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, 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.
The expression junk science is used to describe scientific data, research, or analysis considered by the person using the phrase to be spurious or fraudulent. The concept is often invoked in political and legal contexts where facts and scientific results have a great amount of weight in making a determination. It usually conveys a pejorative connotation that the research has been untowardly driven by political, ideological, financial, or otherwise unscientific motives.
Forensic psychiatry is a subspeciality of psychiatry and is related to criminology. It encompasses the interface between law and psychiatry. According to the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, it is defined as "a subspecialty of psychiatry in which scientific and clinical expertise is applied in legal contexts involving civil, criminal, correctional, regulatory, or legislative matters, and in specialized clinical consultations in areas such as risk assessment or employment." A forensic psychiatrist provides services – such as determination of competency to stand trial – to a court of law to facilitate the adjudicative process and provide treatment, such as medications and psychotherapy, to criminals.
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:
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. The Daubert 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.
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 which involving law enforcement conducting warrantless searches of the petitioners' homes, with incriminating evidence being descried inside them.
David Aaron Kessler is an American pediatrician, lawyer, author, and administrator. He was the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from November 8, 1990, to February 28, 1997.
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.
Public Citizen Litigation Group is a public interest law firm in the United States known for its Supreme Court and appellate practice. The group is the litigating arm of the non-profit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. Its attorneys work on cases involving health and safety regulation, consumer rights, separation of powers, access to the courts, class actions, open government, and the First Amendment. Despite the group's small size, its staff attorneys have argued 63 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including landmark cases on separation of powers, commercial speech, and consumer rights.
Pyridoxine/doxylamine, sold under the brand name Diclectin among others, is a combination of pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6) and doxylamine succinate. It is generally used for nausea and vomiting of pregnancy (morning sickness).
The Frye standard, Frye test, or general acceptance test is a test used in United States 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 United States 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, an economic term of art, refers to loss of enjoyment of life damages, the intangible value of life, as distinct from the human capital value or lost earnings value.
Nancy Gertner is a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She assumed senior status on May 22, 2011, and retired outright from the federal bench on September 1, 2011. She is now a professor of practice at Harvard Law School.
Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U.S. 804 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court decision involving the original jurisdiction of the federal district courts under 28 U.S.C. § 1331.
Marion Merrell Dow and its predecessor Marion Laboratories was a U.S. pharmaceutical company based in Kansas City, Missouri from 1950 until 1996.
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.
"Psychological injury" refers to psychological or psychiatric conditions associated with an event that leads, or may lead, to a lawsuit in tort action or other legal-related claims, for example, in workers' compensation, United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability benefits claims, and Social Security Administration (SSA) disability cases. Claimable injuries might result from events such as a motor vehicular collision or other negligent action, and cause impairments, disorders, and disabilities perhaps as an exacerbation of a pre-existing condition.
General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136 (1997), was a Supreme Court of the United States case between Robert Joiner and General Electric Co. that concerned whether the abuse of discretion standard is the correct standard an appellate court should apply in reviewing a trial court's decision to admit or exclude expert testimony. The case is notable for helping articulate the Daubert standard.