Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T04:04:28.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2009

Déirdre Dwyer
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

Each age has a predilection for a mode of proof. The Christian Middle Ages had a preference for the ordeal and the oath. The Ancien Régime developed the document and the confession involving torture. Our age has a predilection for expert evidence. Certainly the confession, testimony, the document or the oath continue to be used, but the means of proof which attracts attention, responds to our expectations, and arouses discussion is expert evidence.

The ability of the courts to assess expert evidence is a cause for concern prevalent in western legal systems today. It seems to cut across the traditional divide between Anglo-American and continental European legal systems. The principal form in which that concern is manifest is discussion of expert bias. Bias is of course something that is not unique to experts; it is quite likely that witnesses will be biased, and it is always possible that a judge will be biased. Different legal systems handle these concerns in different ways: some jurisdictions may exclude the testimony of civil parties, criminal defendants or those in certain relationships to them, others may let the question of witness bias go to weight; judicial bias may be dealt with by recusal, or addressed on appeal. The possibility of bias in the testimony of experts is problematic for the courts in a different way from bias in the testimony of witnesses of fact, and it cannot be addressed, as it can for judges, on appeal, and only rarely through recusal.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Jeuland, E., ‘Expertise’, in Cadiet, L. (ed.), Dictionnaire de la justice (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004), pp. 503–10, pp. 503–4Google Scholar
Champaud, C., ‘Société contemporaine et métamorphose de l'expertise judiciaire’, in Mélanges Henry Blaise (Paris: Economica, 1995), pp. 59–79Google Scholar
Hand, L., ‘Historical and Practical Considerations Regarding Expert Testimony’ (1901) 15 Harvard Law Review40–58, 54CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meininger (ed.), M.-C., ‘L’administrateur et l'expert’ (2002) 103 Revue Française d'Administration Publique, 365–527
Edmond, G. (ed.), Expertise in Regulation and Law (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004)
Porter, R., England in the Eighteenth Century, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990), p. 81Google Scholar
Luhmann, N., Differentiation of Society, trans. Holmes, S. and Larmore, C. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982)Google Scholar
Woolf, Lord, Access to Justice: Final Report (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1996)Google Scholar
Huber, P., Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom (New York: Basic Books, 1991)Google Scholar
Dobbin, S., Gatowski, S., Richardson, J., Ginsburg, G., Merlino, M. and Dahir, V., ‘Applying Daubert: How Well Do Judges Understand Science and Scientific Method?’ (2002) 85 Judicature244–7Google Scholar
Freckleton, I., Reddy, P. and Selby, H., Australian Judicial Perspectives on Expert Evidence: An Empirical Study (Melbourne: Australian Institute of Judicial Administration, 1999)Google Scholar
Twining, W., ‘Some Scepticism About Some Scepticisms’, in Rethinking Evidence: Exploratory Essays, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 99–164, pp. 114–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, A., Foundations of Evidence Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ho, H., A Philosophy of Evidence Law: Justice in the Search for Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Day, J. and Gat, L., Expert Evidence under the CPR: A Compendium of Cases from April 1999 to April 2001 (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 2001)Google Scholar
Burn, S., Successful Use of Expert Witnesses in Civil Disputes (Crayford: Shaw and Sons, 2005)Google Scholar
Blom-Cooper, L. (ed.), Experts in the Civil Courts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
Hodgkinson, T. and James, M., Expert Evidence: Law and Practice (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 2007)Google Scholar
Twining, W., ‘The Rationalist Tradition of Evidence Scholarship’, in Rethinking Evidence, pp. 35–98
Haack, S., Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993)Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Introduction
  • Déirdre Dwyer, University of Oxford
  • Book: The Judicial Assessment of Expert Evidence
  • Online publication: 01 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511575136.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • Déirdre Dwyer, University of Oxford
  • Book: The Judicial Assessment of Expert Evidence
  • Online publication: 01 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511575136.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Déirdre Dwyer, University of Oxford
  • Book: The Judicial Assessment of Expert Evidence
  • Online publication: 01 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511575136.002
Available formats
×