Update: The End of Frye-Reed Draws Closer
In my lengthy October 2017 post, The End of Frye-Reed, I traced the history of Maryland’s Frye-Reed jurisprudence on expert testimony and explained my view that Frye-Reed is now “on its last legs.” A recent published Court of Special Appeals opinion, Sissoko v. State,[1] suggests that Frye-Reed’s death has drawn even closer. It notes Maryland’s “drift” towards applying Frye-Reed to scientific conclusions, rather than only techniques, and treats the Frye-Reed and Rule 5-702 inquiries as tests that not only “overlap” but perhaps have even “melded into one.”[2] In doing so, the opinion elevates, from well-considered dicta to controlling Maryland law, many points in the concurring opinion in the Court of Appeals’ August 2017 decision Savage v. State.[3]
The analysis in my original post ended with Savage v. State, which is proving itself to be a landmark opinion. Read More…
The End of Frye-Reed
Maryland’s Frye-Reed era appears to be ending. Last month, in Savage v. State,[1] the Court of Appeals handed down a significant decision on “the proper scope for the threshold evaluation of expert scientific evidence” under Maryland’s “Frye–Reed” test. Although the Frye-Reed test, as originally envisioned, would preclude only opinions based on novel scientific methodologies that were not “generally accepted as reliable within the expert’s particular scientific field,”[2] its scope has greatly expanded in recent decades. The Savage opinion highlights that Frye-Reed now precludes opinions, even those based on methodologies that are both (1) not novel and (2) generally accepted, if the reasoning behind the opinion is simply unreliable. Under Savage, the Frye-Reed inquiry requires trial judges—regardless of whether the expert’s underlying methodology is well-established and valid—to examine “whether the expert bridged the ‘analytical gap’ between accepted science and his ultimate conclusion in a particular case.”
How did we get here and where are we headed? Read More…
Maryland Appellate Blog 