JUDICIAL APPLICATION OF DAUBERT TO PSYCHOLOGICAL SYNDROME AND PROFILE EVIDENCE: A Research Note

The authors present previously unreported results from a nationwide survey ( N = 325) of state trial judges ( S. I. Gatowski et al., 2001 ) that was conducted pre- Kumho . The authors report how the 1993 Daubert guidelines were applied to psychological syndrome and profile evidence, and the impact of the decision on the admissibility of such evidence. They found that judges' views of and experience with psychological testimony varied widely and that most judges neither understood nor applied the more technical Daubert guidelines, such as falsifiability and error rate, when assessing psychological evidence. Overall, the findings suggest that Daubert' s impact on the admissibility of psychological syndrome and profile testimony is negligible and that most judges are more comfortable with pre- Daubert standards when this type of testimony is proffered.