Preface
| Author | Alan D. Gold |
| Pages | 9-10 |
Preface
I
HAPPILY
accepted
the
publisher's suggestion
to do a
Canadian book
on
expert evidence
in
criminal cases
from
a
scientific
perspective
for
several
reasons.
For one
thing,
the
time
was
clearly right.
An
explosion
of
expert
evidence
in the
last several decades
had
brought
an
increasing concern
about
junk
science
and
pseudo-science
in our
courtrooms.
As
described
in
the
text,
in
1993
the
U.S. Supreme Court
in a
line
of
cases beginning
with
Daubert
v.
Merrell
Dow
Pharmaceuticals1 mandated
the
scientific
method
as the
obligatory standard
for
expert opinion evidence.
Any
doubt about
the
relevancy
of
Daubert
for
Canadian lawyers
and
judges
was
settled
by K. v.
J-L.J.2 when
the
Supreme
Court
expressly referenced
Daubert
as a
relevant authority
and
expressly adopted
the
same elements
of
analysis. According
to our
highest courts, expert evidence
was now
required
to
obey
the
rules
of
science
to be
admissible.
For
another thing,
the
effort
was
clearly necessary. Although science
knowledge
for
lawyers
and
judges
had
effectively
been mandated
by our
highest courts,
in
truth there
was a
scarcity
of
legal reference works
where that knowledge could
be
obtained
in a
format accessible
to
lawyers
and
judges approaching
the
topic
for the
first
time,
yet
helpful
and
useful
to
others
familiar
with
the
basic concepts
and
issues.
Finally,
and
most important, such
a
book
would
be a
most righteous
effort.
Modern society,
for the
scientifically
literate,
can be a
depressing
place.
It is a
frustrating paradox that amid
a
society blessed with
exponentially increasing
scientific
knowledge accompanied
by
unimagin-
able
technological achievements,
scientific
illiteracy
is
growing
and
flowering
to an
extent that seemingly rivals
the
Middle Ages. Ubiquitous
(1993) [Daubert].
2
[ix]
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