Forensic Evidence 1: Kumho Tire Co. V. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999)Facts
Patrick Carmichael was driving his minivan on July 6, 1993 when its right rare tire burst was causing the van to turn over. As a result, one passenger died, and several others sustained injuries. Carmichael, enjoined by the survivors and the deceased’s representatives, instituted an action against the tire manufacturer and distributor. They claimed that the accident was caused by a fault in the tire. The claimant’s case by and large relied on the expert opinion of a tire failure analyst. According to the expert opinion, the burst was caused by a flaw in the tire design. The opinion was informed by visual and perceptible analysis of the tire. In addition, it was pegged on the theory that such tire failure could only be triggered by a tire malfunction and not its abuse (Kumho Tire Co. V. Carmichael, 2012).
The defendants successfully moved the Federal District Court to exclude the expert witness’s testimony on the basis that the methodology adopted by the witness did not meet the threshold enshrined in the Federal Rule of Evidence, Rule 702. The Claimants appealed against the summary judgment to the Eleventh Circuit Court. The Court of Appeal in reversed the summary judgment by a federal trial judge. It categorized the expert opinion as skill- or experience-oriented. Hence, it excluded it from the “gate-keeping” obligations encapsulated in the Federal Rules of Evidence, which in the opinion of the Court of Appeal, were limited to scientific testimonies. Kumho Tire petitioned the Supreme Court for a review especially on whether the rule in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals applied exclusively to scientific evidence.Decision
The Supreme Court overturned the Eleventh Circuit Court’s verdict to rule against the Federal District’s Court. It held that the federal trial judge did not err in law by granting the motion.Analysis
The Supreme Court concurred that Daubert dealt only with factors to be considered in determining the reliability and admissibility of scientific expert testimony. However, it reasoned that Daubert case revolved around scientific knowledge and, therefore, the rule did not depart from the peculiar facts of the case. The wording of Rule 702, a codification of the rule in Daubert, went beyond the ambit of scientific knowledge-based expert evidence. It encompassed scientific, technical or another specialized knowledge. Therefore, the Circuit Court erred in attempting to distinguish scientific knowledge from technical knowhow. The two are joined at the hip. A mere average federal juror cannot be reasonably expected to dissect the two. It is simply beyond the scope of their knowledge. Furthermore, the facts of the case disclosed no pressing necessity to differentiate the duo (Buckles, 2007).
Furthermore, the expert testimony in question did not find favor in the eye of Daubert’s factors. There was no evidence pointing to the fact that other Carlson’s (the tire failure analyst) counterparts in the industry recognized or used his two-factor test. More so, Carlson’s two-factor test had not received the substantiation in the works of publicists (Buckles, 2007).
Jason Daubert and Eric Schuller, minor children, had been born with limb-reduction birth defects. Enjoined by their parents, they sued the defendant, Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals on the ground that their mother had prenatally ingested Bendectin, a drug manufactured and marketed by the defendant company and believed to have caused the defects (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993). The respondents moved the Federal Court for a summary judgment on the ground that the extensive review of publicized scientific literature on the field in question revealed no indications that limb deformities could be attributable to Bendectin. They further averred that there were no prospects of the petitioners coming up with credible and admissible expert evidence to the contrary. If anything, they argued, that the Federal Drug Unit (FDA) continued to sanction the prescription of the drug to pregnant women (Watkins, 1994).
On the other hand, the petitioners pegged their claim on the opinion of eight other highly qualified experts that attributed Bendectin to birth deformities. Their position was informed by zoology, chemical makeup examination and unpublished review of past publicized human numerical studies. The trial court granted the motion holding that the petitioners’ testimony fell short of the “universal recognition” standards for acceptability of expert evidence (Watkins, 1994).
Aggrieved, the petitioners appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court. The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s ruling. It invoked the rule in Frye V United States, that scientifically-based expert evidence must be accepted as reliable in the respective field to be admissible. The petitioners’ evidence had not satisfied this test. The petitioners asked the Supreme Court for a review. The issue before the court was whether the Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 702 superseded the rule in Frye v United States (Sanders, 1998).Decision
The Supreme Court held that the Federal Rules of Evidence lay down the standard applied in admission of scientific evidence in a federal court as opposed to the standard of “general acceptance” as per Frye v United States.Analysis
Mikos was charged with the murder of Ms. Brannon. The body of the deceased was discovered on January 27th, 2002, and she had been shot six times. Federal agents conducted a search on February 6th, 2002 and among the items they conducted a search on were the vehicle that the defendant was driving at the time of his arrest. They discovered a number of items among them a Remington ammunition and eighty 22 cartridges of caliber. These were taken to Washington D.C for FBI laboratory examination (U.S v Ronald Mikos, 2003).
Charles Peter, an FBI laboratory examiner, was identified by the government as an expert witness in line with rule 16(a) (1) (E). The expert adopted FBI’s definition of “analytically indistinguishable” to make a finding that the bullets that were found in the body of the deceased were analytically indistinguishable from the ones that were found in the ammunition box, save for only one bullet. This appeared to suggest a conclusion that the bullets were manufactured by the same manufacturer. The expert also suggested that the cartridges had been packed on the same date by the same packaging unit.
