Bonnie Baker Publishes Article on the Expansion of Admissible Expert Testimony in Criminal Cases
The New York Law Journal recently published an article by Friedman Kaplan counsel Bonnie M. Baker on the Ninth Circuit’s decision in US v. Olivas which expands the scope of admissible expert testimony on a criminal defendant’s intent. In her article, Bonnie describes how the Ninth Circuit applied the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Diaz v. United States, which held that expert testimony concluding that “most people” similar to a criminal defendant have a particular mental state does not violate Federal Rule of Evidence 704(b), which prohibits expert opinion evidence on whether a criminal defendant had or lacked the mental state required for conviction. She also offers practical guidance to defense counsel on how to guard against or limit the admission of expert opinion evidence on criminal intent in the wake of the Olivas decision.
The full text of the article can be found below.