This week, the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law announced the launch of a new public resource: the Forensic Expert Evidence Database, a searchable collection of court decisions addressing when and how forensic expert testimony is admitted in criminal cases. The database brings together reported decisions from courts across all fifty states and the federal system. The cases span more than 100 years and focus on the admissibility of expert testimony regarding three important disciplines: firearms, fingerprint, and shoeprint analysis. This new resource summarizes how courts evaluated these types of expert testimony and why they chose to admit or exclude it. Users can search by state, year, court type, and other key details. The database also shows which evidence standards courts applied and what the outcome of each ruling was.
“These court decisions documented in the database have shaped how forensic evidence is used in our criminal legal system,” said Professor Garrett. “By making this information easy to find and use, we hope to support researchers, lawyers, and advocates working to better understand—and improve—the use of forensic evidence in the courts.”
The work to build these data involved law students over several years and was supported by the Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Science (CSAFE), for which Professor Brandon L. Garrett, Faculty Director of the Wilson Center for Science and Justice, serves on the leadership team. Several articles have already been published featuring data from these court rulings, including a piece on firearms evidence cases coauthored with then-Duke Law student Eric Tucker and University of Irvine psychology professor Nick Scurich. The database is designed for a wide range of users, from forensic practitioners familiarizing themselves with rulings across jurisdictions to practicing attorneys seeking to better understand the developing caselaw. The database will be updated regularly as new decisions become available.