The Frye Case
Prior to 1923 in the United States, most courts treated scientific evidence the same as any other type. The rules governing the admissibility of evidence were derived from the Common Law. There was no codification of specific rules. In 1923, the landscape changed for novel scientific evidence, owing to a case in Washington, D.C. where James Frye was on trial for murder. As part of his defense, he sought to have the results of a test that utilized a machine that could be considered the forerun ner of today’s polygraph, introduced as evidence of his innocence. The prosecution objected to the admission of this novel evidence and the judge agreed. On appeal, the court upheld the trial judge’s decision. In effect the appeals court stated that, with respect to novel scientific evidence, not only must it meet the relevancy standard, but an additional hurdle must be overcome, as revealed in its ruling: The standard for novel scientific or technical evidence that came out of this decision was, that before a new scientific technique could be introduced in court, the underlying principle that governed it must have achieved general acceptance within the particular scientific field to which it belongs. One important issue that was not decided by the court is what constitutes general acceptance. In fact, this issue has never been clearly decided. It has come to mean, more or less by default, that the technique and principles have been published in a peer-reviewed journal or other equivalent exposure to the field. This implies that peer review for a journal and publication means that a technique will be generally accepted. There are numerous examples in all scientific endeavors where this has not been borne out. Many valid and reliable scientific principles have never been published and there are numerous examples of techniques that have been published and were later shown to be unreliable. Nonethe less, the doctrine of general acceptance became known as the Frye Rule. Over the next 70 years, the federal courts and about half of the states used this as the yardstick to evaluate the admissibility of new scientific techniques. During that time a number of novel scientific techniques have been subject to “Frye challenges” in various courts. These include voiceprint spectrography, blood spatter pattern analysis, polygraph analysis, and even DNA typing techniques. On January 2, 1975, the Congress completely overhauled its rules of evidence. This had been proposed by the United States Supreme Court in a preliminary draft form in 1969. Its effective date was July 1, 1975. The initial set of rules of evidence contained a specific article dealing with expert and opinion testimony (Article VII) that contained individual rules that have since been amended. Under those rules, specifically Rule 702, the proponent of expert testimony has the burden of demonstrating that the expert is qualified and that the opinion evidence would be helpful to the fact finder (the judge or jury). After the new evidence code was adopted by Congress, federal and many state courts became divided as to whether Frye or the new Federal Rules should be used to deter mine the admissibility of novel scientific evidence. The question was addressed and settled by the United States Supreme Court in Daubert v. Merrell-Dow.
