Admissibility of expert psychological and psychiatric testimony
نویسندگان
چکیده
18.1.1 Expert testimony: background The purpose of civil and criminal trials is to decide issues of fact and of law. In England, Wales and Scotland, issues of fact in the most serious criminal trials are decided by juries and issues of law by judges. For several centuries, decisions about issues of fact, in certain cases, have been assisted by experts. As early as 1554, Saunders J remarked in the case of Buckley v Rice-Thomas (1554) 1 Plowd 118, at p. 124 (quoted in Cross and Tapper, 1995, p. 555) that:
منابع مشابه
Experts, Mental States, and Acts
In my book Proving the Unprovable, I discussed at length the considerations that might govern the admissibility of expert psychiatric and psychological testimony in criminal and quasi-criminal cases. This evidence law symposium gives me the opportunity to elaborate on one particular thesis of that book—that the definition of expertise in the criminal justice system, derived in the federal court...
متن کاملA consideration of challenges to psychological assessment instruments used in forensic settings: Rorschach as exemplar.
In this brief primer, we provide an outline of key issues that will help psychologists organize and prepare their expert testimony. These issues include the need to obtain essential sources of research, a review of the actual legal standards regarding admissibility of test data in expert testimony, the nature of the expert relative to the assessment instrument in expert testimony, the nature of...
متن کاملPsychological evidence at the dawn of the law's scientific age.
The Supreme Court's 1993 decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., holding that the admissibility of scientific evidence depends on its scientific merit, has made American law receptive to valid science to an unprecedented degree. We review the implications for psychology of the law's taking science seriously. We consider the law before Daubert, and the ways that Daubert as well...
متن کاملFalse confessions, expert testimony, and admissibility.
The confession of a criminal defendant serves as a prosecutor's most compelling piece of evidence during trial. Courts must preserve a defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial while upholding the judicial interests of presenting competent and reliable evidence to the jury. When a defendant seeks to challenge the validity of that confession through expert testimony, the prosecution often...
متن کاملAdmissibility of false-confession testimony: know thy standard.
The reliability of confessions is subject to a variety of factors, some of which give rise to expert testimony. To the degree that prosecutors construe the determination of reliability as an objective standard, they may attempt to bar testimony. Moreover, when the testimony is theoretical rather than clinical, there are additional challenges. Depending on jurisdiction, the admissibility of expe...
متن کامل