Scientific Principles and Experiments

• Library: Objections Guidebook (2022 Ed.)

Scientific Principles and Experiments

Form of Objection

· Irrelevant.

· Insufficient foundation (as to scientific acceptance of test, qualifications of operator, accuracy of test equipment, use of proper procedures, or authentication of samples tested).

· Hearsay (if witness not the person who administered or conducted the test; or if foundation in the literature not qualifying as scholarly, generally accepted).

· Hypothetical question fails to include all material facts.

· Improper expert opinion on an “ultimate issue” and invades the province of the jury. See Mo. Evidence Restated §702, pp. 325–40 (MoBar 6^th ed. 2021).

· Offered to comment on the credibility of the witness.

General Rule

· Section 490.065, RSMo Supp. 2021, authorizes two different standards for the admission of expert testimony in Missouri. Generally, for jury trials, the Daubert standard controls in civil and criminal trials. For non-jury trials in probate and family cases, the Frye standard controls. See the discussion in Missouri Evidence Restated §§ 702–705, Testimony by Experts, pp. 325–64 (MoBar 6^th ed. 2021).

· In criminal cases, the constitutional right of a defendant to confront the witness against him or her is problematic. As the dissent on the petition for writ of certiorari noted in Stuart v. Alabama, 139 S. Ct. 36 (2018), increasingly “forensic evidence plays a decisive role in criminal trials today.” In response to this “decisive role” of forensic evidence in criminal trials, scholars have noted the following:

The law has had particular difficulty in scoping confrontation rights in forensic analysis cases, such as those where the prosecution seeks to utilize a laboratory report of DNA, blood alcohol content, narcotics, or other “CSI” type analyses. In such cases, what should it mean to afford an accused the right to confront the “witness” providing evidence

...