Atomism, holism, and the judicial assessment of evidence

UCLA Law Review

Volumn 60, Issue 6, 2013, Pages 1524-1585

  Mnookin, Jennifer L ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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EID: 84886490776     PISSN: 00415650     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (169)

1. JAMES BRADLEY THAYER, A PRELIMINARY TREATISE ON EVIDENCE AT THE COMMON LAW 266 (Litde, Brown, 8c Co. 1898). For evidence of the jury trial's relative rarity, see, for example
2. Marc Galanter, The Vanishing Trial: An Examination of Trials and Related Matters in Federal and State Courts, 1 J. EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUD. 459, 462-63 tbL1 (2004)
3. and Marc Galanter, The Hundred-Year Decline of Trials and the Thirty Years War, 57 STAN. L. REV. 1255 (2005). Plea bargains and settlements are vastly more common than jury trials.
4. see Frederick Schauer, On the Supposedjury-Dependence of Evidence Law, 155 U. PA. L. REV. 165 (2006).
5. FED. R. EVID. 104 (a).
6. FED. R. EVID. 401 (a).
7. See generally FED. R. EVTD. 801-804 (defining hearsay and derailing the myriad exceptions to the general rule that hearsay evidence is not admissible).
8. Rule 702 permits expert evidence when "the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods" and "the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case." FED. R. EVTD. 702 (c), (d).
9. FED. R. EVID. 702.
10. see Eleanor Swift, One Hundred Yean of Evidence Law Reform: Thayer's Triumph, 88 CALIF. L. REV. 2437 (2000).
11. Stephen C. Yeazell, Convention, Fiction, and Law, 13 NEW LITERARY HIST. 89 (1981).
12. FED. R. EVID. 401. For further discussion of the low "any tendency" threshold
13. FED. R. EVID. 403.
14. FED. R. EVID. 609 (b).
15. See FED. R. EVID. 702;
16. see also Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc, 509 U. S. 579 (1993).
17. see Jennifer L. Mnookin, Bifurcation and the Law of Evidence, 155 U. PA. L. REV. PENNUMBRA 134(2006), http://www.pennlavvreview.com/responses/index.php? id=ll.
18. See, e.g., Ronald J. Allen, Factual Ambiguity and a Theory of Evidence, 88 NW. U. L. REV. 604 (1994);
19. Michael S. Pardo, Juridical Proof, Evidence, and Pragmatic Meaning: Toward Evidentiary Holism, 95 NW. U. L. REV. 399 (2000);
20. Dan Simon, A Third View of the Black Box Cognitive Coherence in Legal Decision Making, 71 U. CHI. L. REV. 511 (2004).
21. See, e.g, DAN SIMON, IN DOUBT: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROCESS (2012). For obvious examples, consider the extensive efforts to encourage "blinding" procedures for eyewitness identification and within forensic science.
22. See, e.g, MIRJAN R. DAMASKA, EVIDENCE LAW ADRIFT (1997);
23. 519 U. S. 172, 182 (1997). For a detailed discussion of this case in relation to atomism and holism, see infra Part IV and accompanying notes.
24. see FED. R. EVID. 401.
25. See, for example, the discussion of "reality hypotheses" in RICHARD O. LEMPERT ET AL., A MODERN APPROACH TO EVIDENCE: TEXT, PROBLEMS, TRANSCRIPTS AND CASES 207-09 (3d ed. 2000). As the Advisory Committee's note to Rule 401 says, "Relevancy is not an inherent characteristic of any item of evidence but exists only as a relation between an item of evidence and a matter properly provable in the case"
26. FED. R. EVID. 401 advisory committee's note.
27. FED. R. EVID. 801 (c) (2).
28. JOHN DONNE, Meditation XVII, in DEVOTIONS UPON EMERGENT OCCASIONS AND SEUERALL STEPS IN MY SlCKNES 108-09 (Univ. of Mich. Press 1959) (1624).
