Position Paper on Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Research

Position on Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals - Research Paper Example In analyzing the role of technology in a criminal or civil case, this paper analyzes the case of Daubert vs. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, giving out the facts of the case, and taking a position on whether to admit or discard forensic evidence in a civil or criminal case (Jenkins and Schuller, 2007). The opinion of this paper is that it is important to admit forensic evidence in a criminal or civil trial. However, there must be guidelines that the court must use in identifying the type of forensic evidence to use. For instance, the evidence under consideration must satisfy scientific organization that it is reliable and accurate. To do this, the process of collecting the evidence must pass the various tests that scientific organizations have put in place for purposes of determining the relevance, and reliability of a forensic evidence. This is a position that the courts took in the case involving Frye vs. United States (1923). In this case, the court gave a ruling that scientific evid ence is admissible in a trial court on if it gains acceptance from the scientific field that the evidence comes from (Dobbin, Gotoski, Eyre, Dahir, Merlina, and Richardson, 2007). However, in 1975 the Federal Rules of Evidence made trial judges to disregard the Frye laws while determining whether to allow the use of forensic evidence in a civil or criminal case. ... After doing this, this paper takes a position on whether to use forensic evidence in a criminal trial. Facts of the case: In this case, the minors who are plaintiff suffered from deformities after their mothers took drugs that Dow Merrel Pharmaceuticals manufactured. The drug in question was Bendectin. The experts of the plaintiff gave evidence in the court arguing that the drugs of the company indeed caused the reduction in the limbs of the minors, resulting to the deformities that they had (Dobbin et al, 2007). The evidence that Daubert and other minors brought before the courts was based on the studies of the effects of the drugs in animals. However, their methods of study did not gain any acceptance within the relevant scientific field of study. On the other hand, Dow Merrel Company managed to prove to the court that there isn’t any scientific study that links Bendectin to birth deformities. The United States Federal Drug Authority also agrees with the notion that the drug under consideration does not cause any side effects on minors or pregnant women. On this basis therefore, the authority approves the use of the drug by expectant women (Lyle, 2012). Decision of the Court: The court made a ruling that the testimony given by the plaintiff’s experts was not admissible as evidence before the court. The court was of the opinion that it is difficult for the judges to identify what is scientific theory of fact when it comes to a testimony that an expert presents before a trial court. On this basis therefore, the court relied on Federal Rules of Evidence number 702 to determine whether to admit a testimony from an expert or not. These principles under rule 702 are (Levett and Kovera, 2008); The

Business needs to be more regulated Research Paper

Business needs to be more regulated - Research Paper Example other hand those in favor of strict government regulations argue that free markets are not as efficient as they may seem and due to their competitive nature, they involve in practices that impacts the society in a negative manner. Businesses need to be more regulated because businesses are inefficient, businesses are indulging in unethical practices, and there are monetary and physical losses of lack of strict regulation. Regulations governing businesses need to be increased and should be more stringent in nature because less regulation is resulting in inefficient use of resources which are already limited in supply. Competition between businesses has increased and they are trying to find methods through which they can produce more in order to capture a higher proportion of market share. Due to this more products that are homogenous in nature are being produced and the number of goods and services being produced are more than the number of goods and services being demanded. Due to this a major percentage of the produced goods and services are being left unused and wasted. This wastage of goods and services is resulting in an increase in the inefficient ways of using resources that are already limited in number. This inefficient use of resources proves that the model of free market is failing to meet its promise of efficient use of resources. According to a news article published in Liberation News, e ach year around 3 million individuals of the United States experience the state of homelessness and to cover these three million individuals, there were 18 million houses available and vacant (pslweb.org, 2013). This shows that due to competition, constructors have built more houses than the number of houses demanded in United States. This even show that the resources used to make these houses will continue to be unused until there are enough people to occupy them. These resources could have been used in other projects. Another reason due to which more regulations