Daubert v. Merrell Dow and expert testimony by clinical psychologists: Implications and recommendations for practice.

The role and practice of clinical psychologists as expert witnesses is discussed in light of the United States Supreme Court decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993). Daubert v. Merrell Dow is reviewed, and its implications for clinicians who testify as expert witnesses are presented. A distinction is made between expert testimony in a generic sense, and scientific expert testimony. By virtue of clinical psychology's adoption of the mantle of science, clinical psychologists should adhere to scientific standards of data gathering in order to qualify as scientific experts. Guidelines are provided to assist clinicians in assessing the confidence with which conclusions can be termed scientific, and ethical concerns are reviewed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The expert as educator: Enhancing the rationality of verdicts in child sex abuse prosecutions.

The authors discuss the role of expert witnesses in the context of conventional understandings of trials at common law. Controversies surrounding the expert's role turn primarily on whether the expert should educate fact finders, as lay witnesses are required to do, or instead should provide conclusions to which the fact finder simply defers. The authors observe that the likelihood of irrational verdicts increases the more fact finders defer to experts and that experts become advocates often enough to make deference fertile ground for abuse. They conclude that the expert who educates better serves the justice system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Science, common sense, and the determination of mental capacity.

In 1993, when the Supreme Court decided Daubert and created the modern standard for the admissibility of scientific evidence, it almost certainly did not consider its possible effect on evidentiary hearings in probate courts even though such courts routinely admit expert testimony in will contests and guardianship hearings. Probate courts also admit testimony of lay witnesses who express their opinion as to the mental capacity of the individual in question. Yet both expert and lay witnesses are only "fact bringers" and not "fact interpreters" because the ultimate question of capacity is legal, not factual. Because the determination of legal capacity is made by the judge or jury, the role of experts in capacity trials is not fundamentally different than that of lay persons. The limited role of the expert suggests that probate courts should allow great latitude in the admission of expert testimony because the fact finders must ultimately rely on their own amorphous sense of "legal capacity." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children, psychiatrists and the courts: understanding the ambivalence of the legal profession. Part 1--General principles

Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are frequently involved as expert witnesses in court proceedings related to children and adolescents. Their testimony may be based on a therapeutic relationship, but frequently arises because of an assessment conducted specifically for the court process. This two part paper discusses some of the issues that arise when child psychiatrists are involved as expert witnesses in litigation, with specific focus on their role in child custody, sexual abuse and young offender cases. It also offers some practical advice for those who may be called as witnesses. There is controversy in the legal profession about the role of mental health professionals in the court process. While there is recognition of their expertise, there is also a concern about not wanting to have experts usurp the role of the courts. Legal professionals also question the "objectivity" of experts, and the reliability of their opinions. Frequently the opinions of psychiatrists about children and adolescents involved in litigation have inherently speculative and value based dimensions, and not "scientific". Participation in the court process by mental health experts is nevertheless a vitally important role, providing information, analysis and recommendations about what are often very difficult societal decisions. Part two of this paper starts on page 531.     

Magnetic field changes in the human brain due to swallowing or speaking

Urologists enjoying the protection of the law owe a duty to participate in the legal system as expert witnesses. Forensic education has been neglected by clinical educators. Qualification of experts includes forensic as well as clinical competence. The forensic urologist must know legal concepts and language; the powers, duties, and role of courtroom experts. The expert witness' role is to factually enlighten the judges, not to persuade them. Practical measures to remedy the current state of affairs are described from over a decade of experience. These practical measures should be supplemented by the formal development of a subspecialty of Forensic Urology sponsored by our colleges and professional societies.     

Sexual abuse victimization and the child witness in Canada: Legal, ethical, and professional issues for psychologists.

The Canadian legal system has made a number of significant reforms in the last few decades regarding the rights of child witnesses and, in particular, the rights of those who have disclosed sexual abuse. This paper provides an overview of the law in Canada as it pertains to child sexual abuse victims and witnesses, and reflects on the role and responsibilities of psychologists who work with child witnesses. It reviews the effects of protection reforms and preparation programs on children who must testify, examines some of the current major issues in the research literature in the area of interviewing and assessing sexually abused children, and considers the role of the psychologists as expert witness in court. In addition, it discusses potential ethical dilemmas for psychologists who work with child witnesses, and proposes recommendations for research and clinical practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical competence for practicing psychologists: Clearly a work in progress.

