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Normative and Empirical Issues About the Role of Expert Witnesses

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Handbook of Psychology and Law

Abstract

The position of an expert on the witness stand, who does not testify either to what he has observed or knows as fact but expresses merely his opinion as to a situation or on facts which have been established by other witnesses, is anomalous in Anglo-Saxon law. It was to be expected that former generations of judges and lawyers, trained in older precedents and practices who recognized the appearance in the courts of an expert witness as an innovation would look with suspicion and doubt on such testimony. While the principles on which such evidence is introduced have come to be well recognized and while the [legal] profession no longer has any reservations in approving theoretically of the use of expert testimony, yet, on the other hand, there is a constant complaining and mistrust on the part of judges, juries and lawyers of the expert witness. (Friedman, 1910, p. 247)

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Authors
  1. Michael J. Saks
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. 19130, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Dorothy K. Kagehiro

  2. Department of Legal Studies, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 19104-6369, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    William S. Laufer

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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Saks, M.J. (1992). Normative and Empirical Issues About the Role of Expert Witnesses. In: Kagehiro, D.K., Laufer, W.S. (eds) Handbook of Psychology and Law. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4038-7_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4038-7_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-4040-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-4038-7

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