You are at the supervisor of a state crime scene investigation team that has statewide jurisdiction and gets called in by county and municipal authorities for crime scene analysis and laboratory support. A number of larger cities in the state have their own crime scene units. Because crime scene investigators (CSI) get called into court to testify as expert witnesses, your unit has a lot of opportunities to testify in court. The state you live and work in has assumed the Federal Rules of Evidence rule 702 as their own for expert witness testimony. They also have the Frye Standard (something that is not unusual on many states). You will be presenting a paper to the State Division of the International Association for Identification Conference in the capital next week. You will be presenting a paper on the topic of the admissibility of expert witness testimony in court.
In a white paper of 3-5 pages to the graduating police academy class please include responses to the bulleted issues listed below. There are a number of evidence related resources that are not found in academic journals that may be utilized as references in this assignment. It is critical that when you make a statement of fact in your presentation that you cite the reference you obtained the information from in the text of the paper and that the reference is included in your reference page. As always your paper will be submitted in the APA format current edition. No abstract is required as this is a short position paper but a title page, reference page, and appropriate running header with page numbers are necessary.
Group Portion
- As a group, discuss the following using the Small Group Discussion Area:
- What is the definition of an expert witness? Explain in your own words.
- Who can be an expert witness? Explain.
- What restrictions are placed against expert witnesses?
- How are lay witnesses and expert witnesses different? Explain in detail.
Individual Portion
- Address the following in 1-2 pages:
- Explain the Daubert Rule in contrast to the Frye Standard and disclose which one of the two would allow for the identification of more expert witnesses if they were used exclusively.
- Be sure to reference all sources using APA style.