"The Fallacy of the Impartial Expert" revisited.
J. Katz,
Bull. Amer. Acad. Psychiatry & the Law
20(2): 141-52, 1992.
This article, in memory of Bernard Diamond, revisits his seminal editorial on the "Fallacy of the
Impartial Expert." In a later article he formulated his thesis most succinctly: "There is no such thing
as an impartial expert witness; the objectivity of the expert witness is largely a myth." I argue that
the implications of his challenging assertion have as yet not been fully recognized. Ultimately, they
also invite a revision of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law's Guidelines for the Practice
of Forensic Psychiatry. The Guidelines should emphasize more than they do experts' commitment
to honesty and to informing fact finders about the extent and limits of their scientific knowledge, the
facts on which their opinions are based, as well as the scientific and value assumptions that underlie
their testimony.