Author Description

To view or download the 2020 Supplement click here. Edward Imwinkelried received the 2020 John Henry Wigmore Award for Lifetime Achievement. The award is gifted annually to the top evidence scholar of the year by the Evidence Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools. Judge Calabresi has pointed out that this is the Age of Statutes, and some commentators have asserted that trial by jury is becoming trial by expert. Therefore, competent attorneys must be adept at working with scientific material and at interpreting statutes. The eighth edition of this casebook enables students to learn how to use materials generated by scientific researchers and to develop statutory interpretation skills. The authors emphasize scientific problems, with repeated references to Daubert and its progeny. Evidentiary doctrine coverage is reduced, to allow for deeper treatment of the science behind much of the evidence presented in modern trials. Throughout the text, the eighth edition stresses statutory construction skills, and at appropriate points it discusses the contrast between the textualist and legal process schools of legisprudence, all while bringing students up to date on significant recent developments such as the 2017 amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence and the 2016 forensic science report of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.