http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/hard-a-brooklyn-pimp-judge-nixes-anthony-mccord-request-expert-witness-article-1.980872
QuoteIt's hard out there for a pimp - especially in court, where an accused rapist was denied the opportunity to provide jurors with his own expert testimony on pimping.
Anthony McCord, 29, acting as his own lawyer, is expected to testify in Brooklyn Supreme Court that the woman accusing him of robbing and assaulting her was actually a prostitute who stole money from him.
McCord tried to convince a judge that jurors needed an expert - himself - to educate them about the jargon and relationships between pimps and hookers, so they could better evaluate the case.
He said he'd been a pimp since 2000.
In addition, he said, "I've pretty much read every book, saw every movie and heard every song relating to the subject matter."
McCord said he had attended two national conferences on the trade and added, "I'm also a member of a quiet society of pimps."
But Justice Wayne Ozzi quickly shot him down, saying such testimony would only debase the process.
"The danger is you may be confusing the jury," the judge told the defendant. McCord's turn on the stand might still include information about his work, the judge noted, but anything more "is not appropriate at all."
Prosecutors allege that McCord beat and raped a woman who "freelanced" - sold sex without giving him a cut.
He is accused of leaving her with a bruised face and loose teeth following a March 2010 attack in East New York.
Prosecutor Kevin O'Donnell told the judge the trial would "become a side show" if McCord's request were granted.
Expert witnesses often provide testimony about issues like finger prints, DNA or gangs and do not necessarily need to be certified to act as experts.
"This is a unique area to say the least," said lawyer David Walensky, who's acting as McCord's court-appointed legal advisor.
Neither he nor anyone else in court could offer a precedent to McCord's uncommon request.
His trial, sans a pimping expert, is set to start Tuesday.
I don't see why it couldn't come in as lay opinion based on particularized knowledge, at least if the FRE applied.
Quote from: garbon on November 21, 2011, 10:45:36 PM
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/hard-a-brooklyn-pimp-judge-nixes-anthony-mccord-request-expert-witness-article-1.980872
QuoteIt's hard out there for a pimp - especially in court, where an accused rapist was denied the opportunity to provide jurors with his own expert testimony on pimping.
Anthony McCord, 29, acting as his own lawyer, is expected to testify in Brooklyn Supreme Court that the woman accusing him of robbing and assaulting her was actually a prostitute who stole money from him.
And as hard as it is for a pimp, it's even tougher for a pro se litigant. :(
Quote from: garbon on November 21, 2011, 10:45:36 PM
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/hard-a-brooklyn-pimp-judge-nixes-anthony-mccord-request-expert-witness-article-1.980872
QuoteMcCord said he had attended two national conferences on the trade and added, "I'm also a member of a quiet society of pimps."
Drakken could testify instead?
It makes sense to me to prevent the defendent (or in a civil case one of the litigants) from acting as an expert.
Quote from: Viking on November 22, 2011, 10:55:58 AM
It makes sense to me to prevent the defendent (or in a civil case one of the litigants) from acting as an expert.
Well in this instance, I think the decision is really in his favor. Any exposition on pimp culture is unlikely to have a positive influence on the jury.
Quote from: garbon on November 22, 2011, 11:02:37 AM
Quote from: Viking on November 22, 2011, 10:55:58 AM
It makes sense to me to prevent the defendent (or in a civil case one of the litigants) from acting as an expert.
Well in this instance, I think the decision is really in his favor. Any exposition on pimp culture is unlikely to have a positive influence on the jury.
Racist.
First rule of pimpin': Pimpin' ain't easy.
Corollary of first rule: Pimpin' IS easy.
2d rule of pimpin': See first rule.
Quote from: garbon on November 22, 2011, 11:02:37 AM
Quote from: Viking on November 22, 2011, 10:55:58 AM
It makes sense to me to prevent the defendent (or in a civil case one of the litigants) from acting as an expert.
Well in this instance, I think the decision is really in his favor. Any exposition on pimp culture is unlikely to have a positive influence on the jury.
