{"id":4152,"date":"2014-03-01T09:23:01","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T14:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.195.124.104\/~ncrjorg\/?p=4152"},"modified":"2014-03-01T09:23:01","modified_gmt":"2014-03-01T14:23:01","slug":"in-texas-a-new-law-lets-defendants-fight-bad-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/?p=4152","title":{"rendered":"In Texas, a New Law Lets Defendants Fight Bad Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.theatlantic.com\/static\/newsroom\/img\/mt\/2014\/02\/RTXCBL0\/lead.jpg?n1ppxt\" width=\"364\" \/>NCRJ President Michael Snedeker is quoted in <em>The Atlantic<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p>The new statute offers another kind of clarity: \u201cIt\u2019s important because a lot of really shaky evidence is clothed in objectivity,\u201d said Snedeker, noting the incalculable impact expert testimony can have on a juror\u2019s decision-making\u2014especially expert testimony characterized as scientific or medical. \u201cOur priests now are scientists, doctors,\u201d said Snedeker. By giving defendants a way to question the sacrosanctity of scientific testimony, the court recognizes that science and medicine are mutable and continually evolving. (It\u2019s notable that all three cases\u2014Avila, the Kellers, and the San Antonio Four\u2014involved children. Crimes involving minors can be particularly fraught and difficult for jurors to navigate, which often makes them more inclined to rely on \u201chard\u201d evidence. As Snedeker put it, \u201cChildren are at the center of our need to have someone to blame. The idea that the random nature of things would take our child is so much harder to deal with.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/national\/archive\/2014\/02\/in-texas-a-new-law-lets-defendants-fight-bad-science\/283895\/\">http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/national\/archive\/2014\/02\/in-texas-a-new-law-lets-defendants-fight-bad-science\/283895\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NCRJ President Michael Snedeker is quoted in The Atlantic: The new statute offers another kind of clarity: \u201cIt\u2019s important because a lot of really shaky evidence is clothed in objectivity,\u201d said Snedeker, noting the incalculable impact expert testimony can have on a juror\u2019s decision-making\u2014especially expert testimony characterized as scientific or medical. \u201cOur priests now are&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/?p=4152\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">In Texas, a New Law Lets Defendants Fight Bad Science<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4153,"href":"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4152\/revisions\/4153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrj.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}