qualified as an expert

On July 6, 1993, the right rear tire of a minivan driven by Patrick Carmichael blew out. In the accident that followed, one of the passengers died, and others were severely injured. In October 1993, the Carmichaels brought this diversity suit against the tire's maker and its distributor, whom we refer to collectively as Kumho Tire, claiming that the tire was defective. The plaintiffs rested their case in significant part upon deposition testimony provided by an expert in tire failure analysis, Dennis Carlson, Jr., who intended to testify in support of their conclusion. Carlson's depositions relied upon features of tire technology, such as the carcass, plies, belts, beads, and tread, that are not in dispute. The tire was made in 1988 and had been installed some time before the Carmichaels bought the used minivan in March 1993. The Carmichaels had driven the van approximately 7,000 additional miles in the two months they had owned it. Carlson noted that the tire's tread depth, which was 11/32 of an inch when new, had been worn down to depths that ranged from 3/32 of an inch along some parts of the tire, to nothing at all along others. He conceded that the tire tread had at least two punctures which had been inadequately repaired. Carlson concluded that a defect in its manufacture or design caused the blowout. He rested this conclusion in part upon three premises which, for present purposes, we must assume are not in dispute. Carlson's conclusion that a defect caused the separation, however, rested upon other propositions, several of which the defendants strongly dispute. Carlson added that he had inspected the tire in question. Kumho Tire moved the District Court to exclude Carlson's testimony on the ground that his methodology failed Rule 702's reliability requirement. The court agreed with Kumho that it should act as a Daubert-type reliability gatekeeper, even though one might consider Carlson's testimony as technical, rather than scientific. The District Court found that all those factors argued against the reliability of Carlson's methods, and it granted the motion to exclude the testimony as well as the defendants' accompanying motion for summary judgment. The plaintiffs asked for reconsideration, and the court granted that motion. After reconsidering the matter, the court agreed with the plaintiffs that Daubert should be applied flexibly. It consequently affirmed its earlier order declaring Carlson's testimony inadmissible and granting the defendants' motion for summary judgment. The Eleventh Circuit reversed. It reviewed de novo the district court's legal decision to apply Daubert. It concluded that Carlson's testimony, which it viewed as relying on experience, falls outside the scope of Daubert, that the district court erred as a matter of law by applying Daubert in this case, and that the case must be remanded for further non-Daubert-type consideration under Rule 702. Kumho Tire petitioned for certiorari, asking the Court to determine whether a trial court may consider Daubert's specific factors when determining the admissibility of an engineering expert's testimony. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in light of uncertainty among the lower courts about whether, or how, Daubert applies to expert testimony that might be characterized as based not upon scientific knowledge, but rather upon technical or other specialized knowledge.

On the evening of April 15, 1989, two white Air Force police officers named Jane Smith and Tony McCormack were walking back to their dormitories at Fort Dix, New Jersey, after seeing a movie. They sat under a glass-enclosed bus shelter to avoid light rain. A black male wearing a wool cap and tan nylon jogging suit entered the shelter, drew a small silver handgun, robbed McCormack of his wallet containing an unsigned $100 money order, and forced Smith to perform fellatio on him while threatening to shoot McCormack. After the assailant fled when a car drove by, the victims contacted military police. Investigator Christine Amos suggested they look at a wanted board containing eight posters with composite sketches and photographs. McCormack immediately identified a photograph of defendant Richard Stevens, and Smith agreed it resembled the attacker though he appeared heavier in the photo. Smith then went to Walson Army Community Hospital where a doctor administered a rape crisis kit and attempted to secure semen samples from her saliva and clothing, producing three glass slides. The FBI laboratory later performed serological testing on one slide containing sufficient semen, which consumed all material on the slide and prevented DNA testing. A consent order had directed the FBI to preserve samples if possible after its own tests so Stevens could conduct DNA testing. The government made remaining materials available to the defense nearly six weeks later, but testing proved inconclusive. Stevens was indicted on charges of aggravated sexual assault and robbery within the special territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Stevens's first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked. At the second trial in March 1990, the district court permitted expert testimony on cross-racial identifications, weapon focus, and stress but excluded testimony on the lack of correlation between confidence and accuracy in identifications. The court also excluded testimony from Tyrone Mitchell, who had been robbed at gunpoint three days later at Fort Dix in a similar manner; Mitchell did not identify Stevens, and the fruits of both crimes ended up near Fort Meade, Maryland. The jury convicted Stevens on both counts, and the district court sentenced him to 168 months of incarceration. Stevens appealed, challenging the destruction of the semen sample, the wanted board identification, the admission of pretrial services testimony, the limits on expert testimony, and the exclusion of the Mitchell evidence. The Third Circuit reviewed the record developed at the Wade hearing, the Brady motion hearing, the Downing hearing on expert testimony, and the trial proceedings.