Even having Huggy Bear show up and testify that It's hard to be a Pimp would have a perjorative effect. His defense seems to be that it is right and proper for pimps to beat down thievin' hoes. Proper legal council would have been to advise him that while it might be right and proper it certainly isn't legal.
Quote from: Viking on November 22, 2011, 11:56:32 AM
Proper legal council would have been to advise him that while it might be right and proper it certainly isn't legal.
Again, pro se'in' ain't easy. :(
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on November 21, 2011, 10:58:47 PM
I don't see why it couldn't come in as lay opinion based on particularized knowledge, at least if the FRE applied.
It doesn't - the state rules are pretty close but a little more strict.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 22, 2011, 12:07:10 PM
It doesn't - the state rules are pretty close but a little more strict.
More strict on getting in expert or lay opinion?
Fortunately, Brooklyn Defender Services rejected me for this summer so I don't have to worry about N.Y. C.P.L. LAW for a while. :showoff:
Quote from: Viking on November 22, 2011, 11:56:32 AM
Quote from: garbon on November 22, 2011, 11:02:37 AM
Quote from: Viking on November 22, 2011, 10:55:58 AM
It makes sense to me to prevent the defendent (or in a civil case one of the litigants) from acting as an expert.
Well in this instance, I think the decision is really in his favor. Any exposition on pimp culture is unlikely to have a positive influence on the jury.
Even having Huggy Bear show up and testify that It's hard to be a Pimp would have a perjorative effect. His defense seems to be that it is right and proper for pimps to beat down thievin' hoes. Proper legal council would have been to advise him that while it might be right and proper it certainly isn't legal.
Which was my point as far as no "expert" on this subject would have helped him out.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on November 22, 2011, 12:34:48 PM
More strict on getting in expert or lay opinion?
Lay.
IIRC the old case law says there most be a showing of need to admit lay opinion, but in practice the state courts tend to be more lenient if the FRE standards are otherwise satisfied.
For expert, NY still uses Frye, not the federal rule.
The Daubert standard? That's the federal one? How can the Daubert standard be used in cases where there is no peer review and no science has been done? While the defendant claims that there is a society of Pimps, it doesn't seem to do any academic work to set the standard for the Daubert standard to use? In a sense, my understanding of the Daubert standard is that there must be a standard set by peer review and that standard must conform to standard scientific standards (if the repeated use of the word standards hasn't confused you yet).
Quote from: Viking on November 23, 2011, 02:16:20 PM
The Daubert standard? That's the federal one? How can the Daubert standard be used in cases where there is no peer review and no science has been done? While the defendant claims that there is a society of Pimps, it doesn't seem to do any academic work to set the standard for the Daubert standard to use? In a sense, my understanding of the Daubert standard is that there must be a standard set by peer review and that standard must conform to standard scientific standards (if the repeated use of the word standards hasn't confused you yet).
Daubert standard does not require peer review. Anyways, Daubert (at least up here) is only referred to in looking at the admissibility of novel science.
In Canada expert evidence is governed by
Mohan, which states any proposed expert evidence must be
1. relevant
2. necessary to assist the trier of fact
3. not otherwise excluded; and
4. from a properly qualified expert
Seems like our accused pimp's evidence may well run afoul of relevance, and is almost certainly not from a properly qualified expert.
As a scientifically skeptically (sic.) minded person Daubert seems to rest on Peer Review. Even if there are other factors, each of those factors rests on peer review. It includes the Kuhnian (science is what scientists say it is), Popperian (science is a consequential statement that can be proven wrong) and of all things f.f.s. a Feyerabendite (science is what works beeyotch!) view of science. This is an advance on what to the best of my knowledge the Frye standard is, which is merely Kuhnian. Given this is a legal rule the Feyerabendite bit seems to be most important (even though Feyerabend is scum and his work is meaningless twaddle which has no positive consequences)(note, declaring bias, any philosopher or linguist at any Institute of Technology is scum) since that seems to be the only condition (apart from the Judge's common sense; hardly the most reliable standard for knowledge) that keeps out Astrologers, Psychics and assorted scumbags out of the witness chair. To determine if each of the factors permitting an expert witness to make testimony the acceptance under peer review (as well a citations) would be the determining factors.
