Index Last Issue Contact DQ News Latest Issue
U.S. Supreme Court Rules for Data Quality
On December 15th, the U.S. Supreme Court further enhanced the role of Federal trial judges in keeping dubious scientific evidence out of the courtroom. According to The New York Times, the Court ruled unanimously that appellate courts must ordinarily defer to the trial judges' decisions on admitting or excluding expert testimony.
This ruling (General Electric Company v. Joiner, No. 96-188) followed the Court's 1993 landmark ruling in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, which established Federal district judges as "gatekeepers" who have the responsibility to insure that scientific evidence or testimony is not only relevant, but reliable. The case decided on December 15th presented the question of how the theory behind the Daubert decision is actually supposed to work in the real world of trials and appeals. At issue was a 1996 ruling by the Federal appeals court in Atlanta that a trial judge's decision to exclude expert testimony should be reviewed "with an eye toward preference for admissability."
The ruling that was the nexus of the Supreme Court's decision was a ruling by Atlanta Federal District Judge Orinda Evans to exclude testimony about a link between certain chemicals and cancer. In ruling that the plaintiff's expert witnesses could not testify, the district judge said the proposed testimony was based on nothing more than subjective belief or unsupported speculation.
Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist said the appeals court's searching standard of review was incorrect, and that a District Court's determinaton on scientific evidence should be upheld unless it is demonstrated to be "manifestly erroneous." This data quality standard, more commonly known as an "abuse of discretion" standard, generally applies to the entire spectrum of a trial court's evidentiary rulings. The Chief Justice said that deference by an appellate court court was "the hallmark of abuse of discretion review." The Times report was written by Linda Greenhouse and appears on page A25.