Robert Joiner began work as an electrician in the Water & Light Department of Thomasville, Georgia, in 1973. This job required him to work with and around the City’s electrical transformers, which used a mineral-oil-based dielectric fluid as a coolant. Joiner often had to stick his hands and arms into the fluid to make repairs. The fluid would sometimes splash onto him, occasionally getting into his eyes and mouth. In 1983 the City discovered that the fluid in some of the transformers was contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls. Joiner was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer in 1991. He sued petitioners in Georgia state court the following year. Petitioner Monsanto manufactured PCB’s from 1935 to 1977. Petitioners General Electric and Westinghouse Electric manufactured transformers and dielectric fluid. In his complaint Joiner linked his development of cancer to his exposure to PCB’s and their derivatives, polychlorinated dibenzofurans and polychlorinated dibenzodioxins. Joiner had been a smoker for approximately eight years. His parents had both been smokers, and there was a history of lung cancer in his family. Petitioners removed the case to federal court. Once there, they moved for summary judgment. Joiner responded that there were numerous disputed factual issues that required resolution by a jury. He relied largely on the testimony of expert witnesses. In depositions, his experts had testified that PCB’s alone can promote cancer and that furans and dioxins can also promote cancer. They opined that since Joiner had been exposed to PCB’s, furans, and dioxins, such exposure was likely responsible for Joiner’s cancer. The District Court ruled that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Joiner had been exposed to PCB’s. But it nevertheless granted summary judgment for petitioners because there was no genuine issue as to whether Joiner had been exposed to furans and dioxins. The testimony of Joiner’s experts had failed to show that there was a link between exposure to PCB’s and small-cell lung cancer. The court believed that the testimony of respondent’s experts to the contrary did not rise above subjective belief or unsupported speculation. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed. It held that because the Federal Rules of Evidence governing expert testimony display a preference for admissibility, it applied a particularly stringent standard of review to the trial judge’s exclusion of expert testimony. The Supreme Court granted petitioners’ petition for a writ of certiorari.

In August 2005, Donald Bullcoming drove a vehicle that rear-ended a pickup truck at an intersection in Farmington, New Mexico. After the truck driver noticed Bullcoming's bloodshot eyes and smelled alcohol on his breath, Bullcoming left the scene before police arrived. An officer later apprehended Bullcoming, who failed field sobriety tests and was arrested for driving while intoxicated. Because Bullcoming refused a breath test, police obtained a warrant for a blood-alcohol analysis, and a sample was drawn at a local hospital. The blood sample was sent to the New Mexico Department of Health's Scientific Laboratory Division. Forensic analyst Curtis Caylor tested the sample using a gas chromatograph machine and prepared a signed report certifying that Bullcoming's blood-alcohol concentration was 0.21 grams per hundred milliliters. The report included certifications that the sample seal was intact, procedures were followed, and no circumstances affected the sample's integrity. Bullcoming was charged with aggravated driving while intoxicated based on the report. At Bullcoming's jury trial in November 2005, the State announced that Caylor had been placed on unpaid leave and would not testify. Instead, the prosecution called another SLD analyst, Gerasimos Razatos, who had not participated in or observed the testing of Bullcoming's sample. Over defense objection, the trial court admitted Caylor's report as a business record. Razatos testified about laboratory procedures and the testing machine. The jury convicted Bullcoming of aggravated DWI. The New Mexico Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. While Bullcoming's appeal was pending before the New Mexico Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts. The New Mexico Supreme Court acknowledged that the report was testimonial. It held that Razatos's testimony satisfied the Confrontation Clause because Caylor was a mere scrivener and Razatos qualified as an expert on the machine and procedures. The court affirmed the conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Confrontation Clause issue.