29. See generally HANS-GEORG GADAMER, TRUTH AND METHOD (1975).
30. see generally Daryi J. Levinson, Framing Transactions in Constitutional Law, 111 YALE L. J. 1311 (2002)
31. and Mark Kelman, Interpretive Construction in the Substantive Criminal Law, 33 STAN. L. REV. 591 (1981).
32. FED. R. EVID. 106.
33. United States v. Boylan, 898 R2d 230, 256 (1st Cir. 1990).
34. Susan Haack, Proving Causation: The Holism of Warrant and the Atomism of Daubert, 4 J. HEALTH & BIOMEDICAL L. 253(2008), focusing on the interpretation of toxic-torts evidence;
35. Mirjan Damaska, Atomistic and Holistic Evaluation of Evidence: A Comparative View, in COMPARATIVE AND PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN HENRY Merryman on His Seventieth Birthday 91-104 (David S. Clark ed., 1990), suggesting that the adversarial system tends toward atomism and the inquisitorial system leans toward holism;
36. and John Leubsdorf, Presuppositions of Evidence Law, 91 IOWA L. REV. 1209(2006), exploring a variety of what he terms "presuppositions" of evidence law, which include both its "atomic" tendency to itemize evidence, as well as a penchant for generalizations, among a variety of others.
37. See generally INSIDE THE JUROR: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JUROR DECISION MAKING (Reid Hastieed., 1993).
38. See, e.g., PROBABILITY AND INFERENCE IN THE LAW OF EVIDENCE: THE USES AND LIMITS OF BAYESIANISM (Peter Tillers 8c Eric D. Green eds., 1988);
39. Peter Donnelly, Approximation, Comparison, and Bayesian Reasoning in Juridical Proof, 1 INT'L J. EVIDENCE & PROOF 304, 305-07 (1996);
40. Stephen E. Fienberg & Joseph B. Kadane, The Presentation of Bayesian Statistical Analyses in Legal Proceeding, 32 STATISTICIAN 88 (1983);
41. Stephen E. Fienberg & Mark J. Schervish, The Relevance of Bayesian Inference for the Presentation of Statistical Evidence and for Legal Decisionmaking, 66 B. U. L. REV. 771, 773-76 (1986);
42. Michael O. Finkelstein & William B. Fairley, A Bayesian Approach to Identification Evidence, 83 HARV. L. REV. 489 (1970).
43. see generally Nancy Pennington & Reid Hastie, A Cognitive Theory of Juror Decision Making: The Story Model, 13 CARDOZO L. REV. 519 (1991)
44. Nancy Pennington & Reid Hastie, Evidence Evaluation in Complex Decision Making, 51 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 242 (1986)
45. and Reid Hastie, The Role of Stories'in Civil Jury Judgments, 32 U. MICH. J. L. REFORM 227 (1999).
46. See also, e.g., ROBERT P. BURNS, A THEORY OF THE TRIAL (1999);
47. Kenworthey Bilz, We Don't Want to Hear It: Psychology, Literature and the Narrative Model of Judging, 2010 U. ILL. L. REV. 429.
48. Alaska Criminal Pattern Jury Instruction § 1.07 (2011) (alteration in original). The jury is told to weigh the evidence, but it is given no instructions about how to do so. To be sure, some pattern jury instructions give more detail to the factfinder about what it means to weigh the evidence, especially vis-a-vis credibility. Take, for example, the Seventh Circuit's pattern instruction (again, not atypical)
49. 03 TESTIMONY OF WITNESSES (DECIDING WHAT TO BELIEVE) You are to decide whether the testimony of each of the witnesses is truthful and accurate, in part, in whole, or not at all, as well as what weight, if any, you give to the testimony of each witness. In evaluating the testimony of any witness, you may consider, among other things: [-the witness's age;] - the witness's intelligence; - the ability and opportunity the witness had to see, hear, or know the things that the witness testified about; - the witness's memory, - any interest, bias, or prejudice the witness may have; - the manner of the witness while testifying; and - the reasonableness of the witness's testimony in light of all the evidence in the case.
