Book contents
- Critical Evidence
- Critical Evidence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Foreword: An Outsider’s Tribute
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Introduction to the Field and Its Actors
- Part II The Rules
- Section 1 Relevance and Prejudice
- Relevance, Reconsidered
- The Relevance and Prejudice of Poverty Evidence
- Toward a Critical Race Theory of Evidence
- Section 2 Character Evidence
- Character (Evidence) Assassination
- Disability as a Character Chameleon
- Different Spanks for Different Ranks
- Evidence Without Rules
- Judging Demeanor
- Section 3 Credibility
- Law’s Credibility Problem
- Teaching Impeachment
- Section 4 Sex Trials
- Real Women, Real Rape
- Unchaste and Incredible
- Feminist Take(s) on Other (Sexual) Bad Acts
- Section 5 Hearsay and Confrontation
- The Neglected Origins of the Hearsay Rule in American Slavery
- Examining the American Hearsay Prohibition’s Roots in Slavery
- Hearsay and Confrontation from a Feminist Gaze
- Facially Neutral, Quietly Skewed
- Section 6 Experts
- Who Says You’re Disabled? The Role of Medical Evidence in the ADA Definition of Disability
- Beyond the Binary
- Presumed Expertise
- Party-Blind Review
- Unequal Burdens of Proof
- Section 7 Privileges
- Underprivileged
- Parent-Child Privilege as Resistance
- Part III Expanding Evidence
- Suggested Readings
Beyond the Binary
Expert Evidence and the Civil-Criminal Divide
from Part II - The Rules
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 October 2026
Book contents
- Critical Evidence
- Critical Evidence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Foreword: An Outsider’s Tribute
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Introduction to the Field and Its Actors
- Part II The Rules
- Section 1 Relevance and Prejudice
- Relevance, Reconsidered
- The Relevance and Prejudice of Poverty Evidence
- Toward a Critical Race Theory of Evidence
- Section 2 Character Evidence
- Character (Evidence) Assassination
- Disability as a Character Chameleon
- Different Spanks for Different Ranks
- Evidence Without Rules
- Judging Demeanor
- Section 3 Credibility
- Law’s Credibility Problem
- Teaching Impeachment
- Section 4 Sex Trials
- Real Women, Real Rape
- Unchaste and Incredible
- Feminist Take(s) on Other (Sexual) Bad Acts
- Section 5 Hearsay and Confrontation
- The Neglected Origins of the Hearsay Rule in American Slavery
- Examining the American Hearsay Prohibition’s Roots in Slavery
- Hearsay and Confrontation from a Feminist Gaze
- Facially Neutral, Quietly Skewed
- Section 6 Experts
- Who Says You’re Disabled? The Role of Medical Evidence in the ADA Definition of Disability
- Beyond the Binary
- Presumed Expertise
- Party-Blind Review
- Unequal Burdens of Proof
- Section 7 Privileges
- Underprivileged
- Parent-Child Privilege as Resistance
- Part III Expanding Evidence
- Suggested Readings
Summary
This chapter dives beneath the performatively egalitarian surface of Federal Rule of Evidence 702 (Testimony by Expert Witnesses), explores disparities in the rule’s application in civil and criminal cases, and applies queer theory to disrupt these norms and “forg[e] a social justice politics of change.” Queer theory is an interdisciplinary approach that dismantles traditional assumptions about gender and sexual identities in furtherance of social justice. Queering the law is not only about the use of gender and sexuality, it also aims to recognize and challenge traditional binaries and seek new possibilities. As Black queer author bell hooks remarked, “‘queer’ [is] about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
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- Critical Evidence , pp. 302 - 316Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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