2008 Mid-Year Meeting
Conference on Evidence
The Future of Evidence: How Science and Technology Are Changing Evidence Law
June 3 – 6, 2008
Renaissance Cleveland Hotel
Cleveland, Ohio
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Why Attend?
The adoption of the Federal Rules of Evidence in 1975 not only stabilized evidence law doctrine, it rendered this doctrine more homogenous across jurisdictions. Since then, the Rules have been largely resistant to significant change; and there is a solid body of rule-based law that, along with the text of the Rules themselves, makes up the basic subject matter of most evidence courses across the country.
But the “winds of change” may be blowing more forcefully today than at any time since the great debates over codification at the start of the 20th century. This Conference – The Future of Evidence: How Science and Technology Are Changing Evidence Law - highlights, through its panels and speakers, the major forces for change in evidence law today. Some of these forces implicate specific areas, such as expert witnesses. Others may more fundamentally call into question the basic assumptions underlying the Rules and the practices in courts today. The goal for this Conference is to provide all participants with an overview and some in-depth examination of these forces for change, with an eye toward understanding the context within which we practice our discipline and which our students will face tomorrow.
The on-going courtroom confrontation between evidence law and expertise is one of the most powerful forces for change, the full implications of which we are only now beginning to understand more than a decade after Daubert. The Daubert trilogy and amended FRE 702 require the trial judge to perform the role of gate-keeper over the admissibility of all expert testimony, much of which does not squarely fit within the “hard science” model envisioned in the Daubert opinion. But who, in reality, is in charge – the court or the expert witness? Panels will address this and other questions, including: What analytic tools do judges have to evaluate expert opinions grounded on forensic science, soft science and even non-science? What tools should they use? Are there any?
A second major force for change is technology. Both inside and outside of the courtroom, technological advances in the creation and presentation of knowledge are changing the way that we conceive of “evidence” itself. Will technology finally deliver to us a genuine “lie detector” that will make the jury obsolete? Will simulations create a “virtual reality” that makes live witnesses obsolete? Are there principles of law that should be used to resist the technological incursions? And at a different level, how much of this technology should we teach and how does our classroom use of technology affect the content of what we teach?
Finally, jury decision-making and evidence law itself have been the subject of ever-increasing empirical and interdisciplinary study and evaluation. The results of this research should have much to teach us about our assumptions concerning the jury and about the real world effects of our evidence rules and practices. When, and how, should evidence law respond to this new knowledge? What reforms might be desirable, and what might be possible?
Integrated with our substantive panels will be concurrent sessions on teaching for both new and experienced participants. One afternoon will be devoted to hands-on demonstrations and discussions of using technology in the classroom. Concurrent sessions will also address issues relating to evidence scholarship for the new teacher, and to how our scholarship is both enabled by, and takes as its subject, the empirical and interdisciplinary research that may change evidence law itself.
Special talks at lunch also promise to enlighten and enliven our Conference. The Honorable Nancy Gertner (Judge, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts) will share insights from the bench, and Professor Ron Allen will address “The Value of Facts: From The Enlightenment to Holmes and Crawford.” In the evenings, a virtual courtroom will display new technologies used in many courts today; a movie pertinent to evidence law issues will be shown and discussed; and we hope the Cleveland Indians will be playing at home.
~Planning Committee for the Conference on Evidence
Edward K. Cheng, Brooklyn Law School
JoAnne A. Epps, Temple University
Edward J. Imwinkelried, University of California at Davis
Tamara R. Piety, The University of Tulsa
D. Michael Risinger, Seton Hall University
Michael J. Saks, Arizona State University
Eleanor Swift, University of California, Berkeley, Chair
Who Should Attend?
This Conference has been designed to provide “something for everyone” – indeed, we think a lot for everyone! Our concurrent sessions on teaching and scholarship are a good example of this approach. Special attention will be paid to new teachers, and the Planning Committee wants particularly to encourage new teachers to attend. At the same time, panels dealing with cutting edge issues of judicial control of expertise will enlighten even the most experienced among us. Demonstrations of the new fMRI technology, and technology for the classroom and courtroom, will appeal to all. We hope you will join us.
When is this Conference?
The conference will begin on Tuesday, June 3 with registration at starting at 5:00 p.m., followed by three days of plenary and concurrent sessions. The conference will conclude at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, June 6. In addition to the program sessions, receptions will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and luncheons will be held on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Where is this Conference?
The conference sessions and sleeping accommodations will be at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel, 24 Public Square, Cleveland, OH 44113. The room rate is $169 for single or double occupancy. This rate is subject to a 15.25% sales tax. Children staying in the same room with their parent(s) are free of charge. This hotel is non-smoking.
How Do I Register?
The Conference on Evidence is part of the AALS Mid-Year Meeting. The Mid-Year Meeting consists of three professional development programs: The Workshop for Law Librarians, the Conference on Constitutional Law and the Conference on Evidence. The registration fee for the workshop is discounted 50% when signing up for the entire Mid-Year Meeting. You can choose to register for the two Conferences and/or Workshop using the form in this brochure. When registering for the AALS Conference on Evidence, you are automatically registered for the AALS Conference on Constitutional Law and can attend sessions at both Conferences. Attending the AALS Workshop for Law Librarians requires a different fee. You will receive a discount of half of the workshop registration fee by registering for all three programs.
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