50. Pattern Criminal Federal Jury instructions for the Seventh Circuit, 1.03, available at http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/pjury.pdf. Elsewhere, these instructions also tell the jury to use its "common sense" in weighing the evidence.
51. PATTERN CRIMINAL FEDERAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT, 1.04. While instructions like these are somewhat more granular than Alaska's quoted instructions and purposefully direct the jury's attention in particular ways, they still do not provide the jury with any guidance on what interpretive methods to use for weighing the evidence, nor do they direct the jury specifically to use a formalist, mathematical, or probabilistic approach on the one hand, or to use a holistic, narrative, or story-model approach on the other.
52. FED. R. EVID. 401.
53. FED. R. EVID. 401 (emphasis added).
54. JOHN HENRY WlGMORE, A TREATISE ON tHE ANGLO-AMERICAN SYSTEM OF EVIDENCE IN TRIALS AT COMMON LAW § § 28-29 (2d ed. 1923);
55. WEINSTEIN'S FEDERAL EVIDENCE (2d ed. 2012).
56. See, e.g., Herman L. Trautman, Logical or Legal Relevancy-A Conflict in Theory, 5 VAND. L. REV. 385, 391-92 (1952). It is not clear the two giants of evidence law were actually so far apart on this point, however. For while Wigmore does describe legal relevancy as something more than pure logical relevance, the relevant treatise sections, read in full, suggest Wigmore believed that more than a mere minimum of probative value was required for admissibility as much as for relevance; the real issue, in his view, was for the judge "to select only such material as is worth laying before the jury." 1 WlGMORE, supra note 46, § 29. It is therefore not clear that what Wigmore envisioned doing through a slightly elevated relevancy test is, in practical terms, any different from what we now do through Rule 403's provision that evidence can be excluded even if relevant if it risks the waste of time.
57. FED. R. EVID. 403. Whether we call such evidence relevant but not sufficiendy probative to be worth hearing or we instead call it legally irrelevant may be as much semantics as substance.
58. See, e.g., WILLIAM TWINING, THEORIES OF EVIDENCE: BENTHAM AND WlGMORE 153-54 (1985) (noting multiple criticisms of Wigmore's "plus-value" idea).
59. The analysis here is implicitly Bayesian; I am drawing on Richard O. Lempert, Modeling Relevance, 75 MICH. L. REV. 1021 (1977).
60. See, e.g., David Crump, On the Uses of Irrelevant Evidence, 34 HOUS. L. REV. 1, 3-13 (1997) (arguing that Rule 401 "is perfectly indiscriminate" and "literally admits any arguable factual proposition in any case", even, say, a Shakespeare play or an apple introduced in an assault case).
61. See FED. R. EVID. 104 (b). While conditional relevance has posed thorny delimitation problems for evidence professors, practically speaking it seems to arise relatively infrequendy. For the scholarly debate, see, for example
62. Ronald J. Allen, The Myth of Conditional Relevancy, 25 LOY. LA L. REV. 871 (1992)
63. Vaughn C. Ball, The Myth of Conditional Relevancy, 14 GA. L. REV. 435 (1980)
64. Richard D. Friedman, Reply, Refining Conditional Probative Value, 94 MICH. L. REV. 457 (1995)
65. and Dale A. Nance, Condtional Relevance Reinterpreted, 70 B. U. L. REV. 447 (1990).
66. Old Chief v. United States, 519 U. S. 172, 179 n. 4 (1997).
67. FED. R. EVTD. 804 (b) (3).
68. FED. R. EVID. 804 (b) (3) (A).
69. The significant literature on the phenomenon of false confessions illustrates the limits to this assumption about human behavior. See, e.g., GlSLI H. GUDJONSSON, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INTERROGATIONS, CONFESSIONS AND TESTIMONY (1992) (discussing false confessions in detail in the context of how erroneous testimony is produced);
70. Saul M. Kassin & Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Confession Evidence, in THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONFESSION EVIDENCE AND TRIAL PROCEDURE 67, 67-68 (Saul M. Kassin 8c Lawrence S. Wrightsman eds., 1985)
71. Saul M. Kassin et al., Police-Induced Confessions: Risk Factors and Recommendations, 34 LAW & HUM. BEHAV. 3 (2010) (discussing false confessions generally);
72. Richard J. Ofshe & Richard A. Leo, The Social Psychology of Police Interrogation: The Theory and Classification of True and False Confessions, 16 STUD. IN L. POL. & SOCY 189 (1997) (comparing tactical differences in interrogation methods that produce either true or false confessions).
