“Flushing out the Mavericks and Dogmatic”: Expert Evidence and Rule 19.
The Criminal Procedure Rules 2014 contained new provisions for the testing of expert evidence before admission at trial. The tests included in Rule 19 (previously Rule 33A) are intended to implement changes that were called for by the Law Commission after their extensive work on expert evidence in the justice system. More recently the subject of a Criminal Practice Direction, as well as strongly worded exhortations from the highest judicial offices, the expectation is that with training rolled out nationally for advocates, Rule 19 should lead to far more stringent scrutiny of expert evidence prior to, and at trial. As the Law Commissioner has stated – the Rule is there to ‘flush out the mavericks and dogmatic’. This paper will look at the new Rule 19 and considers the impact the Rule and its strict application may have on experts and their evidence.
Dr Carole McCartney is a Reader in the School of Law, Northumbria University. Previously senior lecturer in criminal law and criminal justice at the University of Leeds, and Bond University, Queensland, Australia. Carole has written on Australian justice, Innocence Projects, miscarriages of justice, international policing cooperation, and DNA, forensic science and criminal justice more widely. She established an Innocence Project at the University of Leeds in 2005, and was project manager for the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report ‘The Forensic Uses of Bio-information: Ethical Issues’ and the Nuffield Foundation project ‘The Future of Forensic Bioinformation. She has run projects on forensic science education and forensic regulation and completed an EU Marie Curie international research fellowship (2009-2012) on ‘Forensic Identification Frontiers’. She currently teaches and researches in the areas of criminal law, criminal evidence, and forensic science.