It is safe to say that pretty much everyone working in the forensic sciences has heard of the Daubert ruling or, more specifically, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993).¹ It was a pivotal ruling that, together with two subsequent rulings General Electric Co. v Joiner, 522 U.S. 136 (1997)² and Kumho Tire Co., Ltd. v Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999),³ has greatly affected many legal jurisdictions in the United States. And, as is often the case, whatever happens in the USA tends to have influence elsewhere.

Shortly after that, in Canada, there was a key Supreme Court ruling that addressed admissibility of forensic expertise — R. v. Mohan, [1994] 2 S.C.R. 9.⁴

That ruling laid out the test for the admissibility of ‘novel’ expert evidence (see Mohan, page 4) in Canada.

Subsequently, the factors explained in that ruling have been applied, just as those in Daubert were, to many types of traditional forensic science evidence. It is, perhaps, rather ironic that rulings intended to liberalize the admission of new (and potentially) helpful evidence would lead to challenges of all forms and types of evidence.