1. Complex scientific issues trouble jurists at all levels of the court system, including the Supreme Court See Justice Stephen G. Breyer, The Interdependence of Science and Law, Address at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 10 (Feb. 16, 1998) (noting that the recent right-to-die, Benedectin, and PCB cases are typical of the scientifically complex and troubling cases reaching the high court).
2. Developments in the Law, Confronting The New Challenges of Scientific Evidence, 108 Harv. L. Rev. 1481, 1511 (1995) (recent studies indicate that juries are fully competent to grasp complex scientific evidence).
3. The standards for the admission of expert witness testimony vary with state and federal rules of procedure and evidence While most state laws conform with the federal rules of procedure and evidence, some do not. The same testimony from a given expert witness, therefore, might be admissible in some state courts but not in federal court and vice-versa. See Stephen J. Smirti, Jr., Karin McCarthy, Use of Experts in Complex Litigation, Practising Law Institute, 691 PLI/Comm. 197, 215–16 (Apr.–Aug. 1994). The discretion of the judge and varying assessments by different juries may also lead to variation in rulings from court-to-court.
4. A witness is qualified as an expert “by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education” Fed.R.Evid. 702.
5. Fed R.Evid. 702.