General-Acceptance Test
Definition
The Frye rule that a scientific principle must be sufficiently established to have gained acceptance in the particular field to which it belongs before courts can admit testimony based on it. The test focuses on community consensus, not the judge's independent assessment of validity.
- Origin
- Frye v. United States (1923), D.C. Circuit
- Standard
- Community consensus, not judicial validity review
- Superseded by
- Daubert standard in US federal courts (1993)
- Still used in
- A minority of US states, e.g. New York, California, Illinois
Common questions
How does the Frye test differ from Daubert?+
Frye asks only whether the relevant scientific community accepts the method as valid, while Daubert directs the judge to independently assess reliability using factors like testability, known error rate, and peer review.
Which courts still use Frye today?+
A minority of US state courts, including New York, California, and Illinois, retain Frye or a Frye-like standard, while federal courts and most other states use Daubert.
What happens when a technique is too new for Frye?+
If a method has not yet achieved general acceptance within its field, a court applying Frye can exclude expert testimony based on it even if the underlying science later proves sound.
Related terms
- Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023
- India's replacement for the Indian Evidence Act 1872, in force from 1 July 2024. Section 39 carries forward the expert-witness opinion provisions,...
- Daubert Standard
- The US federal evidentiary standard (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993) requiring that expert testimony be based on scientifically valid methods with...
- Judicial Gatekeeping
- The role of the trial judge in screening scientific evidence before it reaches the jury. Under Frye the judge defers to expert...
- Novel Science Problem
- The practical difficulty that arises when a technique is new and no scientific consensus yet exists. Under Frye, a sound technique is...
- Relevant Scientific Community
- The group of scientists whose expertise covers the technique under review. Identifying this community is the first step of the Frye inquiry....