Evidence subject to Frye - *UPDATED* 2011.05.09 (ATTN: ALL ORDERS IN!)

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JBean

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fifthessence just posted about certain forensic tests being subject to a Frye hearing to determine their admissibility on court.
Do we know what testing techniques come under the heading of "new and novel"?
What will be included in this separate hearing?


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10914596
 
fifthessence just posted about certain forensic tests being subject to a Frye hearing to determine their admissibility on court.
Do we know what testing techniques come under the heading of "new and novel"?
What will be included in this separate hearing?

I would imagine the air sample tests for one - people seem to be saying the technology has not yet been used in a court case, so they must be rather state-of-the-art.
 
JBean...you are making my head hurt :(
 
I would imagine the air sample tests for one - people seem to be saying the technology has not yet been used in a court case, so they must be rather state-of-the-art.
do you think this will present a problem for the prosecution? I mean, if it were deemed inadmissible what impact would that have?
 
This may be oversimplifying things but, if they try and quash the air sample results, there are always the dogs, and the statements of GA, CA, LA, SB, and CA's co-workers, who will testify that Cindy arrived at work after picking up the car only to complain about the stench of a dead body in it.
 
This may be oversimplifying things but, if they try and quash the air sample results, there are always the dogs, and the statements of GA, CA, LA, SB, and CA's co-workers, who will testify that Cindy arrived at work after picking up the car only to complain about the stench of a dead body in it.

Not only that, but quashing the air testing IMO opens the door to a jury field trip to the car, which by all accounts still reeks.
 
Better late than never? Bringing my post over from the bug thread:

I'm pretty sure it is Dr. Vass' air sampling they are talking about. It is very interesting science, new to this kind of application. It's not junk, just untried.

We'll see, but I'm not sure it will be all that important to the prosecution. They have several standard tests to rely on.
 
We've heard the defense refer to much of the forensic evidence released by the Prosecution as 'junk science.'

It is my opinion they will call for a Frye Hearing. One to dispute the new techniques the courts may not be so familiar with and the qualifying of the expert witnesses 'opinions', the other to cause more delays pushing the trial date back even further.


Couple more links:
FL - http://www.palmbeachbar.org/members/Oct_02_Ted.pdf
Federal - http://www.lectlaw.com/files/exp08.htm
 
GREAT thread, JBean!!

As background, Frye hearings are how parties challenge scientific evidence and get it excluded. This type of hearing comes from the Supreme Court ruling Frye v. United States that held polygraphs were inadmissible because they were not "generally accepted" in the scientific community. This was the test for many years until Daubert v. Merrill Dow, where the Supreme Court adopted a more liberal test. Although Daubert technically overruled Frye, it only applies on the FEDERAL level. At the state level, states are free to choose which test they want to apply.

Florida has stuck with the Frye test- where if challenged, scientific evidence has to be "generally accepted" in the scientific community to be accepted. Most states have moved to the Daubert standard, BUT (lucky for me), New York has stayed with Frye as well. Frye is more a more restrictive standard, but IMO, judges still tend to lean towards admitting as much evidence as allowed under the law. The wikipedia entry on Frye is a nice summary: [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frye_standard[/ame]
 
IMO, the body farm is questionable. The evidence of chloroform may be as well.

Let me preface: the best way to prove/disprove admissibility under Frye is to show other cases in your state where the court has ruled similar evidence/experts inadmissible. I have NOT done the caselaw research for FL. So I do not know how this specific evidence is treated in these specific courts. This is just my opinion "in general" based on a random sampling of cases I've seen/read.

My worry is that the body farm is relatively new, and I am not sure how much evidence has been introduced under these standards. If

Also, I COULD BE COMPLETELY WRONG, but based on what I read here and in articles on some of the chemical reports, the concentration of some chemicals weren't statistically sufficient. For each scientific test, there's a certain percentage of a relevant factor that can be attributed to chance- which is called shorthand the "p" value. If the value of a certain chemical exceeds the "p value," you can say it's most likely not due to chance.

I am sure someone with a much better grip of science/statistics will give a better explanation of that than me. But that's the gist.
 
