Opinion ID: 3014242
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Heading: Application to the Record of

Text: opportunity to take a second set of Core Daubert Principles impressions. Likewise, the security and regulatory uses of fingerprinting Although it is clear from the generally rely on clean, full-rolled foregoing analysis of the Daubert factors prints.24 As for disaster-victim App. 639a. This makes such a technique 23 The government’s experts implicitly more akin to latent fingerprint acknowledged this—even before the identification, but it still differs in Daubert hearing—in the very design of significant ways. First, the fraction of the 50/50 experiment: The first stage of the print will be distortion-free, unlike that experiment was the matching of full- actual latent prints. Second, the 6% rolled prints to full-rolled prints, but the portion is likely to be taken from a ultimate aim of the experiment was to portion of the finger with a high areal test pseudolatent prints against full-rolled density of Level 2 detail, a luxury that prints to better simulate the more latent fingerprint examiners do not have. demanding exercise of latent fingerprint 25 identification. Of course, as we have We also understand the task in noted above, see supra page 14, even this disaster-victim identification as being refined experiment used pseudolatents, (merely) to individualize one victim out and thus failed to capture the of at most a few thousand victims, while complexities of matching latent prints forensic criminal identification seeks to marred by distortions and artifacts. individualize the defendant out of a pool of millions of potential perpetrators. 24 Dr. Budowle testified that current Accordingly, there seems to be less of a commercial research and development threat of a false positive in the context of seeks to use as little as 6% of the area of disaster-victim identification than in the full print to make an identification. forensic criminal identification. 35 that the government’s fingerprint scientifically sound and evidence passes muster, Mitchell methodologically reliable fashion. contends that the government’s inability Ruiz-Troche v. Pepsi Cola Bottling Co., to establish that its evidence is correct, 161 F.3d 77, 85 (1st Cir. 1998) (citations and its failure to show that its evidence omitted) (quoting Daubert, 509 U.S. at meets the standards required of 590) (citing Kannankeril v. Terminix “science,” mean that the government’s Int’l, Inc., 128 F.3d 802, 806 (3d Cir. evidence must be excluded. M itchell is 1997); Paoli II, 35 F.3d at 744), quoted wrong. This is established by Daubert in part in In re TMI Litigation, 193 F.3d itself, which requires no more than that at 692. Good grounds for admission the Court satisfy itself that “good plainly exist here. grounds” exist for the expert’s opinion. See 509 U.S. at 590. To the extent that Mitchell’s attack rests on his experts’ claim that latent Judge Selya has put it well: fingerprint examiners do not engage in Daubert does not require that a “science,” he does not heed the text of party who proffers expert Rule 702 or the Supreme Court’s testimony carry the burden of teachings in Kumho Tire. Rule 702 proving to the judge that the “makes no relevant distinction between expert’s assessment of the ‘scientific’ knowledge and ‘technical’ or situation is correct. As long as an ‘other specialized’ knowledge.” Kumho expert’s scientific testimony rests Tire, 526 U.S. at 147. The very holding upon “good grounds, based on of Kumho Tire is that those categories what is known,” it should be simply address what type of testimony is tested by the adversary covered by the rule, and that, in process— competing expert addressing admissibility under Rule 702, testimony and active cross- the same factors generally apply to all examination—rather than categories of expert testimony. Kumho excluded from jurors’ scrutiny for Tire explicitly rejected as unworkable fear that they will not grasp its and unnecessary any “distinction complexities or satisfactorily between ‘scientific’ knowledge and weigh its inadequacies. In short, ‘technical’ or ‘other specialized’ Daubert neither requires nor knowledge.” Id at 148. That a particular empowers trial courts to discipline is or is not “scientific” tells a determine which of several court little about whether conclusions competing scientific theories has from that discipline are admissible under the best provenance. It demands Rule 702; at best, there will be some only that the proponent of the overlap between the factors that bear on evidence show that the expert’s a field’s status as “science” and conclusion has been arrived at in a Daubert’s factors addressed to reliability. 