Expert Duty
Definition
The obligation, recognised across common-law jurisdictions, for a court-appointed or party-instructed expert to give an honest, independent opinion rather than an opinion tailored to help the instructing party. In England and Wales this is codified in Criminal Procedure Rule 19.
Related terms
- Activity-Level Opinion
- An interpretation that goes beyond what was found to address what activity (colonisation, movement, wrapping) is consistent with the findings. Most forensic...
- Confidence Interval
- A range that captures the estimate's uncertainty. In entomological testimony, the PMI should be presented as a range derived from the propagation...
- Daubert Standard
- The US federal evidentiary standard (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993) requiring that expert testimony be based on scientifically valid methods with...
- Frye Standard
- The US legal test for admissibility of scientific evidence, originating from Frye v. United States (1923), which required that a technique be...
- Voir Dire
- A preliminary hearing at which a court tests whether a proposed witness or item of evidence meets the legal admissibility threshold. In...
Explained in
- The Forensic Entomologist as Expert WitnessThe obligation, recognised across common-law jurisdictions, for a court-appointed or party-instructed expert to give an honest, independent opinion rather than...