GMS6362-Assignment 10; Frye and Daubert Standards of Evidence Comparison

Frye v. the United States: The defendant, James Alphonzo Frye, had been accused of 2nd-degree murder but did not consider to have been accorded fair healing. In his appeal, Frye argued the trial court did not give him an opportunity to present an expert witness who would testify about the result, which would be obtained from a systolic blood pressure test that would have been conducted on Frye to know if he was telling the truth or not. The issue was whether it was within the law for the trial court to disallow the defendant (Frye) to be represented by an expert witness for a systolic blood pressure deception test. The appeal court upheld the conviction as determined in the trial court, citing that the test in question (systolic blood pressures deception test) had not obtained a requisite level of science among physiological and psychological agents and could therefore not consider an expert witness as a testimony (Frye v. the United States)

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals: Two children were born with critical congenital disabilities, and their parents decided to take legal action against Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals. The parents accused the drug company of marketing and selling an anti-nausea drug that parents believed caused congenital disabilities to their young ones. Parents wanted 8 experts who had contested the drug's safety to be included in the case. During the initial ruling, the District Court determined in favor of the drug company. The 9th Circuit further supported this decision following the precedent in Frye v. the United States, arguing that expert witnesses could not be admitted in such a case. On a second appeal to the Supreme Court of the U.S., the decision was overturned and determined that the scientific witness provided valid arguments and reasoning (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc).

The main similarity between Frye and Daubert's standards is that in both care cases, the opinion of an expert must be acceptable to relevant authorities and experts. For example, the subject matter that an expert witness is coming to contribute must be well-known and relevant in the scientific community. This is the basic foundation of the two...