In 1975, when the Federal Rules of Evidence were promulgated, a different standard emerged for expert opinion testimony. Generally speaking, Rule 702 of the Federal Evidence Code provides that a witness who is qualified as an expert by his or her knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion if the expert’s special knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or determine a fact in issue.  The Federal Rules did not overturn Frye and its progeny, but they also did not embrace and codify the principle of “general acceptance” within the expert’s scientific industry or field.  This gray area opened up a Pandora’s Box, which further fueled the debate.

Figures compiled by the Canadian Police Research Centre suggest that most mid-size police forces use stun guns between 50 to 60 times a year on average. They were used 51 times in 2006 by police officers in Quebec.

The information provided in this article does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice. The content in this article is available for general informational purposes only.

Amnesty International says that between 2001 and August 2008,  334 Americans died after Taser shocks. The stun gun was deemed to have caused or contributed to at least 50 of those deaths, Amnesty says, citing medical examiners and coroners. Most suspects were unarmed, and many were subjected to repeated or prolonged shocks, according to Amnesty.

Tasers work by passing electricity through a pair of wires. Weighted barbed hooks at the ends of the wires are propelled toward the target by compressed air.

Airport security called the RCMP for help after Dziekanski allegedly was pounding on windows and throwing chairs and computer equipment.

"There's no question that there are certainly lots of documented examples in Canada where had we not had the Taser and had to respond with more traditional options, that it could have resulted in a higher level of force," said Gillis. "For example, the firearm: … with a firearm, there are only two outcomes … it's going to be a permanent injury or a loss of life."

Stun Gun Batons are designed to incapacitate attackers without causing long-term harm, making them a responsible and ethical choice for personal defense. These ...

The Braidwood Inquiry in its final report, released in June 2010, concluded the RCMP was not justified in using a Taser against Dziekanski.

News reports will often quote the voltage delivered by a Taser — up to 50,000 volts. That sounds like a lot of electricity, but it's a misleading way of expressing the power a Taser uses.

Current, measured in amperes or amps, is the rate of flow of electrons through a wire, similar to the rate of water flow in a pipe, measured in litres per second.

Although it is easy to get lost in the scientific and technical permutations outlined in the Daubert and Frye opinions, including the “new and novel” aspects, when you boil it all down to its essence, the rules of evidence and the theory behind admitting opinion testimony is always going to be whether the opinion helps the jury understand the evidence or determine a fact in issue. This concept is central under both Daubert and Frye.

The company says there are none and that Taser devices are among the safest use-of-force options available. Critics argue that there hasn't been enough research into the safety of stun guns.

More significantly, under Frye the scientific community, and not the trial judge, has the responsibility or role of “gatekeeper” in determining acceptability, reliability, and admissibility issues.  As long as the proffer states that the scientific community finds a particular method or theory is generally acceptable, the evidence is admitted under Frye and it is then up to the jury to determine the credibility of the expert’s opinion (which the jury may accept or reject).  By comparison, in Daubert, the trial judge makes the initial assessment in determining admissibility, after considering a non-exhaustive list of factors, but is essentially relying on his or her own scientific savvy and understanding (or lack thereof) to control the gate.

An up-to-date map of current state legislation status and police department policies regarding police worn body camera footage.

By comparison, electrical outlets in Canada deliver 120 volts of electricity, and the current they carry depends on the appliance that's plugged into them. A 60-watt light bulb, for example, pulls 0.5 amps, while a toaster pulls about five amps.

After the release of the first report, the B.C. provincial government said it would act immediately to adopt Braidwood's recommendations.

Public concern is growing over the increasing use of Tasers in light of mixed reports on their safety and the lack of details surrounding incidents of Taser deployment by law enforcement agencies. Many of the incident reports released publicly by the RCMP are incomplete, with several key areas left blank.

C Lum · 2020 · 218 — This Campbell systematic summarizes the evidence from 30 studies of the effects of BWCs on several officer and citizen behaviors.

The RCMP in May 2010, released new stun gun restrictions, indicating officers are only permitted to use the weapons in cases where a person is causing bodily harm or an officer has "reasonable grounds" to believe a person will "imminently" harm someone.

"We don't speak often enough about the number of lives that have been saved, the number of people that are up and walking around today that might not have been had it not been for a Taser," says Steve Palmer, executive director of the Canadian Police Research Centre. The CPRC is a partnership among the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the RCMP and the National Research Council of Canada.

Arizona-based Taser International makes virtually all of the stun guns being used today. The technical term for a stun gun is a "conducted energy device" (CED) or "conducted energy weapon" (CEW).

