Daubert Hearing Only Needed for Novel Challenges

Finally some sense inter­jected into the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, as it relates to expert wit­ness testimony.

Fifth Circuit holds that “absent novel chal­lenges, fin­ger­print evi­dence is suf­fi­ciently reli­able to sat­isfy Rule 702 and Daubert,” and a Daubert hear­ing is not nec­es­sar­ily required, in United States v. John, _ F.3d. _ (5^th Cir. Feb. 9, 2010) (No. 08–10459)

Further infor­ma­tion from the Federal Evidence Review web site:

A recent Fifth Circuit case con­sid­ered an appeal that con­tended that the trial court failed to hold a Daubert hear­ing before admit­ting fin­ger­print expert tes­ti­mony. The cir­cuit noted that whether a Daubert hear­ing is required before an expert tes­ti­fies gen­er­ally lies within the dis­cre­tion of the trial court and was not required for fin­ger­print tes­ti­mony that did not raise any novel issues.

In the case, the defen­dant served as a Citigroup account man­ager. She accessed the com­pany com­put­ers and obtained cus­tomer account infor­ma­tion which she pro­vided to her half-brother who used the accounts fraud­u­lently. At her trial, the gov­ern­ment pre­sented an expert wit­ness who iden­ti­fied her fin­ger­prints on Citigroup doc­u­ments which were pos­sessed by her half-brother. Following her con­vic­tion, she claimed the trial court had “abdi­cated its gate­keep­ing func­tion” by not hold­ing a Daubert hear­ing, under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1999).

The Fifth Circuit held that “in most cases, absent novel chal­lenges, fin­ger­print evi­dence is suf­fi­ciently reli­able to sat­isfy Rule 702 and Daubert.” The cir­cuit noted that the reli­a­bil­ity of fin­ger­print iden­ti­fi­ca­tion had “been tested in the adver­sar­ial sys­tem for over a cen­tury and has been rou­tinely sub­ject to peer review” with a low error rate. John, __ F.3d at __. The cir­cuit joined with other courts that had held a Daubert hear­ing was not man­dated before admit­ting fin­ger­print expert tes­ti­mony, and with courts not­ing that fin­ger­print tes­ti­mony had been well-established, including:

Hopefully other courts will accept the notion that other dis­ci­plines in foren­sic sci­ence that have “… been tested in the adver­sar­ial sys­tem for over a cen­tury and has been rou­tinely sub­jected to peer review…” (or other such lengthy peri­ods of time), will not require a Daubert hear­ing, unless there is some­thing novel about the case or testimony.