The Admissibility of Evidence-Based Expert Testimony An Overview on how Psychological Tests meet the

Abstract

It has now been 30 years since the landmark Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals decision, 509 U.S. 579 (1993), in which the Supreme Court overruled the “general acceptance test” resulting from Frye v. United States. Daubert, and the two subsequent historic verdicts, General Electric Co. v. Joiner (1997) and Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael (1999), has represented a sea change in science and expert testimony in court. Specifically, what is now known as the Daubert Trilogy brought forth a set of factors, the Daubert standards, that may be considered during trial to assess the admissibility of proffered expert testimony. Recently, the journal Psychological Injury and Law proposed a Special Issue (SI) on this topic, and many of the authors who contributed to this SI are expert professionals who regularly attend and present to the annual SPA Convention. Therefore, the goal of this symposium is to bring these authors together so as to discuss their work and explore the application of the Daubert standards to the admissibility of evidence-based expert testimony on some of the most widely used tests in forensics. Specifically, the symposium will include four presentations, respectively on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory – 3 (MMPI-3; Whitman and Ben-Porath), the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Kurtz and Pintarelli), the Inventory Of Problems – 29 (IOP-29; Ales et al.) and the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS; Starin et al.). Each presenter will review the test in light of the Daubert standards, and thus pointing out whether the test has been empirically tested, subjected to peer review and publication, whether it has a known – or potentially knowable – error rate, and standards for controlling its use, and its degree of generale acceptance within the scientific community. Implications in forensic and psycho-legal contexts will be discussed.

Chair

Francesca Ales | Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

Goals & Objectives

1. List the Daubert standards
2. Discuss how they are crucial considering admissibility of expert testimony in forensics
3. Apply Daubert standards to MMPI-3, PAI, IOP-29 and R-PAS based testimony