Sanger, Michael D.

English

University of Miami School of Law

University of Miami Law SchoolInstitutional RepositoryUniversity of Miami Law Review7-1-2001Reply to Professor EhrhardtMichael D. SangerFollow this and additional works at: http://repository.law.miami.edu/umlrPart of the Evidence CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Miami LawReview by an authorized administrator of Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact library@law.miami.edu.Recommended CitationMichael D. Sanger, Reply to Professor Ehrhardt, 55 U. Miami L. Rev. 663 (2001)Available at: http://repository.law.miami.edu/umlr/vol55/iss4/10Reply to Professor EhrhardtI was relieved to note that Professor Ehrhardt's critique of myComment found more to agree with than to criticize. His major concernseems to be my failure to explain why I don't feel CSAAS should besubmitted to a Frye test. What follows is my attempt to address thatconcern.There exists a spectrum of strategies available to Florida prosecu-tors wishing to use CSAAS. One of these is to argue for a new admissi-bility standard. A survey of the cases reveals that the courts examiningCSAAS under the Daubert standard tend to view it in a more favorablelight.' More interesting to me was the approach of the MichiganSupreme Court which recognized that both Frye and Daubert aredesigned to test the hard, scientific-method-based sciences and thus cre-ated a new admissibility standard for the behavioral sciences.2 Anadventurous prosecutor might ask the court to consider a similar distinc-tion in Florida.Happily, an innovation like this is probably unnecessary, sinceCSAAS really should pass a Frye test when offered for the correct pur-pose (rehabilitation). My paper noted that this usage has met with"almost universal approval." 3 I am confident (as is, I think, ProfessorEhrhardt) that as prosecutors become familiar with the proper usage ofCSAAS, the Florida courts will acknowledge its utility and Floridajuries will have another tool to aid them in this most difficult ofdecisions.MICHAEL D. STANGER1. Arthur H. Garrison, Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome: Issues ofAdmissibility in Criminal Trials, 10 ISSUES IN CHILD ABUSE ACCUSATIONS 10 (1998).2. The ultimate testimony received on syndrome evidence is really only an opinion of theexpert based on collective clinical observations of a class of victims. Further, the issues and thetestimony solicited from experts is not so complicated that jurors will not be able to understandthe "technical" details. The experts in each case are merely outlining probable responses to atraumatic event. It is clearly within the realm of all human experience to expect that a personwould react to a traumatic event and that such reactions would not be consistent or predictable inall persons. Finally, there is a fundamental difference between techniques and procedures basedon chemical, biological, or other physical sciences as contrasted with theories and assumptionsthat are based on the behavioral sciences. "We would hold that so long as the purpose of theevidence is merely to offer an explanation for certain behavior, the Davis/Frye test isinapplicable." People v. Beckley, 456 N.W.2d 391, 404 (Mich. 1990).3. State v. J.Q., 599 A.2d 172, 183 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1991).

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Reply to Professor Ehrhardt

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