Ra. Schuller, EXPERT EVIDENCE AND HEARSAY - THE INFLUENCE OF SECONDHAND INFORMATIONON JURORS DECISIONS, Law and human behavior, 19(4), 1995, pp. 345-362
In upholding the admission of expert evidence, some courts have held t
hat hearsay information conveyed via an expert may be admitted as long
as the jury is instructed to ignore the facts asserted in the hearsay
statements and to use the information only for determining the weight
to attribute to the expert's opinion. Results of a mock juror simulat
ion indicated that although hearsay elements conveyed via an expert we
re perceived as less likely compared to a condition in which the infor
mation was independently admitted at trial, it was not completely igno
red by the jurors. Further, the findings tended to suggest that the im
pact of the hearsay on verdict decisions operated primarily by influen
cing evaluations regarding the likelihood of the hearsay events as opp
osed to judgments regarding the expert testimony.