Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:34:18.899Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The scalpel, the calculator and the judge in France: from technical perspective to legal evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2020

Romain Juston Morival  and
Jérôme Pélisse Open the ORCID record for Jérôme Pélisse [Opens in a new window]
Romain Juston Morival
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Rouen
Jérôme Pélisse*
Affiliation:
Professor of Sociology, Sciences Po Paris, CSO
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: jerome.pelisse@sciencespo.fr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In France, judicial expertise operates within a specific institutional framework at the same time as it covers a distinctive community of practitioners called upon for their technical or scientific knowledge to serve justice. Indeed, while experts in the US are selected by the litigants, the French model features judge-appointed experts. This model could offer better guarantee of independence and neutrality, to the point that recent developments in the US suggest the emergence of a new court-appointed expert. What does such an institutional model involve in terms of evidence production? To answer this question, this paper looks at two areas of expertise in France: economic experts and forensic pathologists. Through an ethnography of the co-production of legal evidence, it analyses the black box of the French practices of legal expertise and allows the way in which the institutional context influences the producing of legal evidence, beyond differences between a scalpel and a calculator, to be understood.

Keywords

expertiselegal evidenceforensic pathologisteconomic litigationcomparison France–US (or France)
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 2020 , pp. 353 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brandmayer, F (2016) How social scientists make causal claims in court: evidence from the L'Aquila trial. Science, Technology, & Human Values 42, 346–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charrier, E and Pélisse, J (2012) Conventions at work: on forensic accountant's intermediation. Economic Sociology—European Electronic Newsletter 14, 31–40.Google Scholar
Chauvaud, F (2000) Les Experts Du Crime: La Médecine Légale En France Au XIXe Siècle. Paris: Aubier.Google Scholar
Colella, F and Ireland, TR (1998) Neutrality and advocacy: a challenge for forensic economists. Journal of Legal Economics 8, 71–87.Google Scholar
Collins, H and Evans, R (2006) Rethinking Expertise. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cour de Cassation (2007) Les bonnes pratiques juridictionnelles de l'expertise civile, Conférence de consensus organisée par la Cour de Cassation. Available at https://www.courdecassation.fr/venements_23/colloques_4/2007_2254/8220_bonnes_10189.html (accessed 15 September 2020).Google Scholar
Dulong, R (1997) Les opérateurs de factualité. Les ingrédients matériels et affectuels de l’évidence historique. Politix 39, 65–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dumoulin, L (1999) La Médecine Légale Aux Fondements de L'expertise Judiciaire: de L'activité de Médecin Légiste à La Profession D'expert. Équinoxe 22, 65–77.Google Scholar
Dumoulin, L (2007) L'expert dans la justice: de la genèse d'une figure à ses usages. Paris: Économica.Google Scholar
Encinas de Munagorri, R (1999) La recevabilité d'une expertise scientifique aux États-Unis. Revue internationale de droit comparé 51, 621–632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
European Expertise and Expert Institute (2012) Le future de l'expertise judiciaire civile dans l'Union européenne. Available at https://experts-institute.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2012-06-28-rapport-final-eurexpertise.pdf (accessed 3 October 2020).Google Scholar
Garnier, P (1947) La comptabilité, algèbre du droit et méthode d'observation des sciences économiques. Paris: Dunod.Google Scholar
Hanzlick, R (2003) Overview of the medicolegal death investigations system in the United States. Medicolegal Death Investigation System 7–11.Google Scholar
Hubert, DW (2012) Is forensic accounting in the United States becoming a profession? Journal of Forensic & Investigating Accounting 4, 255–284.Google Scholar
Hubert, DW and Charrier, E (2015) Is it time to regulate forensic accounting? Les Cahiers du Chiffre et du Droit 3, 104–111.Google Scholar
Jackson, B (1988) Law: Fact and Narrative Coherence. Liverpool: Deborah Charles Publications.Google Scholar
Jasanoff, S (1997) Science at the Bar: Law, Science and Technology in American Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Jasanoff, S (1998) The eye of everyman: witnessing DNA in the Simpson trial. Social Studies of Science 28, 713–740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jasanoff, S and Leclerc, O (2013) Le droit et la science en action. Paris: Dalloz.Google Scholar
Johnson-McGrath, J (1995) Speaking for the dead: forensic pathologists and criminal justice in the United States. Science, Technology, & Human Values 20, 438–459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Juston, R (2016) Comment une tache de sang devient-elle une preuveIngrédients et recettes des preuves médico-légales. Droit et société 93, 395–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Juston Morival, R (2020) Médecins légistes: Une enquête sociologique. Paris: Les Presses de Sciences Po, coll. ‘Académique’.Google Scholar