73. FED. R. EVID. 804 (b) (3).
74. FED. R. EVID. 804 (b) (3) (A).
75. 512 U. S. 594 (1994).
76. See generally Williamson, 512 U. S. 594.
77. Williamson, 512 U. S. at 604
78. FED. R. EVID. 804 (b) (3) (B).
79. FED. R. EVTD. 804 advisory committee's note.
80. See, e.g., United States v. Barone, 114 F.3d 1284, 1300 (1st Cir. 1997)
81. FED. R. EVTD. 804 advisory committee's note.
82. FED. R. EVTD. 609 (a) (2).
83. See, e.g., FED. R. EVID. 609 (a) (2) (repealed 2011).
84. See Davison M. Douglas et al., Symposium, The Restyled Federal Rules of Evidence, 53 WM. & MARY L. REV. 1435 (2012);
85. Restyled Rules of Evidence, U. S. COURTS (Sept. 2011), http://wvrtv. uscouro.gov/News/TheThird Branch/11-09-0 l/Restyled-Rules-of-Evidence.aspx.
86. See, e.g., Green v. Bock Laundry Mach. Co., 490 U. S. 504, 525-26 (1989) ("With regard to subpart (2), which governs impeachment by crimen falsi convictions, it is widely agreed that this imperative, coupled with the absence of any balancing language, bars exercise of judicial discretion pursuant to Rule 403.");
87. United States v. Kuecker, 740 F.2d 496, 501-02 (7th Cir. 1984).
88. FED. R. EVID. 609 (a) (2).
89. FED. R. EVID. 807 (a) (3).
90. FED. R. EVID. 801 (d) (2) (A).
91. FED. R. EVID. 801 (d) (2) (D).
92. FED. R. EVID. 801 (d) (2) (E).
93. This was the issue faced in Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U. S. 171 (1987).
94. FED. R. EVID. 801 (d) (2).
95. See generally FED. R. EVID. 801 advisory committee's note.
96. FED. R. EVID. 804 (b) (3) (B).
97. Take, for example, Rule 901's authentication requirement. FED. R. EVID. 901 (a)
98. FED. R. EVID. 403.
99. The only absolute exception is for dishonesty crimes offered to impeach a witness. See FED. R. EVID. 609 (a) (2) and discussion, supra Part II. C.
100. 519 U. S. 172 (1997).
101. See Opening Brief of Defendant-Appellant at 5-8, United States v. Old Chief, 85 F.3d 638 (9th Cir. 1996) (No. 95-30283)
102. 1995 WL 17065406, at *5-8;
103. D. Michael Risinger, John Henry Wigmore, Johnny Lynn Old Chief, and "Legitimate Moral Force": Keeping the Courtroom Safe for Heartstrings and Gore, 49 HASTINGS L. J. 403, 446-48 (1998).
104. Old Chief, 519 U. S. at 175, 180-81.
105. FED. R. EVID. 404 (a).
106. Victor J. Gold, Federal Rule of Evidence 403: Observations on the Nature of Unfairly Prejudicial Evidence, 58 WASH. L. REV. 497, 503 (1983);
107. see also Victor J. Gold, Limiting Judicial Discretion to Exclude Prejudicial Evidence, 18 U. C. DAVIS L. REV. 59, 73 (1984).
