Experts on Expertise? How Judges Apply Standards for Admission of Expert Testimony

Abstract

What do the courts want from expert testimony, and how do judges assess professed expertise? These questions form the core of this meticulously written and thought-provoking book on the role of expert evidence in courts of law. Rather than presenting a criticism of the abuses of expert testimony (Hagen, 1997), a practical guide to the task of being an expert witness (Brodsky, 2004), or an overview of issues in a specific subfield of psychological expert testimony (Ceci & Hembrooke, 1998), Sales and Shuman are concerned primarily with the standards that judges use to decide whether to admit expert testimony in court. To begin their analysis, they deconstruct the goals of the Federal Rules of Evidence (1974). Their attention focuses particularly on Rule 102, which governs the admissibility of evidence in federal courts, and on Rule 702, which concerns whether proffered experts should be allowed to testify. Because both rules have been adopted by most state courts, their analysis has broad applicability.