sleeping or otherwise not attacking her and when,
seemingly, she was not in “imminent harm” of “seri-
ous physical injury or death.” According to propo-
nents of BWS, however, a person who experiences
chronic uncontrolled domestic violence develops cer-
tain psychological reactions to this violence. Courts
have generally concluded that the psychological reac-
tions attending BWS are relevant to the question of
whether a defendant killed with the reasonable belief
that she was in imminent harm. As the Monahan and
Walker social frameworks concept makes clear, there
are two separate social science issues that are relevant
here. The first is the framework itself and concerns
the question of whether social science research sup-
ports the claim that particular—legally relevant—
psychological reactions develop as a result of chronic
battering. If, and only if, the answer to this initial
framework question is yes, a second question arises in
these cases. Specifically, the social fact part of the
framework requires proof that the particular defendant
in the case suffers from BWS.
A second example of a social framework is the
research on the unreliability of eyewitness identifica-
tions. This work nicely demonstrates how some
framework research might be demonstrable at the
general level but is left to the trier of fact to apply at
the social fact level. Indeed, it is interesting to note
that the reluctance to apply eyewitness research to
particular cases appears largely to reside with the
experts in this area, rather than with any specific lim-
itations historically placed on this evidence by the
courts. It appears that findings that have largely been
generated by research scientists are used in court at
the framework level but not applied in any case-
specific way by the experts themselves. This is a use
specifically contemplated by the Federal Rules of
Evidence. The Advisory Committee’s Note, for exam-
ple, states that Rule 702 “recognizes that an expert on
the stand may give a dissertation or exposition of sci-
entific or other principles relevant to the case, leaving
the trier of fact to apply them to the facts.”
A third example of social frameworks is clinical pre-
dictions of violence—a form of expertise that is often
offered as a social fact but without support of any social
framework. Although there is a robust research litera-
ture on actuarial predictions of violence, which effec-
tively would provide a social framework for this kind of
evidence, many clinicians continue to testify based on
clinical judgment alone. In effect, therefore, this evi-
dence is being offered as social fact evidence, withoutany supporting research framework in which to set it.
Courts have been particularly clueless as regards this
sort of evidence, which should be excluded systemati-
cally. As a general matter, no applied science exists
only at the social fact level. Whether explicit, implicit,
or ignored, every scientific opinion regarding a particu-
lar case depends on the existence of some general the-
ory or framework of which a particular case is a
claimed instance. Courts display their scientific igno-
rance, and clinicians display their legerdemain, when
they pretend that this is not so.The Courts’ Model of Causation:
General and Specific
In many contexts, courts have seemingly begun to
develop a basic sophistication regarding scientific
foundations in considering the different kinds of
expert opinion that might be offered. Beyond the tax-
onomies of Davis and Monahan and Walker, working
courts have been forced to recognize the basic differ-
ence between what most scientists study and what
most legal disputes are about. Scientists typically
study variables at the population level, and most of
their methodological and statistical tools are designed
for this kind of work. The trial process, in contrast,
usually concerns whether a particular case is an
instance of the general phenomenon. There has been
little systematic work done on the problem of reason-
ing from general research findings to making specific
statements about individual cases.
Courts have increasingly noted the different levels
of abstraction at which science comes to the law.
Science comes to courts as an amalgam of general
principles or theories and specific applications of
those principles. Courts have recognized these two
levels of abstraction most clearly in medical causation
cases, in which they routinely distinguish between
general causation and specific causation.
General and specific causation are merely subin-
stances of the inherent division between the general
and the specific in applied science. Indeed, these con-
cepts closely parallel the Monahan and Walker social
frameworks idea, though the courts have primarily
developed the concept outside of the context of social
science. General causationrefers to the proposition
that one factor (or more) can produce certain results,
and thus the finding transcends any one case. Specific
causation considers whether those factors caused
those results in the particular case at bar. Consider, forExpert Psychological Testimony, Forms of——— 277E-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:42 PM Page 277