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The Effectiveness of Opposing Expert Witnesses for Educating Jurors about Unreliable Expert Evidence

  • Original Article
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Law and Human Behavior

Abstract

We tested whether an opposing expert is an effective method of educating jurors about scientific validity by manipulating the methodological quality of defense expert testimony and the type of opposing prosecution expert testimony (none, standard, addresses the other expert’s methodology) within the context of a written trial transcript. The presence of opposing expert testimony caused jurors to be skeptical of all expert testimony rather than sensitizing them to flaws in the other expert’s testimony. Jurors rendered more guilty verdicts when they heard opposing expert testimony than when opposing expert testimony was absent, regardless of whether the opposing testimony addressed the methodology of the original expert or the validity of the original expert’s testimony. Thus, contrary to the assumptions in the Supreme Court’s decision in Daubert, opposing expert testimony may not be an effective safeguard against junk science in the courtroom.

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Notes

  1. Despite the general tendency of expert testimony to influence juror judgments, some studies find that the effects of expert testimony may occur only under certain circumstances (Devenport and Cutler 2004; Leippe et al. 2004), such as when the expert testimony appeared after the evidence (Leippe et al. 2004), whereas other studies find effects for expert testimony only when it appears before the remaining evidence (Brekke and Borgida 1988; Schuller and Cripps 1998).

  2. We also manipulated the credibility of the defense expert, but despite successful pilot testing with a student sample, the manipulation failed in the data collected from community members. The credibility manipulation did not interact with our other independent variables to affect our dependent measures so we removed the credibility manipulation from the analyses.

  3. Collecting data using the internet versus traditional survey methods generally results in a lower response rate; however, several studies have demonstrated that results from internet research yield very similar results to laboratory-based research (Birnbaum 2004; Krantz and Dahal 2000). In this study, participants were sent e-mail invitations and reminders to participate in the study. In one study investigating such methods, over one-third of non-respondents did not respond to the invitation because they did not read their e-mail during the data collection period (Welker 2001, reported in Birnbaum 2004).

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Acknowledgments

This research was conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the first author’s master’s degree at Florida International University, under the supervision of the second author, and was supported in part by a grant-in-aid from the American Psychology-Law Society. Portions of this research were presented at the 2004 joint meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society and the European Association of Psychology and Law, Edinburgh, Scotland. We are grateful for the helpful suggestions of committee members Aya Gruber and Janat Parker.

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  1. Department of Criminology, Law, and Society, University of Florida, Box 115950, Gainesville, FL, 32611-5950, USA

    Lora M. Levett

  2. Department of Psychology, John Jay College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Margaret Bull Kovera

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  1. Lora M. Levett
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  2. Margaret Bull Kovera
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Correspondence to Lora M. Levett.

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Levett, L.M., Kovera, M.B. The Effectiveness of Opposing Expert Witnesses for Educating Jurors about Unreliable Expert Evidence. Law Hum Behav 32, 363–374 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-007-9113-9

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