Art vs Craft

Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor(a) principal: MacLeod, Nicci
Data de Publicação: 2021
Tipo de documento: Artigo
Idioma: por
Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
Texto Completo: https://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/LLLD/article/view/10952
Resumo: Standards for expert testimony in England &Wales have long been described as laissez-faire and in desperate need of reform, with decisions about admissibility being left entirely to the trial judge (Turner 2009) and numerous calls for legislation going unheeded. Rules for the methods and content of an expert’s written and oral evidence therefore derive entirely from common law together with the publications of the Forensic Science Regulator (FSR). With extensive reference to a recent murder trial involving determining the meaning of a particular Urban British English lexical item where I had the rare opportunity to watch an opposing expert in action, this paper discusses current requirements and the obstacles these may present for the delivery of justice. The implications of admitting expertise in the form of unstructured, unquantiable art alongside that which adopts a rigorous, replicable craft-like approach are drawn out in relation to this case and to the law as it stands. The paper concludes with a two-pronged solution for addressing these issues. Firstly, a dedicated training programme or system of guidance to enable judges to identify reliable expertise is proposed. Secondly addressing the ‘widespread ignorance’ (Heydon 2020) in the legal system of lesser-known elds of scholarship (such as forensic linguistics) is identied as a key strategy for improving standards of expert evidence.
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spelling Art vs CraftArticlesStandards for expert testimony in England &Wales have long been described as laissez-faire and in desperate need of reform, with decisions about admissibility being left entirely to the trial judge (Turner 2009) and numerous calls for legislation going unheeded. Rules for the methods and content of an expert’s written and oral evidence therefore derive entirely from common law together with the publications of the Forensic Science Regulator (FSR). With extensive reference to a recent murder trial involving determining the meaning of a particular Urban British English lexical item where I had the rare opportunity to watch an opposing expert in action, this paper discusses current requirements and the obstacles these may present for the delivery of justice. The implications of admitting expertise in the form of unstructured, unquantiable art alongside that which adopts a rigorous, replicable craft-like approach are drawn out in relation to this case and to the law as it stands. The paper concludes with a two-pronged solution for addressing these issues. Firstly, a dedicated training programme or system of guidance to enable judges to identify reliable expertise is proposed. Secondly addressing the ‘widespread ignorance’ (Heydon 2020) in the legal system of lesser-known elds of scholarship (such as forensic linguistics) is identied as a key strategy for improving standards of expert evidence.This article describes procedures surrounding expert testimony in U.S. federal courts, exemplifying with details of an expert’s experience in one case. The exemplar is a civil (not criminal) case brought for defamation, tried to a jury in a federal district court, and subsequently appealed to a higher court. The article discusses reasons for which attorneys retain expert linguists, why courts welcome experts when their testimony is deemed helpful in deciding a disputed fact but exclude them if they are not qualified or the proffered testimony is deemed insufficiently helpful or possibly prejudicial to a jury. The article concludes with observations about the pros and cons of serving as a linguistics expert in contested legal matters in an adversarial system.Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto2021-11-04info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttps://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/LLLD/article/view/10952por2183-3745MacLeod, Nicciinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessreponame:Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)instname:Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informaçãoinstacron:RCAAP2023-01-13T03:48:00Zoai:ojs.letras.up.pt/ojs:article/10952Portal AgregadorONGhttps://www.rcaap.pt/oai/openaireopendoar:71602024-03-19T16:31:25.782837Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) - Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informaçãofalse
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Art vs Craft
title Art vs Craft
spellingShingle Art vs Craft
MacLeod, Nicci
Articles
title_short Art vs Craft
title_full Art vs Craft
title_fullStr Art vs Craft
title_full_unstemmed Art vs Craft
title_sort Art vs Craft
author MacLeod, Nicci
author_facet MacLeod, Nicci
author_role author
dc.contributor.author.fl_str_mv MacLeod, Nicci
dc.subject.por.fl_str_mv Articles
topic Articles
description Standards for expert testimony in England &Wales have long been described as laissez-faire and in desperate need of reform, with decisions about admissibility being left entirely to the trial judge (Turner 2009) and numerous calls for legislation going unheeded. Rules for the methods and content of an expert’s written and oral evidence therefore derive entirely from common law together with the publications of the Forensic Science Regulator (FSR). With extensive reference to a recent murder trial involving determining the meaning of a particular Urban British English lexical item where I had the rare opportunity to watch an opposing expert in action, this paper discusses current requirements and the obstacles these may present for the delivery of justice. The implications of admitting expertise in the form of unstructured, unquantiable art alongside that which adopts a rigorous, replicable craft-like approach are drawn out in relation to this case and to the law as it stands. The paper concludes with a two-pronged solution for addressing these issues. Firstly, a dedicated training programme or system of guidance to enable judges to identify reliable expertise is proposed. Secondly addressing the ‘widespread ignorance’ (Heydon 2020) in the legal system of lesser-known elds of scholarship (such as forensic linguistics) is identied as a key strategy for improving standards of expert evidence.
publishDate 2021
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2021-11-04
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