108. Old Chief, 519 U. S. at 177.
109. United States v. Old Chief, No. 94-30277, 1995 U. S. App. LEXIS 13541, at *3-4 (9th Cir. May 31, 1995).
110. Old Chief, 519 U. S. at 182.
111. There are occasional exceptions. See, e.g., United States v. Merino-Balderrama, 146 F.3d 758 (9th Cir. 1998);
112. United States v. Nachamie, 101 F. Supp. 2d 134 (S. D. N. Y. 2000).
113. Assume for ease of explication that none is a dishonesty crime for which admission is mandated under FED. R. EVID. 609 (a) (2).
114. FED. R. EVTD. 609 (b) (1).
115. FED. R. EVID. 403.
116. See, e.g., Luce v. United States, 469 U. S. 38 (1984). Luce involved a defendant who wanted to know whether his prior convictions would be admissible before deciding whether to testify. The Supreme Court held that if the trial court chose not to rule in limine, the only way to preserve the Rule 609 issue for appeal was for the defendant to take the stand.
117. Old Chief v. United States, 519 U. S. 172, 186-87 (1997).
118. For recent cases where the defendant has unsuccessfully attempted such a maneuver, see, for example, United States v. Becht, 267 F.3d 767 (8th Cir. 2001)
119. United States v. Campos, 221 F.3d 1143 (10th Cir. 2000)
120. United States v. Hay, 231 F.3d 630 (9th Cir. 2000)
121. and United States v. Caldwell, No. 97-5618, 1999 U. S. App. LEXIS 7417 (6th Cir. Apr. 13, 1999).
122. But cf. United States v. Merino-Balderrama, 146 F.3d 758 (9th Cir. 1998).
123. See generally Old Chief v. United States, 519 U. S. 172 (1997).
124. Perhaps we could think about the holistic judge as the evidence-oriented equivalent of the managerial judge that has received attention in civil procedure circles. See generally Judith Resnik, Managerial Judges, 96 HARV. L. REV. 374 (1982).
125. See generally Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U. S. 662 (2009);
126. Bell AtL Corp. V. Twombly, 550 U. S. 544 (2007).
127. After these recent cases, to survive a motion to dismiss under FED. R. CIV. P. 12 (b) (6), the party must state a claim that goes beyond mere assertions or conclusions, and the court must accept that claim as facially plausible. But what does plausible mean exactly and how does the court know what is or is not plausible? This inchoate standard invites lower courts to engage in a holistic analysis, but because this inquiry occurs prior to discovery and before the actual introduction of evidence, this holism rests almost entirely on the judge's intuition and nearly unbounded discretion.
128. See Kumho Tire Co. V. Carmichael, 526 U. S. 137 (1999);
129. Gen. Elec. Co. V. Joiner, 522 U. S. 136 (1997);
130. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc, 509 U. S. 579 (1993).
131. 509 U. S. 579.
132. Though Daubert discussed only scientific evidence, the need forjudges to engage in gatekeeping to assess reliability was extended to all forms of expert evidence in Kumbo Tire Co. V. Carmichael, 526 U. S. 137.
133. For the classic polemic about the dangers of junk science in the courtroom, see PETER W. HUBER, GALILEO'S REVENGE: JUNK SCIENCE IN THE COURTROOM (1991).
134. In re Paoli R. R. Yard PCB Litig., 35 F.3d 717, 744 (3d Cir. 1994).
135. FED. REVID. 401.
136. Daubert was overtly framed as a gloss on Rule 702 and its reference to "scientific... knowledge." Daubert, 509 U. S. at 590 (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted).
137. FED. R. EVID. 702. The degree of engagement, scrutiny, and detail judges give to reliability assessments under Daubert varies tremendously. Judges do need to assess reliability, they do not necessarily need to grant a request for a hearing.
