United States v. Larry D. Hall

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that exclusion of expert testimony to educate the jury on defendant’s personality disorder was reversible error
• stating that the “ultimate test” when evaluating an expert’s proffered testimony “is whether the testimony would assist the trier of fact in understanding the evidence”
• writing that once a judge decided the defendant’s confession was voluntary “it was . . . within the jury’s province to assess the truthfulness and accuracy of the confession”
• noting that, even if expert testimony on false confessions satisfies Rule 702, “the district court may still use the normal controls on scope of testimony and relevance that are available to it”
• Ofshe’s testimony admissible where psychologist would have testified about defendant’s personality disorder that made him more susceptible to psychological coercion
• “It is enough if the expert makes clear what his opinion is, based on the different possible factual scenarios that might have taken place.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).