IMO, the body farm is questionable. The evidence of chloroform may be as well.

Let me preface: the best way to prove/disprove admissibility under Frye is to show other cases in your state where the court has ruled similar evidence/experts inadmissible. I have NOT done the caselaw research for FL. So I do not know how this specific evidence is treated in these specific courts. This is just my opinion "in general" based on a random sampling of cases I've seen/read.

My worry is that the body farm is relatively new, and I am not sure how much evidence has been introduced under these standards. If

Also, I COULD BE COMPLETELY WRONG, but based on what I read here and in articles on some of the chemical reports, the concentration of some chemicals weren't statistically sufficient. For each scientific test, there's a certain percentage of a relevant factor that can be attributed to chance- which is called shorthand the "p" value. If the value of a certain chemical exceeds the "p value," you can say it's most likely not due to chance.

I am sure someone with a much better grip of science/statistics will give a better explanation of that than me. But that's the gist.
Are you saying the body farm is new or the air test is new? Because if I'm not mistaken the "body farm" has been around for some time. I believe there's also more than one.
 
Are you saying the body farm is new or the air test is new? Because if I'm not mistaken the "body farm" has been around for some time. I believe there's also more than one.

The air test is new, and more importantly is new in regards to being used in court as evidence.

I *believe* that I read Florida held these hearings for the first DNA evidence that was submitted as evidence. It was an interesting read.
 
do you think this will present a problem for the prosecution? I mean, if it were deemed inadmissible what impact would that have?

JBean - you are so cute with your diversion tactics. (Hey! I know a swell word game we could play!) You take such good care of us.

I imagine the defense will try to make it a problem, but if the experts are articulate and the science is absolutely accepted as air tight in other applications, I wouldn't imagine it would be acceptable.

Even if it doesn't get in, I'd think a jury would be very impressed that the defendant's parents immediately identified the smell as a decomposing body and that cadaver dogs hit on the car as well. I mean, that's the way it has always been done, so I'd think that GC or whatever technology is being used for the air sample thing would be icing on the cake, a way to simply corroborate what both humans and canines already identified.

Not to mention the fact that it would just give the defense another silly "junk science" debate if it does get admitted. I am not looking forward to LKB slicing and dicing technical terms to nuance and obfuscate the truth.
 
IMO, the body farm is questionable. The evidence of chloroform may be as well.

Let me preface: the best way to prove/disprove admissibility under Frye is to show other cases in your state where the court has ruled similar evidence/experts inadmissible. I have NOT done the caselaw research for FL. So I do not know how this specific evidence is treated in these specific courts. This is just my opinion "in general" based on a random sampling of cases I've seen/read.

My worry is that the body farm is relatively new, and I am not sure how much evidence has been introduced under these standards. If

Also, I COULD BE COMPLETELY WRONG, but based on what I read here and in articles on some of the chemical reports, the concentration of some chemicals weren't statistically sufficient. For each scientific test, there's a certain percentage of a relevant factor that can be attributed to chance- which is called shorthand the "p" value. If the value of a certain chemical exceeds the "p value," you can say it's most likely not due to chance.

I am sure someone with a much better grip of science/statistics will give a better explanation of that than me. But that's the gist.

I hope this is what you (or the report) are referring to regarding statistical significance. Keep in mind my only experience with this is a Justice Data Analysis class I'm currently taking (finals are in a couple weeks-wish me luck)! From what I have learned (hopefully) this is how it would go. The scientist would make a null hypothesis saying there is no difference. Then based on other samples a bunch of other calculations would occur. From these you could determine where the critical values are and where rejection region begins. If you sample falls above the rejection region you 'fail to reject' the null hypothesis meaning there is no statistical significance. However if the sample falls at that critical value or below it then you reject the null hypothesis and say that there is significance. Usually the alpha level or level at which they are willing to be wrong is .05 or less.

Um, hopefully that is not only right but might help what you were trying to figure out LawLady. If not....I should probably stop lurking and get back to studying for finals ;)
 
JB said last night they would be challenging the bugs found. I would look for them challenging everything since their real defense is smoke and mirrors.
 
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