I’ve posted already about the Oregon case – Oregon v. Lawson.
Here is a piece from the excellent Concurring Opinions blog about eyewitness testimony.
I would like to underscore Brandon’s point about reform efforts that are currently underway. While for the most part, the criminal justice process is stuck in a bad place (thanks to a large degree to the US Supreme Court), it is refreshing to note that a few local and state jurisdictions are moving ahead with thoughtful reforms.
I have mentioned this article before, Michael D. Risinger, Navigating Expert Reliability: Are Criminal Standards of Certainty Being Left in the Dock?, 64 ALBANY L. REV. 99 (2000). The basic theme:
This article shows that, as to proffers of asserted expert testimony, civil defendants win their Daubert reliability challenges to plaintiffs’ proffers most of the time, and that criminal defendants virtually always lose their reliability challenges to government proffers. And, when civil defendants’ proffers are challenged by plaintiffs, those defendants usually win, but when criminal defendants’ proffers are challenged by the prosecution, the criminal defendants usually lose. The article then goes on to examine, in detail, various categories of expert proffers in criminal cases, including “syndrome evidence,” polygraph, bite mark, handwriting, modus operandi, and eyewitness weakness, to shed light on whether the system bias revealed in the statistical breakdown is illusory or real. Finally, an afterword analyzes the last year’s cases, and makes observations on apparent trends.
I revisited the above because of reading today’s post on on the Concurring Opinions blog, about “Convicting the Innocent.” There is a comment to the post by Prof. Garrett asking, “if there is a double standard in forensics concerning exculpatory versus inculpatory evidence?”
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog