Georgia's Licentiousness Draws Criticism

Georgia's legislature recently enacted a "reform" measure that imposes the Daubert standard for civil cases but provides that all expert evidence shall be admissible in criminal cases. (See our posts of 2/19/05 and 3/28/05.)

Commentators from diverse points along the ideological spectrum have now noticed what Georgia has done, and have begun to raise criticisms. The public health scientists over at Effect Measure, who are self-described "progressives," had previously called the legislation "unbelievable ." Now, over at Volokh, Prof. Bernstein -- who is no criminal-coddling leftist, and who is certainly no apologist for evidentiary promiscuity -- calls Georgia's new enactment a "scandal."

Well, no doubt. This may be what happens, though, when evidentiary "reform" is pursued by political means. It's almost surprising, in retrospect, that Congress didn't write special evidentiary rules for expert testimony in the Schiavo case. Would such a thought have shocked the congressional conscience? We doubt it. We imagine it's just that nobody thought of it in time.