985 to describe signs and symptoms he believed to be exhibited by children who have been alienated from one parent through manipulation by the other parent. Proposed symptoms included extreme but unwarranted fear, and disrespect or hostility towards a parent. Gardner believed that a set of behaviors that he observed in some families involved in child custody litigation could be used to diagnose psychological manipulation or undue influence of a child by a parent, typically by the other parent who may be attempting to prevent an ongoing relationship between a child and other family members after family separation or divorce. Use of the term "syndrome" has not been accepted by either the medical or legal communities and Gardner's research has been broadly criticized by legal and mental health scholars for lacking scientific validity and reliability.
Admissible evidence, in a court of law, is any testimonial, documentary, or tangible evidence that may be introduced to a factfinder—usually a judge or jury—to establish or to bolster a point put forth by a party to the proceeding. For evidence to be admissible, it must be relevant and "not excluded by the rules of evidence", which generally means that it must not be unfairly prejudicial, and it must have some indicia of reliability. The general rule in evidence is that all relevant evidence is admissible and all irrelevant evidence is inadmissible, though some countries proscribe the prosecution from exploiting evidence obtained in violation of constitutional law, thereby rendering relevant evidence inadmissible. This rule of evidence is called the exclusionary rule. In the United States, this was effectuated federally in 1914 under the Supreme Court case Weeks v. United States and incorporated against the states in 1961 in the case Mapp v. Ohio. Both of these cases involved law enforcement conducting warrantless searches of the petitioners' homes, with incriminating evidence being described inside them.
The Scientific Working Group on Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (SWGSTAIN) was created in March 2002 at a meeting held by the FBI Laboratory at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. It was decided that there was enough interest in bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA) to warrant the creation of the Scientific Working Group (SWG). According to the guidelines for organizing a SWG, the Scientific Working Group on Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (SWGSTAIN) generated and ratified a set of bylaws in accordance to the Scientific Working Groups published in Forensic Science Communications.
Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999), is a United States Supreme Court case that applied the Daubert standard to expert testimony from non-scientists.
Forensic Economics as defined by the National Association of Forensic Economics (NAFE) is the scientific discipline that applies economic theories and methods to matters within a legal framework. Forensic economics covers, but is not limited to:
In United States law, the Frye standard, Frye test, or general acceptance test is a judicial test used in U.S. courts to determine the admissibility of scientific evidence. It provides that expert opinion based on a scientific technique is admissible only when the technique is generally accepted as reliable in the relevant scientific community. In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Federal Rules of Evidence superseded Frye as the standard for admissibility of expert evidence in federal courts. Some states, however, still adhere to the Frye standard.
Hedonic damages is a legal term that first emerged in 1985 in the research of Stan V. Smith, who was a PhD student in economics at the University of Chicago. The term refers to damages for loss of enjoyment of life, the intangible value of life, as distinct from the human capital value or lost earnings value.
Forensic hypnosis is the use of hypnosis in the investigative process and as evidence in court which became increasingly popular from the 1950s to the early 1980s with its use being debated into the 1990s when its popular use mostly diminished. Forensic hypnosis's uses are hindered by concerns with its reliability and accuracy. The United States Department of Justice states that hypnosis may be occasionally used in investigation, but that the method faces "serious objections" and that information from hypnosis may be considered inadmissible. Forensic Hypnosis has been considered for several uses including: hypnotic memory enhancement, evaluating a defendant's mental state, determining if a subject is telling the truth, preparing a witness for trial, determining if one is feigning trauma or a mental injury, and supporting the defense in a criminal case. Some of these uses have found more support than others as academic psychologists have reviewed these. While psychologists may find it appropriate to use memory enhancement to help in finding leads in the investigation process which should lead to uncovering more concrete evidence, its use in determining if a subject is telling the truth has been widely criticized.
Stan V. Smith (Ph.D.) is an American economist credited with coining the term and creating the arguments behind the hedonic damages theory, which entered mainstream legal economics in the 1985 court case Sherrod v. Berry. He often presents, publishes, and speaks on economics. He is now president of a national litigation support firm, Smith Economics Group, Ltd., and acts as an expert witness in court cases involving economic damages, from commercial to personal injury damages, including cases where it can be argued the quality of someone's life has been diminished or lost. His economic theories on victim restitution in child pornography in one of his cases that reached the Supreme Court resulted in the Amy Vicky Andy Act signed by President Trump in 2018.
Forensic entomology deals with the collection of arthropodic evidence and its application, and through a series of tests and previously set of rules, general admissibility of said evidence is determined. Forensic entomology may come into play in a variety of legal cases, including crime scene investigation, abuse and neglect cases, accidents, insect infestation, and food contamination.
Established in 1977, Atlantic Legal Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public interest law firm with a history of advocating for individual liberty, free enterprise, property rights, limited and efficient government, sound science in the courtroom, and school choice. Atlantic Legal provides legal representation, without fee, to individuals, corporations, trade associations, parents, scientists and educators. The Foundation frequently files amicus curiae briefs in high-profile court cases before state supreme courts, federal circuit courts, and the United States Supreme Court.
The Scientific Working Group on Imaging Technology was convened by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1997 to provide guidance to law enforcement agencies and others in the criminal justice system regarding the best practices for photography, videography, and video and image analysis. This group was terminated in 2015.
Forensic Podiatry is a subdiscipline of forensic science in which specialized podiatric knowledge including foot and lower limb anatomy, musculoskeletal function, deformities and diseases of the foot, ankle, lower extremities, and at times, the entire human body is used in the examination of foot-related evidence in the context of a criminal investigation. Forensic Podiatry has been defined as:
The application of sound and researched podiatry knowledge and experience in forensic investigations, to show the association of an individual with a scene of crime, or to answer any other legal question concerned with the foot or footwear that requires knowledge of the functioning foot.
Jurimetrics is the application of quantitative methods, and often especially probability and statistics, to law. In the United States, the journal Jurimetrics is published by the American Bar Association and Arizona State University. The Journal of Empirical Legal Studies is another publication that emphasizes the statistical analysis of law.
Robert Lee Stinson is an innocent Wisconsin man who was charged with the rape and murder of a 63-year-old woman, Ione Cychosz. Cychosz’ body was discovered in a vacant lot close to Stinson's backyard. Bite marks that were left on the body were analyzed by Dr. Lowell T. Johnson, a forensic dentist, who advised that the bites were left by someone missing their front tooth. Due to Richard Lee Stinson's proximity and Dr. Johnson's testimony, which was later analyzed by Dr. Raymond Rawson, he was sentenced to life in prison.
http://www.nafe.net/JFE/j04_3_am.pdf
http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F2/988/131/142052/
United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit. - 988 F.2d 131