A Guide to Forensic Testimony

Court proceedings can be tedious procedures that employ a variety of witnesses and evidence types. A lawyer or court may use forensic testimony to build and solidify a case.

Identification

• Forensic testimony is any testimony provided by an expert witness that can shed new light on a crime or conviction or provide support to a lawyer's argument. The testimony can come from experts in any field, from science to economics, as long as it has weight in the proceeding in question.

Benefits

• Any testimony given by an expert is acknowledged as a piece of evidence. Given that the expert is under oath, it assumed that the forensic testimony is true. The more evidence offered to back up an argument, the better. Thus, forensic testimony greatly benefits lawyers and courts when trying to compose a solid, valid argument.

Warning

• Although forensic testimony is entered into a proceeding as a true piece of evidence, problems with the validity of those testimonies and the ethics of the individuals giving them have been found. An article published in the March 2009 issue of Virginia Law Review, for example, found that forensic testimony led to the conviction of an innocent person in 60 percent of 137 trials investigated.