Although psychologists and psychiatrists often testify in court, we know relatively little about the extent to which jurors value the testimony they hear from these experts. We surveyed 161 jurors who rendered opinions in 14 sex offender civil commitment trials after hearing testimony from psychologists and psychiatrists serving as expert witnesses. Most jurors reported that the experts they he...

I strongly believe that we need a very stringent standard of proof in criminal cases. I do not think, however, that Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has been productive in effectuating this goal. In civil cases, courts engage in rigorous gatekeeping and often exclude plaintiffs’ experts because the theory underlying their testimony has not been adequately validated. But I see no sig...

Although there has been a rapid expansion in research on police interrogations and false confessions, little is known about the beliefs of potential jurors as to these issues. In collaboration with a trial research firm, we recruited 461 jury-eligible men and women who matched the demographic characteristics of jury pools in several states. Surrogate jurors responded to questions and statements...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS To examine expert testimony offered by otolaryngologists in defense of the tobacco industry and to assess whether opinions rendered were congruent with evidence in the scientific literature. METHODS Data sources include publically available expert witness depositions and trial testimony of board-certified otolaryngologists employed by the tobacco industry in defense of l...

175 T o many physicians, the term expert witness not only raises the specter of a “hired gun” willing to testify against his colleagues for financial gain, but often leads to exasperation when learning that the expert is not even in the same field of medicine as the person he is testifying against. Similarly, many physicians express reluctance to act as an expert in legal proceedings because th...

This brief commentary reviews the concept of nest fouling, and advances the view that a different approach to giving expert testimony (that of impartially assisting the court) will largely negate nest-fouling issues.

The role of expert witnesses in medical malpractice litigation is often misunderstood. Much maligned, the expert has been the subject of castigation by a range of people, from his professional colleagues to the jurists who preside over his testimony. From an academic perspective, the expert witness is a necessary evil, and his denigration is his own doing; for the expert is a neutral character ...