Once again, the Federal Judicial Conference has merely tinkered with the machinery of evidence law, when what’s needed is a complete overhaul of the expert witness rules. In the process, the conference has shown itself too willing to bow to the Supreme Court and too reluctant to acknowledge 25-year-old design flaws.
The goal of the rule drafters should be to allow the unfettered admission of otherwise inadmissible background information that experts rely on to form their opinions. How can we expect jurors to properly weigh expert testimony if they can’t review all the evidence that supports those opinions?
