An Opinion: Federal Judges Misconstrue Rule 704 (Or Is That an Impermissible Legal Conclusion)

This article addresses the need to formulate a uniform and predictable approach to the admissibility of expert opinion testimony which relates the law to the facts. First, it briefly discusses the history of expert opinion testimony. Second, it discusses, through a case analysis, the difficult, if not impossible task that courts have assumed in attempting to differentiate between two types of expert opinions: (1) those which are, by their nature, factual; and (2) those which require some level of legal analysis-directly relating the law to the facts of the case. Finally, this article suggests an alternative approach which is arguably more consistent with the goals of Article VII of the Federal Rules of Evidence