Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals is a landmark Supreme Court case that fundamentally reshaped the standards for admitting expert scientific evidence in U.S. courts. The case arose from a lawsuit filed by two children with severe birth defects, which they claimed were caused by their mothers' use of the drug Benedectin during pregnancy. Initially, a lower court dismissed the case, deeming the scientific evidence presented by the plaintiffs inadmissible due to its lack of general acceptance within the scientific community. However, the Supreme Court overturned this requirement, establishing that the admissibility of expert testimony should be guided by the Federal Rules of Evidence, specifically Rule 702. This rule emphasizes the importance of evaluating the reliability and relevance of scientific evidence based on specific criteria, such as whether it has been tested and peer-reviewed. The Daubert ruling thus ushered in a "gatekeeping" role for judges, who must now assess the validity of expert testimony, potentially allowing more diverse types of scientific evidence to be considered in court. This decision has had significant implications for various fields, particularly in forensic science, where evidence previously excluded under the older Frye standard is now reexamined for its scientific merit.
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals
Date: Ruling issued on June 28, 1993
Court: US Supreme Court
Significance: In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, the US Supreme Court held that under the Federal Rules of Evidence, a judge is required to make an independent reliability and relevance determination before allowing expert testimony to be admissible.
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals was a suit brought by two minor children who were born with serious birth defects, which they alleged were the result of their mothers’ ingestion during pregnancy of Benedectin, a prescription antinausea drug marketed by Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals. A US district court granted summary judgment in favor of Merrell Dow because a great deal of scientific evidence demonstrated that Benedectin did not cause birth defects and because the scientific evidence offered by the plaintiffs was found to be inadmissible, as the evidence lacked general acceptance in the scientific community. The court of appeals agreed, stating that expert opinion is inadmissible unless the scientific technique on which the opinion is based is generally accepted by the relevant scientific community.
The US Supreme Court disagreed and remanded the case for a new determination of the admissibility of the scientific evidence in question. The Court explained that the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) govern the admissibility of evidence in federal court, thus the rule stated in Frye v. United States (1923)> requiring general acceptance of a scientific technique is no longer an absolute requirement and has been superseded by Federal Rule of Evidence 702. Under the governing rule of FRE 702, judges should examine the reliability and relevance of proffered expert scientific evidence in determining the admissibility of that evidence.
Specific Requirements of Daubert and FRE 702
To determine the reliability of scientific evidence, judges should assess whether the methodology is scientifically valid and whether the methodology offers scientific knowledge that will assist the trier of fact (the jury in a jury trial, the judge in a bench trial) in determining the outcome of the case. Specifically, the four factors that judges should consider are whether the methodology and scientific evidence being offered can be and has been tested for validity, whether the scientific theory or technique has been peer-reviewed and published, what the known or potential rate of error is of the technique and the existence and maintenance of standards that control the technique’s operation and use, and whether the methodology is generally accepted by the relevant scientific community.
In using the consideration of these four factors as a guide for evaluating scientific evidence, trial judges have great latitude in determining the reliability of evidence. The Supreme Court thus concluded in Daubert v. Merrell Dow that general acceptance of scientific evidence is no longer a precondition of admissibility under the Federal Rules of Evidence, but that factor may still have some bearing. In Kumho Tire Company v. Carmichael (1999), the Supreme Court later extended the requirements of Daubert in a loosened form to all experts, regardless of whether or not the experts are testifying as to scientific evidence.
Applications of the Daubert Standard
Because forensic scientific evidence is often presented in the courtroom through the use of expert testimony, the Daubert standard greatly affects the admissibility of such evidence. For example, evidence that was previously rejected under Frye as not being generally accepted has been reexamined by courts to see if the evidence does embody good science. Polygraph results were viewed as inadmissible under Frye, but under Daubert, this form of evidence is no longer subject to a per se ban. Although polygraph evidence is still rarely admitted, judges at least give its admissibility minimal consideration.
In some cases, courts have reevaluated the validity and applicability of evidence that many would previously have accepted automatically as being valid under Frye. For instance, court decisions allowing handwriting comparisons and fingerprint identification date back to before the 1920s, but no empirical studies were conducted on the validity of handwriting comparisons or fingerprint identification because empirical scientific foundations for these methods were not required under Frye.
Some commentators have questioned the tacit acceptance by courts of forensic fingerprint identification evidence because they believe that such evidence is not as reliable as previously assumed, as indicated by erroneous convictions and inconsistencies in protocols. It is extremely difficult to make accurate comparisons of poor-quality latent fingerprints left at a crime scene with rolled fingerprints taken directly from a defendant, and such comparisons often require fingerprint analysts to make subjective assessments. The scientific bases underlying fingerprint identification have yet to be tested fully under Daubert, but this form of evidence may one day be found to be unreliable and inadmissible. No appellate court has held that such evidence is definitively inadmissible, but in 2003 the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in United States v. Crisp, became the first appellate court to hold that expert testimony on handwriting comparisons and fingerprint identification is admissible under Daubert.
The Daubert decision thus created a gatekeeper role for judges, who became responsible for assessing the reliability of the opinions of expert witnesses. This new role might result in previously accepted expert testimony being found inadmissible at the same time modern techniques of forensic science may have greater opportunities to alter the outcomes of cases as they are deemed admissible by more courts.
Bibliography
Benedict, Nathan. “Fingerprints and the Daubert Standard for Admission of Scientific Evidence: Why Fingerprints Fails and a Proposed Remedy.” Arizona Law Review 46 (Fall, 2004): 519–549.
Judicial Gatekeeping Project, ed. The Judge’s Role as Gatekeeper: Responsibilities and Power. Cambridge, Mass.: Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School, 1999.
Klein, Daniel A. “Reliability of Scientific Technique and Its Acceptance Within Scientific Community as Affecting Admissibility, at Federal Trial, of Expert Testimony as to Result of Test or Study Based on Such Technique: Modern Cases.” In American Law Reports, Federal. St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West, 2007.
National Research Council. The Polygraph and Lie Detection. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2003.
Rothstein, Paul F., Myrna S. Raeder, and David Crump. Evidence. St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West, 2003.