138. See, e.g., United States v. Solorio-Tafolla, 324 F.3d 964 (8th Cir. 2003);
139. United States v. Turner, 285 F.3d 909 (10th Cir. 2002).
140. Gen. Elec. Co. V. Joiner, 522 U. S. 136 (1997).
141. Joinerv. Gen. Elec. Co., 864 F. Supp. 1310, 1326 (N. D. Ga. 1994).
142. Joiner v. Gen. Elec. Co., 78 F.3d 524, 530 (11th Cir. 1996).
143. Joiner, 522 U. S. at 143.
144. See Joinerv. Gen. Elec. Co., 78 F.3d 524, 533 (11th Cir. 1996).
145. Joiner, 522 U. S. at 144-46.
146. For helpful explorations of the dangers of conflation of admissibility and sufficiency in the expert evidence setting, see Luanda M. Finley, Guarding the Gate to the Courthouse: How Trial Judges Are Using Their Evidentiary Screening Rale to Remake Tort Causation Rules, 49 DEPAUL L. REV. 335 (1999)
147. and Eileen A. Scallen & William E. Wiethoff, The Ethos of Expert Witnesses: Confusing the Admissibility, Sufficiency and Credibility of Expert Testimony, 49 HASTINGS LJ. 1143 (1998).
148. FED. R. EVID. 401 advisory committee's note
149. (quoting 1 MCCORMICK ON EVIDENCE § 185, at 733 (6th ed. 2006)).
150. For a version of this argument, see Michael D. Green & Joseph Sanders, Admissibility Versus Sufficiency: Controlling the Quality of Expert Witness Testimony in the United States (Wake Forest Univ. Legal Studies, Working Paper No. 2016468, 2012), available at http://ssm.com/abstract =2016468.
151. 140 F.3d 381 (2d. Cir. 1998).
152. Old Chiefv. United States, 519 U. S. 172 (1997).
153. Gen. Elec. Co. V. Joiner, 522 U. S. 136, 152-54 (1997) (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). For discussions of the "weight of the evidence" approach, see, for example
154. Douglas L. Weed, Weight of Evidence: A Review of Concept and Methods, 25 RISK ANALYSIS 1545 (2005)
155. Douglas L. Weed, Evidence Synthesis and Genera! Causation: Key Methods and an Assessment of Reliability, 54 DRAKE L. REV. 639 (2006)
156. and Sheldon Krimsky, The Weight of Scientific Evidence in Policy and Law, 95 AM. J. PUB. HEALTH S129 (2005).
157. Carl F. Cranor, A Framework for Assessing Scientific Arguments: Gaps, Relevance and Integrated Evidence, 15 J. L. & POLY 7, 50 (2007) (alteration in original) (footnote omitted)
158. See, e.g, Simon G. Thompson & Stephen J. Sharp, Explaining Heterogeneity in Meta-analysis: A Comparison of Methods, 18 STAT. MED. 2693 (1999) (looking at the effect of cholesterol reduction on the probability of a coronary problem);
159. Judith E. Neter et al., Influence of Weight Reduction on Blood Pressure: A Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials, HYPERTENSION, Nov. 2003, at 878.
160. Austin Bradford Hill, The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?, 58 PROC. ROYAL SOC'Y MED. 295 (1965).
161. Douglas L. Weed, Truth, Epidemiology, and General Causation, 73 BROOK. L. REV. 943, 956 (2008).
162. See generally Jennifer L. Mnookin, Expert Evidence, Partisanship, and Epistemic Competence, 73 BROOK. L. REV. 1009 (2008)
163. [hereinafter Mnookin, Epistemic Competence];
164. Jennifer L. Mnookin, Idealizing Science and Demonizing Experts: An Intellectual History of Expert Evidence, 52 VILL. L. REV. 763 (2007).
165. Mnookin, Epistemk Competence, supra note 181, at 1012.
166. Gen. Elec. Co. V. Joiner, 522 U. S. 136, 137 (1997).
167. Zuchowicz v. United States, 140 F.3d 381, 386-87 (2d Cir. 1998).
168. Perhaps the most noteworthy recent example is the First Circuit's 2011 decision in Milward v. Acuity Specialty Products Group, Inc, 639 F.3d 11 (1st Cir. 2011).
169. Joiner, 522 U. S. 136.