The defense however advanced the argument that the government did not make a supportive argument to the expert’s finding that the bullets were likely to have been manufactured by the same manufacturer and therefore such a conclusion would be unfair and unjust. The government however supported the expert’s conclusion that cartridges having the same composition must have come from the same batch and therefore the FBI’s definition still stands. Furthermore, the government advanced the argument that case law and experience supported the conclusion that cartridges with the same composition and manufactured on the same date must have come from the same batch.Decision
The court, therefore, allowed the opinion of an expert in part and disallowed it in part.Analysis
The court found that the expert’s conclusion was based on a two-tier scientific argument. The first argument, according to the court, is unchallenged by the defense and relates to the actual analysis of the compositions of the lead bullets. The second line of the thought relates to a statistical conclusion that lacks sin scientific accuracy. The court was not persuaded by the expert’s conclusion based on data and experience. There was a problem as to the probative value of such evidence that was adduced based on a series of previous determinations and data.
The court was also not persuaded by the expert’s and government’s definition of “source” because it was possible that cartridges with the same composition could come from different sources although the government was of the view that this was a rare occurrence. Furthermore, the fact that the government admitted drawing historical data from FBI’s database to make the conclusions was an indication that there was no reliable empirical demonstration to satisfy the court that bullets at hand were not from the same source. This, according to the court, was arrived at based on the expert’s opinion and not empirical data derived from a scientific examination of the bullets, using a sample that was large enough to represent the country’s bullet production statistics.
The court relied on rule number 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence to find that in matters as grave as making a determination regarding relationship between the bullets fired by the accused and those found in the victim’s body, scientific evidence must be based on empirical data as a result of a scientific examination of the components of such bullets and not merely the expert’s opinion. The court, therefore, allowed the opinion of an expert in part and disallowed it in part. It would therefore appear that the court set a very high threshold for determining the probative value of expert testimony, although the findings were based on the provisions of the federal rules of evidence (Shelton, 2010).Testimonial Evidence 2: US v Jones (2012) US 565Facts
The United States Supreme Court was called upon to make a determination as to whether the placing of a GPS (Global Positioning System) system on a vehicle and subsequently making use of the system to keep track of the vehicle’s movement through the streets was contrary to the fourth amendment to an extent of violating a person’s right to privacy. The accused had been suspected of dealing in narcotic drug trafficking and was, therefore, enlisted by the Metropolitan Police Department of the FBI as one of the targets in a chain of other drug traffickers. The police department made a series of investigations including use of cameras, and overhead surveillance of his daily movements and based on that, they advised the government to apply for a warrant to install a GPS device on his vehicle (US v Jones, 2012).
The government then moved to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to apply for a warrant to attach the device on his vehicle. The district court issued a warrant for the installation of the device. Based on the installation of the device, the government was able to find on one occasion that Jones and other people conspired to sell an approximated 97 kilograms of cocaine and therefore moved to the district court to charge him of the offence. The accused person moved to suppress the admissibility of the evidence because the device had been installed when the vehicle was parked in his home and therefore violated his right of privacy protected by the fourth amendment. The district court therefore sentenced him to life imprisonment on the reasoning that the accused did not expect any privacy when he drove his vehicle through the streets where it was expected that there were many other people either driving or walking. However, the appellate court reversed the conviction based on admissibility of the evidence obtained by use of the GPS system because it violated the rights of the accused as enshrined under the fourth amendment (Thompson, 2012).Decision
The government was aggrieved by the decision and therefore moved to the Supreme Court. The court granted a certiorari and made a number of determinations to this effect.Analysis
First of all, the court admitted that the installation of a GPS device was meant to be on a private property, the vehicle. Such installation was, therefore, not any different from the instances where the police enter private premises to conduct a search. It, therefore, constituted a search because it was meant to gather important information that would facilitate their investigation. The court also noted that the wording of the text of the fourth amendment was to the effect that a search was supposed to be conducted on private property, just as was the case here.
The reasoning of the Supreme Court was that the amendment only protected persons, private property or private places of abode from searches that were unreasonable and unfounded in law. The search in question was however reasonable and was also sanctioned by the district and rightly so, by issuing a search warrant. The court however found that the police installed the device when the accused person’s wife had handed over the vehicle to him for private and exclusive use only and therefore at that point, the police interfered with his privacy. Furthermore, even after making a finding that the installation constituted a search, the government did not ask the court to also rule that the installation was reasonable and therefore the court could not rush to make that conclusion. The court, therefore, affirmed the decision of the court of appeals that the installation was contrary to privacy because it extended to an unlimited period of time.
References
U.S v Ronald Mikos, 02 Cr 137 (United States District Court For The Northern District of Illinois eastern Division Dec 01, 2003).
US v Jones , 565 (US Supreme Court 2012).
Bowen, R. T. (2010). Ethics and The Practice of Forensic Science. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Buckles, T. (2007). Crime Scene Investigation, Criminalistics, and The Law. New York: Thomson Delmar Learning.
Carmichael, K. T. (1999). 526 U.S. 137.
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals. (1993). 509 U.S. 579.
Ford, E., & Rotter, M. (2014). Landmark Cases in Forensic Psychiatry. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kumho Tire Co. V. Carmichael. (2012). 526 U.S. 137.
Kumho Tire Co. V. Carmichael. (n.d.). 526 U.S. 137.
Sanders, J. (1998). Bendectin on Trial: A Study of Mass Tort Litigation. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press.
Springer. (2013). Forensic Epidemology In The Global Context. (S. Loue, Ed.) New York: Springer.
Thompson, R. M. (2012). United States v. Jones: GPS Monitoring, Property, and Privacy. Congressional Research Service .
Watkins, H. (1994). Daubert v Merell Dow Phamaceuticals, Inc.:General Acceptance Rejected. Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal, 9.
