Einstein on the Bench?: Exposing What Judges Do Not Know About Science And Using Child Abuse Cases to Improve How Courts Evaluate Scientific Evidence

Abstract:     
Much of the post-Daubert legal literature has taken the form of a lively debate about whether courts can or should attempt to assess the validity of the methods and tenets of a proffered scientific discipline or whether they should instead confine their analyses to a more manageable assessment of its narrow application to the relevant facts. This Article rejects the debate as a distraction and offers a new and more useful framework that is 'content specific to the case.' The Article acknowledges the almost-infinite range of scientific fields and does not pretend to offer a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, the Article uses the model of the child abuse case to explore how judges and jurors understand and use novel and complex medical evidence. Although child abuse cases are prevalent in both the family and criminal courts, this is the first Article to explore child abuse from a science and law perspective and propose specific improvements to adjudicative accuracy.

Accepted Paper Series