Gatekeeping
Definition
The judicial function, codified in the United States by Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993) and Federal Rule of Evidence 702, of assessing the reliability and relevance of proposed expert evidence before it reaches the jury. The judge acts as gatekeeper, not the jury.
- Who applies gatekeeping
- Trial judges
- Standard test
- Daubert and FRE 702
- Judge's role
- Filter (active screener), not referee between competing experts
- What the judge evaluates
- Reliability of the expert's basis, not correctness of the opinion
Common questions
What is gatekeeping in a trial?+
Gatekeeping is the trial judge's responsibility to screen expert evidence before it reaches the jury. Under Daubert and FRE 702, the judge acts as a filter to check whether an expert's basis for their opinion is reliable enough to be heard. The goal is to keep out evidence with a weak foundation, even if the expert's conclusion might sound reasonable.
Doesn't the judge decide whether the expert is right?+
No. The judge's gatekeeping role is to screen reliability, not to rule on whether the expert is correct. The judge asks: is this basis sound enough to present? The jury then hears the evidence and decides which expert to believe.
What makes evidence 'reliable enough' to pass through the gate?+
Under Daubert, the judge evaluates whether the foundation for the expert's opinion is solid. The threshold is reliability of the basis, not whether the expert's conclusion turns out to be correct.
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...
- FRE 702
- Federal Rule of Evidence 702, the US statutory basis for expert testimony admissibility. Amended in 2000 and again in 2023 to reflect...
- Frye Standard
- The US legal test for admissibility of scientific evidence, originating from Frye v. United States (1923), which required that a technique be...
- Accreditation
- Formal recognition by a standards body (such as UKAS in the UK, A2LA in the US, or NABL in India) that a...
- Admissibility
- Whether a piece of evidence is permitted to be placed before the fact-finder at all. Admissibility is a threshold question, decided by...
- Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam
- India's Evidence Act 2023, which replaced the Indian Evidence Act 1872. Section 39 (replacing former s.45) governs the relevance of expert opinion...
- Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 (BSA)
- India's current evidence statute, which replaced the Indian Evidence Act 1872. Section 63 of the BSA governs electronic records and requires a...
- Competence
- The duty to opine only within the expert's validated area of expertise, using methods that are scientifically sound and, in most jurisdictions,...
- Corroboration
- The practice of confirming an observed attacker action by finding evidence of the same action in at least two independent data sources,...
- Disclosure Duty
- The obligation to report all material findings, including those that undermine the instructing party's position. Negative results, method limitations, known error rates,...
- Duty to the Court
- The obligation of expert witnesses in UK proceedings (and, to varying degrees, in other jurisdictions) to assist the court with objective, unbiased...
- General Acceptance (Frye Standard)
- The admissibility rule from Frye v. United States (DC Cir. 1923) requiring a technique to be generally accepted in the relevant scientific...
Explained in these topics
- Admissibility: Frye, Daubert and Cross-Jurisdiction RulesThe trial judge's role under Daubert and FRE 702 to screen expert evidence for reliability before it reaches the jury. The judge does not decide whether the ex...
- Admissibility of Engineering Opinions: Daubert and BeyondThe judicial function under Daubert of actively screening expert evidence for reliability before it reaches the jury. The trial judge acts as a filter, not mer...
- Codes of Conduct for Forensic ExpertsThe judicial function, codified in the United States by Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993) and Federal Rule of Evidence 702, of assessing the reliab...
- Landmark Judgments on Expert EvidenceThe trial judge's duty, affirmed in Daubert, to evaluate proposed expert testimony for methodological reliability before admitting it. The judge filters out sp...