The expert witness at issue was Dr. Marty Klein, a licensed family, marriage, and sex therapist in the state of California. Dr. Klein’s testimony regarded these …show more content…
In order to constitute knowledge the trial court had to examine the theory and technique upon which the testimony is based off of.
The court ended up finding Dr. Klein’s testimony that the defendant’s chatlogs were similar to other fantasy role-playing chatlogs as unreliable. Their reasoning for this was that the witness failed to establish that his theories and techniques can and have been tested. The court also claimed that due to the theories not obtaining general acceptance his testimony was inadmissible. Due to the fact the Dr. Klein’s testimony was not based on any peer reviewed studies it was not considered an expert testimony.
Dr. Klein’s testimony was also excluded under FRE Rule 704(b). The rule states that expert witness testimony is inadmissible in order to prove the defense’s state of mind. This issue is something left up to the trier of fact to determine. The court decided that whether or not the defendant engaged in the sessions for fantasy was a question left for the jury to decide upon, not an expert