Kennerly, M (2016) The problems with court-appointed ‘independent’ experts. Litigation and Trial, The Law Blog of Plaintiff's Attorney Max Kennerly, posted on 13 April 2016, consulted on December 2017. Available at https://www.litigationandtrial.com/2016/04/articles/attorney/frcp-706-independent-experts/ (accessed 15 September 2020).Google Scholar
Leclerc, O (2005) Le juge et l'expert: Contribution à l’étude des rapports entre le droit et la science. Paris: LGDJ.Google Scholar
Ledouble, D (2005) La comptabilité est-elle encore l'algèbre du droit ? Revue française de comptabilité 380, 18–21.Google Scholar
Lynch, M (2013) Science, truth, and forensic cultures: the exceptional legal status of DNA evidence. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44, 60–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lynch, M and Cole, S (2005) Science and technology studies on trial: dilemmas of expertise. Social Studies of Science 35, 269–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, M and Jasanoff, S (1998) Introduction: Contested identities: science, law and forensic practice. Social Studies of Science 28, 675–686.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, M, McNally, R and Dupret, B (2005) ‘Science’, ‘sens commun’ et preuve ADN: une controverse judiciaire à propos de la compréhension publique de la science. Droit et société 61, 655–681.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, MP (1998) Truth in Context: An Essay on Pluralism and Objectivity. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, MP et al. (2008) Truth Machine: The Contentious History of DNA Fingerprinting. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCahey, JP and Proman, JM (2011) Federal Rule of Evidence 706: Court-Appointed Experts, Trial Evidence 19, 20–27.Google Scholar
Micelotta, E, Lounsbury, M and Greenwood, R (2017) Pathways of institutional change: an integrative review and research agenda. Journal of Management 43, 1885–1910.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moussa, T (2015) Droit de l'expertise 2016–2017. Dalloz: Dalloz Action.Google Scholar
Neckers, CS and Wikander, ML (2006) Daubert and the soft sciences: can a forensic economist ever make it past the gatekeeper? Federation and Defense of Corporate Counsel Quarterly 57, 27–49.Google Scholar
Pélisse, J (2019) Varieties of legal intermediaries: when non-legal professionals act as legal intermediaries. In Billows S, Buchter L and Pélisse J (eds), Studies in Law, Politics and Society, Special Issue: ‘Legal intermediation: a processual approach to law and economic activity’, 81, 101–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pélisse, J et al. (2012) Des chiffres, des maux et des lettres: Une sociologie des experts judiciaires en économie, psychiatrie et langues. Paris: Armand Colin, Coll. Recherche.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porret, M (2008) Sur la scène du crime: Pratique pénale, enquête et expertises judiciaires à Genève. Montreal: PU Montréal.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, E (2016) What is obviously wrong with the federal judiciary, yet eminently curable. Part I. 19 GREEN BAG 2D 187.Google Scholar
Protais, C (2016) Sous l'emprise de la folie? L'expertise judiciaire face à la maladie mentale (1950–2009), Paris, EHESS, coll. ‘Cas de figure’, 312 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renard, B (2011) La technologie ADN dans la justice pénale: une illustration de la recomposition de l'action de la justice par la science, la technique et l'expertise ? Droit et cultures [En ligne], 61, 1.Google Scholar
Shap, D (2010) Forensic economics: an overview. Eastern Economic Journal 36, 347–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidak, GJ (2013) Court-appointed neutral economic experts. Journal of Competition Law & Economics 9, 359–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Socio (2014) Dossier: chercheurs à la barre, n°3, 9–245.Google Scholar
Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, M (2018) Producing expert capital: how opposing same-sex marriage experts dominate fields in the United States and France. Social Movement Studies 19, 38–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stryker, R (2011) L'intermédiation scientifique dans la mise en œuvre des lois anti-discrimination américaines. In Bessy, C, Delpeuch, T and Pélisse, J (eds), Droit et régulation des activités économiques: perspectives scientifiques et institutionnalistes. Droit et Société: Recherches et Travaux 24, LGDJ, 183–202.Google Scholar
Talesh, S and Pélisse, J (2019) How legal intermediaries facilitate or inhibit social change? Studies in Law, Politics and Society 79, 111–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, PH, Ocasio, I and Lounsbury, M (2012) The Institutional Logics Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, R and Ward, J (1999) The economist in tort litigation. Journal of Economic Perspectives 13, 101–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, RJ and Ward, J (2016) Ethical issues in forensic economics. In DeMartino, G and McCloskey, D (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics. Oxford: Handbooks.Google Scholar
Timmermans, S (2006) Postmortem: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious Deaths. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tinari, FD (2010) The practice of forensic economic: an introduction. Eastern Economic Journal 36, 398–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vergès, E, Vial, G and Leclerc, O (2015) Droit de la preuve. Paris: PUF.Google Scholar
Weller, J-M (2011) Comment décrire ce qu'on ne voit pas? Le devoir d'hésitation des juges de proximité au travail. Sociologie Du Travail 53, 349–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar