Factual section vs interpretation section
Definition
A structural distinction in expert reports between what was observed (verifiable facts, not requiring expert judgment) and what those observations mean (expert opinion). Mixing them makes a report harder to challenge and evaluate correctly.
Related terms
- Daubert standard
- The US federal evidentiary standard (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993) requiring that expert testimony be based on scientifically valid methods with...
- Duty of impartiality
- The expert's overriding obligation to the court, not to the retaining party. An expert must present findings fairly, including findings that favour...
- Frye standard
- The US legal test for admissibility of scientific evidence, originating from Frye v. United States (1923), which required that a technique be...
- Likelihood ratio (LR)
- The ratio of two conditional probabilities: the probability of the observed evidence given the prosecution's hypothesis (same source), divided by the probability...
- Verbal scale
- The ENFSI translation of numerical likelihood ratios into courtroom language: very strong support (LR over 10,000), strong support (LR 1,000-10,000), moderate support...
Explained in
- Expert Reporting and Court Testimony in Forensic BotanyA structural distinction in expert reports between what was observed (verifiable facts, not requiring expert judgment) and what those observations mean (expert...