Standards For Admissibility Of Expert Testimony

[John J. McCarthy]

Would The Official Theory Of The Collapse Of The WTC Buildings

Meet The Test For Admissibility Of Expert Testimony Under Daubert?

It occurs to me in the course of my analysis of the United States

Supreme Court case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceutical, Inc.,

509 U.S. 579, 113 S. Ct. 2786, 125 L. Ed 2d 469 (1993), that the

official conspiracy theory of the cause of the collapse of WTC 1 and

2 (and WTC 7) would not meet the test for admissibility of expert

testimony under Daubert and Kumho Tire Co. Ltd v. Carmichael, 526

U.S. 137, 119 S. Ct. 1167, 143 L. Ed 2d 238 (1999). I believe that

many other aspects of 9/11 would not pass the Daubert test either.

More on Daubert, Kumho Tire

Under Daubert, and the applicable federal rules of evidence, a court

acting as a gatekeeper must conduct what is essentially a 4-part

analysis of the proposed opinion or theory before expert testimony

will be admitted into evidence in support of the opinion or theory.

The purpose of the court's gatekeeper function is to determine that

the opinion testimony is both relevant and reliable before the jury

or the judge is permitted to receive it into evidence.

On the question of reliability the Court must inquire into:

1. Whether the opinion/theory is susceptible to testing and has been

subjected to such testing;

2. Whether the opinion/theory has been subjected to peer review;

3. Whether there is a known or potential rate of error associated

with the methodology used and whether there are standards controlling

the techniques' operation; and,

4. Whether the opinion/theory has been scrutinized and accepted by

the scientific community.

On these points it must be noted, however so briefly here, that:

1. Yes and no.

The official theory of the collapse of the WTC is susceptible to

testing, but the government has never tested the theory. Legitimate

private tests of the official theory have proved that the theory is

not scientifically valid. At a minimum, conflicting results have been

obtained in any private tests. There has been no test per se

involving an actual structure like the WTC. However, fires in other

steel-structured high-rises have never caused any of them to collapse.

2. No.

The official theory has never been subjected to formal peer review.

The theory was advanced as fact and that was it. Much of the forensic

evidence from the WTC was destroyed and discarded in the days and

weeks following 9/11. Very little forensic evidence remained for

analysis. In the private sector, engineers, physicists, demolition

and explosive experts, and the like, have reviewed the official

theory given the limited available information and conducted tests.

As to those tests I refer you back to point 1 above.

3. Yes.

In light of points 1 and 2 the rate of error as to the legitimate

tests the have been conducted appears to be 100%. The official theory

is impossible. There is no general acceptance of the theory in the

scientific community.

4. No.

While some members of the scientific community may choose to accept

the official theory, there is no general acceptance of the theory in

the scientific community.

Therefore, under the standards established by the US Supreme Court in

Daubert, expert testimony offered to support the official theory of

the collapse of the WTC should be, and probably would be, excluded by

an impartial judge. Alternative theories and hypotheses for the

collapse of the WTC such as those advanced by Steven Jones, PhD, and

others, should on the other hand pass the Daubert test and be

admitted into evidence.

For an opinion or theory to pass the Daubert test, and for the court

to permit the trier of fact to hear the opinion testimony, is not to

say that the trier of fact would necessarily agree with the experts'

opinions. Admissibility into evidence and acceptance by the trier of

fact of the evidence are two different things. It is the difference

between saying something and having it believed.

I am suggesting, however, that scientific theories presenting

alternative hypotheses for the collapse of the WTC that are grounded

in good science would in all likelihood pass the Daubert test and be

admissible in court, whereas the official theory of the collapse of

WTC would not meet the Daubert test of reliability and, thus, the

trier of fact would not be permitted to hear the official theory.

Yet, we are all expected to accept the official theory as fact.

Stevan Douglas Looney

(10/11/06)

Stevan Douglas Looney is A trial lawyer practicing law for 26 years.

Stevan was admitted to the bar in New Mexico in 1980. He IS also

admitted to the US Supreme Court, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals,

and the US Tax Court, as well as the Courts of the State of New

Mexico. He served as a Special Assistant Attorney General for New

Mexico. Stevan is also on the Board of the New Mexico Continuing

Legal Education Board and is a Hearing Officer for the New Mexico

Disciplinary Board.

http://www.v911t.org/LegalAnalysis.php

[Evan Burton]

"Alternative theories and hypotheses for the collapse of the WTC such as those advanced by Steven Jones, PhD, and others, should on the other hand pass the Daubert test and be admitted into evidence."

That alone proves what rot you speak.

What professional groups (structural engineers, pilots, firefighters, etc) have spoken out against the general conclusions?

None.

Why don't you work on chemtrails for awhile? You'd have better luck.

[Len Colby]

Funny this guy is a lawyer but produces NO evidence to support his case. He misrepresents the bar a methodology needs to pass. For a methodology to qualify it doesn’t need to meet the 4 criteria for the specific case being tried only in general. For example if prosecutors want to use a new DNA test they only need to show that the test itself peer review etc not that it did so in the specific application against the defendant.

On the 4th point the case is the exact opposite of what portrays, it is the collapse theory that has been universally accepted by qualified experts and the CD that has been rejected. The closest the proponents have come is a structural engineer with no experience in building construction and an 92-3 year old golf course owner who got a civil engineering degree in the 1940’s. The proponents have only a handful of people with advanced science degrees who back their theory. There is no evidence that any one with scientific trading outside a small circle back Jones’ theories

Nor have Jones’ theories passed standard peer review but rather they passed review for publications specifically set up for their publication, creating an obvious conflict of interest. His paper was never reviewed by civil engineers it seems. There is however a paper written by recognized experts that passed peer review for an accredited engineering journal published by the American Society of Civil Engineers and it supports the collapse theory. http://www-math.mit.edu/~bazant/WTC/WTC-asce.pdf .

He is also misinformed about lack of testing and almost certainly didn’t read the NIST report which spells out how they reached their conclusions and tests they ran. The main report is 298 pages long the supplemental reports total in the thousands.

Len