General Admissibility Considerations for DNA Typing Evidence: Let's Learn From the Past and Let the Scientists Decide This Time Around (From Forensic DNA Technology, P 153-180, 1991, Mark A. Farley and James J. Harrington, eds. See NCJ-137508)

• NCJ Number: 137509
• Author(s): R P Harmon
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 28 pages
• Sale Source: Lewis Publishers, Inc
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Currently, and for the foreseeable future, admissibility hearings are required before evidence derived from DNA fingerprinting technologies can be presented in a jury trial. In preparing for an admissibility hearing, the trial attorney must identify the legal test for admissibility in his particular jurisdiction, appreciate the legal evolution of the legal standard in question through its applications to different types of scientific evidence, and account for the different legal considerations necessitated by each new form of scientific evidence.

Abstract

There are presently three types of legal admissibility tests which have evolved over the years. The Frye rule, developed in 1923 with the advent of the first generation of lie detectors, holds that general acceptance of a scientific technology among qualified experts is sufficient to allow admissibility of the evidence. The Federal Rules of Evidence, enacted in 1975, state that evidence is presumed admissible unless it is unduly prejudicial. The relevancy test is virtually indistinguishable from the Federal Rules. The two technical areas where admissibility litigation remains necessary involve the methodology of the identification process and the population frequency statistics assigned to the DNA pattern produced by the identification process. However, defense attorneys have often been successful in broadening the scope of the admissibility hearing by raising issues beyond the scope of the legal admissibility standards. 153 notes