How do we know what the error rate is? It was checked by other experts - that is Peer Review
How do we know that it was subjected to empirical tests? It was checked by other experts - that is Peer Review
The standards that must exists under Daubert were checked by other experts - that is Peer Review
The degree to which it is accepted? - that is citations using the paper to support other papers.
Peer Review is the smallest keyhole here for the expert to pass through and Peer Review is what all the other keyholes rely on as well. I like the Daubert standard it solves the demarcation problem for science (what is and what is not science) pretty well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daubert_standard
Viking, peer review was one of many factors to be considered under
Daubert.
I don't have easy access to US caselaw, but Daubert has been partially adopted in Canada. From the summary in
R v J-L.J. [2000] SCC 51
Quote(1) whether the theory or technique can be and has been tested:
Scientific methodology today is based on generating hypotheses and testing them to see if they can be falsified; indeed, this methodology is what distinguishes science from other fields of human inquiry.
(2) whether the theory or technique has been subjected to peer review and publication:
submission to the scrutiny of the scientific community is a component of "good science," in part because it increases the likelihood that substantive flaws in methodology will be detected.
(3) the known or potential rate of error or the existence of standards; and,
(4) whether the theory or technique used has been generally accepted:
A "reliability assessment does not require, although it does permit, explicit identification of a relevant scientific community and an express determination of a particular degree of acceptance within that community."
. . .
Widespread acceptance can be an important factor in ruling particular evidence admissible, and "a known technique which has been able to attract only minimal support within the community," . . . may properly be viewed with skepticism.
http://canlii.ca/en/ca/scc/doc/2000/2000scc51/2000scc51.html
Your assertion that the entire thing rests on peer review is simply not supported by the language of Daubert.
Besides, some very poor science has been published in peer reviewed journals, and some very excellent work has not (for a variety of reasons).
And in discussing law, please don't give links to Wiki for anything but the most basic proposition. Thanks. :hug:
I'm an engineer I operate on merely the most basic level. I'm not a linguist so I can't be sure that when you say
QuoteDaubert standard does not require peer review.
what you really mean is
Quotepeer review was one of many factors to be considered under Daubert.
if what you mean is that peer review can be dismissed if there is good reason to I can of course agree with that. Again, my caveat from earlier
QuoteDaubert seems to rest on Peer Review.
this is not merely a case of me hedging against my lack of knowledge on the topic, this is also an expression of the tentativeness of the argument that I was making, that all the other considerations to be taken into account apart from general acceptance are directly determined using peer review.
Since it's a Supreme Court case,
Daubert is easily available online.
Here is Blackmun's main paragraph on peer review (with the citations omitted by me), as far as I can tell from skimming it again:
QuoteAnother pertinent consideration is whether the theory or technique has been subjected to peer review and publication. Publication (which is but one element of peer review) is not a sine qua non of admissibility; it does not necessarily correlate with reliability, see ..... Some propositions, moreover, are too particular, too new, or of too limited interest to be published. But submission to the scrutiny of the scientific community is a component of "good science," in part because it increases the likelihood that substantive flaws in methodology will be detected. See ...... The fact of publication (or lack thereof) in a peer reviewed journal thus will be a relevant, though not dispositive, consideration in assessing the scientific validity of a particular technique or methodology on which an opinion is premised.
From the Syllabus:
Quote
Held:
The Federal Rules of Evidence, not Frye, provide the standard for admitting expert scientific testimony in a federal trial. Pp. 4-17.
.........
(c) Faced with a proffer of expert scientific testimony under Rule 702, the trial judge, pursuant to Rule 104(a), must make a preliminary assessment of whether the testimony's underlying reasoning or methodology is scientifically valid and properly can be applied to the facts at issue. Many considerations will bear on the inquiry, including whether the theory or technique in question can be (and has been) tested, whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication, its known or potential error rate and the existence and maintenance of standards controlling its operation, and whether it has attracted widespread acceptance within a relevant scientific community. The inquiry is a flexible one, and its focus must be solely on principles and methodology, not on the conclusions that they generate. Throughout, the judge should also be mindful of other applicable Rules. Pp. 12-15.