36 Reliability remains the polestar. referred to as a “gatekeeper.” This metaphor is particularly apt because it Mitchell seeks a significantly higher works two ways: On the one hand, the threshold of admissibility under Rule court must exclude some evidence as a 702, and, consequently, a very different gatekeeper, by “preventing opinion allocation of responsibility between testimony that does not meet the judge and jury. Yet Rule 702 and requirements of qualification, reliability Daubert put their faith in an adversary and fit from reaching the jury,” system designed to expose flawed Schneider, 320 F.3d at 404. But on the expertise. Mitchell misconceives this other hand, the court is only a balance struck by the framers of Rule gatekeeper, and a gatekeeper alone does 702 and the Daubert Court. As the not protect the castle; as we have Advisory Committee explained in the explained, “[a] party confronted with an context of the December 1, 2000 adverse expert witness who has amendment to Rule 702, “Daubert did sufficient, though perhaps not not work a ‘seachange over federal overwhelming, facts and assumptions as evidence law,’ and ‘the trial court’s role the basis for his opinion can highlight as gatekeeper is not intended to serve as those weaknesses through effective a replacement for the adversary system.’” cross-examination.” Stecyk v. Bell Fed. R. Evid. 702 advisory committee’s Helicopter Textron, Inc., 295 F.3d 408, note (quoting United States v. 14.38 414 (3d Cir. 2002). Acres of Land Situated in Leflore County, Miss., 80 F.3d 1074, 1078 (5th Indeed, as our discussion of the Cir. 1996)). Daubert itself emphasized various Daubert factors suggests, many the point: “Vigorous cross-examination, of them are guarantees that crosspresentation of contrary evidence, and examination and adversary testing will be careful instruction on the burden of proof possible: Testability ensures the basic are the traditional and appropriate means possibility of meaningful crossof attacking shaky but admissible examination. Peer review and evidence.” 509 U.S. at 596. These trial publication also provide raw material for practices and procedural devices like the the cross-examining attorney to confront directed verdict, “rather than wholesale the expert with. The existence of a exclusion under an uncompromising . . . known error rate may force an expert to test, are the appropriate safeguards where admit to the limitations of his or her the basis of scientific testimony meets methods. The maintenance of standards the standards of Rule 702.” Id. We provides an objective benchmark to echoed this in Paoli II, where we noted confirm that the expert did indeed follow “Rule 702 mandates a policy of liberal her method. And so on. Since these admissibility.” 35 F.3d at 741. factors were well-satisfied in this case, it was with confidence that the baton was In this context, the court is often 37 passed from the Court to the adversary Third, this case does not announce a system. categorical rule that latent fingerprint identification evidence is admissible in The principle that cross-examination this Circuit, though we trust that the and counter-experts play a central role in foregoing discussion provides strong the Rule 702 regime has three important guidance. And as we explain in applications to this case. First is the core Velasquez, both Rule 702 and the Sixth holding of United States v. Velasquez, 64 Amendment’s Confrontation Clause F.3d 844, 848-49 (3d Cir. 1995): Experts permit any criminal defendant to put the with diametrically opposed opinions may prosecution to its proof at trial. None of nonetheless both have good grounds for this, however, should be read to require their views, and a district court may not extensive Daubert hearings in every case make winners and losers through its involving latent fingerprint evidence. choice of which side’s experts to admit, The Supreme Court has emphasized that when all experts are qualified. Rather, district courts “have the same kind of the same standards of reliability and latitude in deciding how to test an helpfulness should be applied to both expert’s reliability” as they do in sides, with a “‘preference for admitting deciding “whether or not that expert’s any evidence having some potential for relevant testimony is reliable.” Kumho assisting the trier of fact.’” Id. at 849 Tire, 526 U.S. at 152. Thus a district (quoting DeLuca v. Merrell Dow Pharm., court would not abuse its discretion by Inc., 911 F.2d 941, 956 (3d Cir. 1990)). limiting, in a proper case, the scope of a We return to this in the next section, Daubert hearing to novel challenges to where we discuss the District Court’s the admissibility of latent fingerprint handling of Mitchell’s experts. identification evidence—or even Second, district courts will generally dispensing with the hearing altogether if act within their discretion in excluding no novel challenge was raised. testimony of recalcitrant expert