The Casey Anthony Case
The Casey Anthony case was held in Florida which still implemented the Frye Standards/Hearings regarding admissible evidence. Anthony was charged with the murder of her daughter, Caylee. As public rage reaches critical majority over Casey Anthony's release from jail, trial observers who agreed with the jury's verdict say holes in the state's legal case help explain why she was acquitted in daughter Caylee's death.
It is the first time the smell of a human body had been presented as evidence in court, so it needs to pass the Frye standard; a test to check that new scientific evidence stands up to scrutiny. The Frye test says that the scientific evidence is admissible if the relevant community generally accepts it. However, these are some of …show more content…
Arpad Vass, the inventor of a new method of testing air for chemicals indicative of decomposition. Vass, a forensic researcher at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Vass told the jury that testing of air samples, carpet, scrapings from the wheel well and a spare tire cover from the car found a handful of compounds associated with human decomposition. Vass also said testing showed chloroform present at a "shockingly high" level on a carpet sample from the trunk. Defense experts, including an FBI lab technician, disagreed and said they found low amounts of the substance, which is also present in many household cleaning …show more content…
Anthony. The trial judge's opinions and rulings will never be subjected to appellate review. The case is, however, illustrative from a forensic science evidence viewpoint. The Vass "human decomposition odor analysis" testimony would clearly not be admissible under Daubert criteria. There are no standards; there has been no testing of his theory, no error rate determination has been even undertaken, and the theory is certainly not yet generally accepted in the scientific community. With that state of affairs, it would seem even less likely to be admissible in a Frye State. The judge's interpretation of Frye as only requiring that the instrumentation is generally accepted for conclusions from that data to be admissible is not a "generally
It is the first time the smell of a human body had been presented as evidence in court, so it needs to pass the Frye standard; a test to check that new scientific evidence stands up to scrutiny. The Frye test says that the scientific evidence is admissible if the relevant community generally accepts it. However, these are some of …show more content…
Arpad Vass, the inventor of a new method of testing air for chemicals indicative of decomposition. Vass, a forensic researcher at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Vass told the jury that testing of air samples, carpet, scrapings from the wheel well and a spare tire cover from the car found a handful of compounds associated with human decomposition. Vass also said testing showed chloroform present at a "shockingly high" level on a carpet sample from the trunk. Defense experts, including an FBI lab technician, disagreed and said they found low amounts of the substance, which is also present in many household cleaning …show more content…
Anthony. The trial judge's opinions and rulings will never be subjected to appellate review. The case is, however, illustrative from a forensic science evidence viewpoint. The Vass "human decomposition odor analysis" testimony would clearly not be admissible under Daubert criteria. There are no standards; there has been no testing of his theory, no error rate determination has been even undertaken, and the theory is certainly not yet generally accepted in the scientific community. With that state of affairs, it would seem even less likely to be admissible in a Frye State. The judge's interpretation of Frye as only requiring that the instrumentation is generally accepted for conclusions from that data to be admissible is not a "generally