Statistics in the Law

Statistics in the Law is primarily a user's manual or desk reference for the expert witness-lawyer team and, secondarily, a textbook or supplemental textbook for upper level undergraduate statistics students. It starts with two articles by masters of the trade, Paul Meier and Franklin Fisher. It then explains the distinction between the Frye and Daughbert standards for expert testimony, and how these standards play out in court. The bulk of the book addresses individual cases covering a wide variety of questions, including:



·Does electronic draw poker require skill to play?

·Did the New Jersey State Police disproportionately stop black motorists?

·Is a jury a representative cross section of the community?

·Were ballots tampered with in an election?

The book concludes with Part 5, a review of English law, that includes a case in which a woman was accused of murdering her infant sons because both died of "cot death" or "sudden death syndrome," (she was convicted, but later exonerated), and an examination of how Bayesian analyses can (or more precisely), cannot be presented in UK courts. In each study, the statistical analysis is shaped to address the relevant legal questions, and draws on whatever methods in statistics might shed light on those questions.

Joseph B. Kadane is a Leonard J. Savage University Professor of Statistics and Social Sciences, Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University