Competence is an issue of vital importance for all practicing psychologists, and each spends his or her career seeking to develop it, achieve it, maintain it, and enhance it. But just what is competence, how is it best achieved, what are the factors that may adversely impact it, and what are each psychologist's ethical obligations with regard to clinical competence? These and other relevant questions are addressed for psychologists individually, for those who train them, and for those in the profession who establish professional standards. The article and 3 invited expert commentaries address these issues and make practical recommendations for action that will assist psychologists, trainers, and the profession to better achieve the ideal of competence so that they may best be able to meet the needs of those they serve. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Battered women, psychology, and public policy.

Reviews the role that psychologists have played in affecting changes in public policy regarding domestic violence over the past decade. Testimony by expert witnesses has rebutted myths that prevented battered women who killed their abusers from receiving fair trials. Three case vignettes are presented to illustrate how psychological knowledge has helped the judicial system to develop public policy. Because organized psychology has submitted amicus curiae briefs in this area, appellate court cases now usually support the admissibility of a psychologist's testimony as to the battered woman's perception of danger and the reasonableness of her perception of the need for self-defense. The public impact of high-visibility battered women cases is discussed. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological tests in the courtroom.

Psychological tests and testing have a long history and a substantial data base, whereas the use of psychological tests to substantiate expert opinion in the courtroom has a more checkered history. Use of psychological tests to support expert testimony ranges from meritorious and appropriate (relating to the defendant's competence, personal injury issues, and children's status and needs) to questionable (relating to the insanity defense and the determination of dangerousness). It is concluded that psychologists who use tests to support their opinions when testifying as experts are duty-bound to qualify themselves for this role and to ensure that they abide by well-defined standards for the application of psychological tests. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The special education consultant in due process hearings: Ethics and expertise.

Presents guidelines for special education consultants who are increasingly being asked to serve as expert witnesses in administrative law/due process hearings as parents seek to resolve conflicts over interpretations of implementations of the provisions of federal and state laws and regulations pertaining to educationally disabled students. Guidelines are presented about the legal foundations for special education law, the common areas of dispute about which consultants may be asked to render an opinion, the standards for expert testimony, and how to best present testimony so as to protect the interests of their client while adhering to the constraints imposed by ethical practice. Major areas of dispute often involve eligibility, appropriateness of a program, the least restrictive environment, and accommodations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Believability of expert and lay witnesses: Implications for trial consultation.

Attorneys are often skeptical, with good reason, about the extent to which research findings and psychological principles may apply to the members of their jury pool. It is important for attorneys as well as psychologists who provide consultation services to have access to base-rate opinions about the consultation issues. This article reports the results of a statewide telephone survey of 488 adult residents who answered questions about the believability of expert witnesses and criminal defendants who testify. The survey questions were designed to provide "local" base-rate data about issues that arise in 3 areas of consultation work with attorneys: public perceptions of witness preparation with criminal defendants, expectations of criminal defendant demeanor, and judgments with respect to expert-witness characteristics that might be associated with being a "hired gun." Implications for psychologists who work as trial consultants and expert witnesses are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality assurance and risk management in gynecology and obstetrics]

The predominance of medical experts in hearings on so-called professional malpractice has frequently been bemoaned, but is indispensable since lawyers lack the necessary knowledge and requisite expertise. Court decisions are therefore essentially dependent on the quality of expert medical opinions, which in turn are dependent on the professional competence of the expert and on whether the expert is aware of the judicial demands made of him, i.e. whether the expert correctly understands his status and function within the scope of the civil or criminal proceedings. For example,the fact that court practice allows for differing standards (i.e. that medical standards can vary within limits) is important for the expert's appraisal, as is also knowing to what extent he is bound by the assignment and which requirements apply for proving causality (i.e. of an error leading up to damage) in civil and criminal proceedings. Strict objectivity, comprehensible language, restriction to one's own special field, preparation of the report within a reasonable time, intellectual integrity, no dealing with legal issues, ex ante assessment of the case and personal responsibility for the opinion are other important precepts that must be adhered to in order to avoid a miscarriage of justice. Quality control as exercised by specialised experts is therefore of vital significance.     

Fuzzy Similarity Consensus Model for Early Alignment of Construction Project Teams on the Extent of Their Roles and Responsibilities

A fuzzy similarity consensus (FSC) model is presented for alignment of construction project owner and contractor project teams to their roles and responsibilities, identifying and reducing fundamental problems of conflicts, duplication, and gaps in roles and responsibilities as early as the project initiation stage. The model achieves its objective by incorporating consensus and quality of construction project teams in aggregating their opinions to decide on the party responsible for every standard task of a construction project. The roles and responsibilities of the owner and contractors are described to different extents using seven linguistic terms defined by triangular membership functions and constructed using a three-step Delphi approach, which allows experts to develop common understanding of the meaning of the terms by determining their overlap on a fuzzy linguistic scale. A modified similarity aggregation method (SAM) aggregates experts’ opinions in a linguistic framework using a consensus weight factor for each expert that is based on the similarity of his or her opinion relative to the other experts to ensure that the experts’ final decision is a result of common agreement. A fuzzy expert system (FES) determines an importance weight factor, representing expert quality for each expert; opinions are aggregated using this factor and the consensus weight factor. The FSC model contributes to the construction industry by solving a fundamental problem for project owners who want to identify and reduce potential conflicts between their project teams on the extent of their roles and responsibilities prior to the construction stage. Also, the FSC model provides an improvement over previous consensus-based approaches, which rely on a subjective assessment of experts’ important weights in aggregating their opinions, and it modifies the SAM to adapt it to a linguistic environment.     

