Expert testimony, for many mental health professionals, is fraught with anxiety. In this article, the authors attempt to alleviate this anxiety with a simple recipe for professional, ethical, and economic success as an expert witness. Because experts are essentially getting paid for their credibility, this is one area of practice where the most ethical behavior can also be viewed as the most li...

This research examined how variations in the presentation of forensic science information affect factfinders' judgments in a trial. Participants read a summary of a murder case, the critical testimony being the results of a microscopic hair comparison given by a forensic expert. Across two experiments we manipulated how the expert expressed his results, whether he gave an explicit conclusion co...

The interests of the public and both the medical and legal professions are best served when scientifically sound and unbiased expert witness testimony is readily available in civil and criminal proceedings. As members of the medical community, patient advocates, and private citizens, pediatricians have ethical and professional obligations to assist in the administration of justice. The American...

The U.S. Supreme Court case of Daubert v. MerrellDow Pharmaceuticals focused attention on the problem of “junk science” testimony in the courtroom, a decision that led to the emergence of the Daubert hearing as a pre-trial screening device for determining the reliability and relevance of expert testimony. Similar to other useful legal procedural safeguards of due process, alas, the Daubert hear...

Antisius, after examining the corpse of Julius Caesar, “opined that only one of the 23 sword wounds was deadly, namely the one perforating his thorax.” This report, dating back to the Roman Empire, seems to be the first documented use of a scientific expert witness. Experts are presumed to be persons with special reliable knowledge who share their insights through testimony so that legal issues...

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between expert witness likeability and jurors' judgments of credibility and tendencies in sentencing. Two actors playing expert witnesses were trained to present themselves as high and low in likeability in a standard testimony scenario in the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial. The effects of extraversion and gender of the 210 ps...

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...

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...

A 3-week-old infant awoke with a fever. He was taken to the doctor who noted that the child was irritable. The doctor took him to the hospital where a resident performed a spinal tap, started an intravenous (IV) line, and ordered antibiotics. The entire drama, from entering the doctor's office to infusion of ampicillin, took 2 hours. The doctor was sued for malpractice. Expert witnesses for the...

OBJECTIVES To identify key themes related to tobacco advertising and promotion in testimony provided by tobacco industry-affiliated witnesses in tobacco litigation, and to present countervailing evidence and arguments. METHODS Themes in industry testimony were identified by review of transcripts of testimony in the Tobacco Deposition and Trial Testimony Archive (http://tobaccodocuments.org/da...