Foreword

• Author: Elizabeth F. Loftus
• Profession: Distinguished Professor University of California at Irvine
• Pages: 5-7

Foreword

IN

Alan Gold's excellent book

on

expert evidence

in

criminal law, some-

one

notes that

the age of the

expert

has

truly arrived because great

portions

of

trials

are now

consumed

by

expert testimony.

I

should know

as I

have played

a

part

in

this endeavour, having testified

in

over

250

trials during

the

last quarter century. Although

I

make every

effort

to be

scientifically

accurate,

I

recognize that personal biases (for example,

an

abiding

belief that

a

defendant

is

innocent) might occasionally

affect

my

testimony,

however subtly.

Expert Evidence

in

Criminal Law:

The

Scientific Approach makes

clear

the

problems that courts have faced when dubious testimony about

single cases,

or

about

a

study that involves multiple cases,

is

proffered.

Lawyers

and

judges

are not

typically

in a

good position

to

scrutinize

the

testimony

as

thoroughly

as it

should

be. One

lesson

from

the

examples

that Gold provides

is

that

it is

important

to

continually

ask not

only

"What

is the

evidence

for

your claim?"

but to

insist that

the

"expert"

pro-

vide

more than authors

of the

study

and

where

it was

published,

and be

able

to

describe precisely what form

the

evidence takes.

This

book

is an

eye-opener

to

anyone

who

mistakenly believes

all

experts

and

their evidence

can be

trusted

as the

truth. Although Gold

admits that expert

scientific

evidence

has

contributed greatly

to the

administration

of

justice,

he

points

out the

concerns about

the

quality

of

this evidence

and the

lack

of

scientific literacy

of

judges

and

lawyers

—

to say

nothing

of

ordinary

jury

members whose

scientific

education

is

equally

minimal. Gold gives many examples

of

"junk science" used

in the

justice

system,

and he

shows

you how to

differentiate between

the

worth-

while

and the

worthless

"expert"

evidence, stating that

the

scientific

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