Responding to the Needs of Children, Families, and Schools: The 2002 Multisite Conference on the Future of School Psychology.

The preparations for and the implementation of the 2002 Multisite Conference on the Future of School Psychology are described. The conference goals were to (a) achieve consensus on current and future demands for school psychologists and our profession's ability to meet those demands; (b) conceptualize the practice of school psychology in the face of diminishing numbers and increasing demand for services; and (c) develop an agenda to use the resources we have to maximize the benefits to the children and schools that we serve. A problem-solving model served as the conceptual foundation of the conference. School psychologists at the host site in Indianapolis and 30 remote sites collaborated to identify threats, opportunities, strategies, and action plans to respond better to the needs of children, families and schools. The conference not only generated excitement and hope for our future, but also provided a framework to propel the current and future practice of school psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judge and attorney experiences, practices, and concerns regarding expert testimony in federal civil trials.

The results of 3 surveys (1 each of federal judges in 1991 and 1998 and another of attorneys in 1999) indicate that practices and beliefs concerning expert testimony have changed in the wake of the 1993 Supreme Court decision on admissibility in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Reporting both on their general experience with expert testimony and on their most recent civil trial involving such testimony, judges and attorneys indicated that judges were more likely in 1998 than in 1991 to scrutinize expert testimony before trial and then limit or exclude proffered testimony. The results describe common problems with expert testimony, the characteristics of trials in which expert testimony is introduced, and the types of experts who testify. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cross-racial identification testimony and what not to do about it: A comment on the cross-racial jury charge and cross-racial expert identification testimony.

This article argues against adopting cross-racial jury instructions and against allowing cross-racial identification experts to testify at criminal trials. Problems of cross-racial identification evidence are not solved by requiring trial judges to tell juries that all cross-racial identifications are suspect, when that is not necessarily the case, nor by enlisting identification experts to testify at trial that, in general, cross-racial witnesses are less credible than others. Jury instructions and expert testimony on cross-racial identification are flawed insofar as they address generalities; neither can tell a jury anything about the particular identification at issue. Problems inherent in cross-racial identifications are instead best addressed by taking measures to prevent mistaken identifications in the first place, such as improving line-up procedures. Unlike special jury instructions or experts, improved line-up procedures could enhance the reliability of the identification itself and consequently the integrity of the verdict in a criminal trial. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Analysis of Residential Framing Accidents, Activities, and Task Demands

Framing contractors have the highest rate of nonfatal incidents among specialty contractors. This case study analyzes 654 safety incidents that occurred over a period of 5??years in a large residential framing company. Accident analysis and interviews with safety and production experts identify the high-risk tasks, the errors that lead to incidents, and the task factors that increase the likelihood of incidents. The analysis resulted in a framework of five task factors that increase the task demands: (1) working platform constraints; (2) ergonomic postures constraints; (3) material/load handling requirements; (4) tool use/accuracy requirements; and (5) difficulties due to external forces. The combined effect of these factors determines the task difficulty and the likelihood of incidents. The paper discusses safety measures to reduce the task demands of the high-risk tasks, as opposed to measures that reduce exposure or mitigate the consequences. Reducing task demands can reduce the likelihood of accidents while at the same time increasing productivity. For practitioners, the study points to the need to understand the high-risk tasks and reduce task demands in their operations. The framework of the five task demand factors provides the “building blocks” of task difficulty for framing tasks and provides directions for further research in understanding and mitigating the combined effect of the task demand factors.     

Veils, values, and social responsibility.

Contends that psychologists and other experts who appear in the public arena focus their efforts on conclusory statements, rather than intermediate observations and conceptual insights; fail to disclose the host of values underlying their work; and obscure uncertainties and divisions of opinion that may exist about their findings. The best way for psychologists to cure themselves of these habits of nondisclosure may be to adopt a special mind-set. Just as psychologists have adapted themselves in distinctive ways to their roles as scientists and clinicians, they need to recognize that their role in the public arena demands yet a 3rd distinct adaptation. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)