Expert Witnesses Are Called Upon

expert witnesses are called upon during a trial to offer further knowledge and guidance on any subject or issue on which they are considered an expert. These people are professionals qualified to help people in the courtroom with their search for the truth.

According to Federal Rule of Evidence 702: "If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise." It is however the trial judge who decided whether the expert witness is qualified enough to offer help.

In many cases, there has been an influx of "junk science" in the courtrooms, which led to the famous Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals ruling in 1993 where it was decided that extreme caution must be exercised when permitting evidence in a courtroom. According to Brown et al. (2005), expert witness is someone "who by reason of education or specialized experience possesses superior knowledge respecting a subject about which persons having no particular training are incapable of forming an accurate opinion or deducting correct conclusions'.

[1] Since the trial judge assesses the qualifications of an expert witness and his capabilities, we can say that an expert witness is someone who by permission of the court and counsel offers further information on a subject to help everyone form an informed opinion. But the information offered by the expert should be based on facts and there must not be an opinion-based evidence. Opinion evidence is generally not allowed in the courtrooms. However an exception is made when expert opinion is required and particularly sought during a trial.

Rules of evidence work as regulatory mechanism to see which kind of expert evidence can be allowed. In particular expert evidence or opinion may be required in order to understand the evidence already available to the attorneys and judges. In such cases, expert opinion would be welcome in order to facilitate understanding of the evidence available and to aid the fact-finding procedures and process. [2] It is thus correct to say that expert witnesses help in two ways.

They offer knowledge and information about a subject of their expertise and they also help the fact-finder in drawing informed inferences from available facts. [3] Their role in most pronounced in the cases where their opinion and evidence can help in understanding subjects and facts, which are beyond the understanding of common man. A layperson may not understand scientific issues or issues pertaining to advanced-forensic-psychology and thus in order to clarify terms and facts, expert opinion is sought.

The judges and jury require assistance in such cases and thus exceptions are made regarding admissibility of expert opinion. [4] In connection with expert witnesses and evidence, the most significant has been the Daubert case of 1993. Prior to this case, federal and state court judges had only two standards on which to determine the admissibility of evidence. The first one was relevance and the other was known as Fyre standard according to which only scientific information, which was generally accepted by the community, would be admitted.

Opponents of Fyre standard argued that there were still new and emerging ideas in science, which were legitimate but not yet accepted by everyone. However Fyre standard could not be removed since relevance alone could not determine the admissibility factor since there was always a risk of allowing junk science.

In Daubert, Supreme Court instructed the federal judges to act as "gatekeepers" and allow only the evidence which was both "relevant and reliable." [5] This was done to keep junk science out which had once been broadly described as "the mirror image of real science, with much of the same form but none of the substance....It is a hodgepodge of biased data, spurious inference, and logical legerdemain It is a catalog of every conceivable kind of error: data dredging, wishful thinking, truculent dogmatism, and, now and again, outright fraud." [6] However while Daubert standard was a well-intentioned attempt to control the influx of junk science, it has since then been routinely misused or expanded upon to disallow opinion in cases of personal injury.

Some jurists are dismayed by the standards applied.