S. Storer, THE WEIGHT VERSUS ADMISSIBILITY DILEMMA - DAUBERTS APPLICABILITY TO AMETHOD OR PROCEDURE IN A PARTICULAR CASE, University of Illinois law review, (1), 1998, pp. 231-252
Scientific evidence, increasingly commonplace in today's society, prov
ides unique difficulties for the court, particularly with regard to ad
missibility. Because scientific evidence may make or break a case, the
danger associated with introduction invalid evidence is great. In Dau
bert, the Supreme Court established a standard for the admissibility o
f scientific evidence based on reliability and relevance, rejecting th
e long-standing general acceptance test of Frye.However, the Daubert d
ecision did not specifically state whether evidence regarding how a sp
ecific experiment or method was carried out in a particular case was r
elevant in determining the admissibility of the evidence or only the w
eight of the evidence. As a result, courts disagree as to the applicab
ility of the Daubert standard regarding how a specific experiment or a
nalysis was carried out. Should evidence of the use of a flawed proced
ure exclude the scientific testimony or merely discredit it? Courts wh
ich delegate the analysis of a particular application to the finder of
fact, as a question of weight for the jury, cite expediency or allevi
ating the judge's load and confidence in the adversarial system. Court
s which place the analysis in the hands of the judge as a gatekeeper c
ite the reliability of scientific evidence. This note proposes a compr
omise to the weight-of-the-evidence and admissibility approaches. The
author suggests an affidavit provided by the expert which requires a s
howing of scientific integrity to assist the gatekeeper in the admissi
bility decision.