The CBC News report prompted several provinces — including Quebec, Alberta and Nova Scotia — to test their Tasers and pull some or all off the streets after their own tests showed the weapons failed to work properly.

Electricity is the flow of electrons through a wire or other conductor. Voltage and current are two separate ways of measuring electricity.

Taser International said in August 2009 that it would challenge Braidwood's preliminary findings at the Supreme Court of British Columbia. The case is scheduled to be heard in July 2010.

Computer-aided dispatch (CAD), also called computer-assisted dispatch, is a method of dispatching taxicabs, couriers, field service technicians, ...

Increased accountability: Body worn cameras help to ensure that both frontline workers and public act in an appropriate manner. The presence of a body cam helps ...

In December 2009, Paul Kennedy, head of the Commission for Complaints Against the RCMP, the RCMP watchdog agency, had released a damning report on the conduct of RCMP involved in the Dziekanski's death. Specifically, Kennedy criticized the RCMP's training practices and use of force guidelines, saying the force appears to have dropped historic guidelines directing officers to minimize intervention and use the least amount of force required to get the best results.

The Daubert standard comes from the 1993 landmark products liability case, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals.  In Daubert, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the admissibility of expert testimony under the Frye test was inconsistent with Rule 702 in the Federal Evidence Code, and dismissed 70 years of Frye’s “general acceptance” inquiry for determining admissibility of scientific expert testimony in federal court.  The Court held that moving forward, the new analysis (known as the Daubert standard) required the judge to assume a “gatekeeping role” and make a threshold determination that “any and all scientific evidence admitted is not only relevant, but reliable.”  The focus was not to be on the opinion, but rather the reliability of the methodology used by the expert to form his or her opinion.

Expert opinion testimony is often the cornerstone of many construction lawsuit disputes.  It therefore goes without saying that every surety or construction law attorney who has litigated in a Florida state court – whether representing the party making the construction claim or defending it – has had to deal with some aspect of the almost century old debate concerning which is the proper standard for admitting expert opinion testimony at trial. The two competing legal doctrines, commonly referred to as the “Frye[1]” standard and the “Daubert[2]” standard, examine the reliability and admissibility of opinion testimony that one party seeks to introduce into evidence during the trial.  In this context, key to the admissibility issue is the role of the trial judge.

In late 2018, the Florida Supreme Court accepted discretionary review jurisdiction to again consider the constitutionality of the Daubert Amendment in DeLisle v. Crane Co., et al.[9] In DeLisle, a personal injury case involving plaintiff’s exposure to asbestos fibers in the workplace, the issue below was whether the trial court had properly exercised its gatekeeping function when, after holding the required pre-trial Daubert hearings, it still admitted disputed expert causation opinion testimony during the trial, which ultimately resulted in an $8 million verdict. On appeal, the Fourth District Court reviewed the admission of the expert testimony (under Daubert), found the trial court failed to properly exercise its gatekeeping duties, and reversed and remanded for a new trial.

The Supreme Court quashed the lower court’s reversal and reiterated its ruling from 2017, stating in no uncertain terms that (1) the Florida Legislature had “exceeded its authority when it sought to adopt Daubert and cease the application of Frye to expert testimony”; (2) “90.702, Florida Statutes, as amended in 2013, is procedural, not substantive”; (3) Frye, not Daubert is the appropriate test for Florida courts to determine the reliability of expert testimony before admitting it in evidence; and (4) medical causation is neither new or novel, so the trial court’s acceptance of the competing experts testimony was proper.

RCMP officers must also give a verbal warning "where tactically feasible" before using their stun guns, according to the new policy.

Statistics prepared by RCMP officers show that Mounties drew or threatened to draw their Tasers more than 1,400 times in 2007, up from 597 in 2005.

Nova Scotia's justice minister also ordered police departments in the province to stop using an older model of Taser in December 2008.

Then a little more than a month later,  the RCMP said it is pulling all older model M-26 Tasers from service nationwide, after the B.C. government announced that such weapons don't meet the manufacturer's specifications.

The Frye standard, which stems from a 1923 criminal case involving the exclusion of a polygraph test result, states that scientific evidence is only admissible if it is “generally accepted” in the scientific community or particular field in which it belongs.  The Frye test does not apply to all expert opinion testimony, but only “new or novel scientific evidence.”  If the proffered scientific evidence is not new or novel then the opinion testimony will be admitted for the jury’s consideration.

Taser International said CBC made scientific errors by failing to spark-test the weapons before firing them, a process the company recommends police officers do on a regular basis. But engineers who reviewed the testing protocol for CBC said the tests were based on solid practices.

Quebec ordered the mandatory testing of all stun guns manufactured prior to 2005. The government later pulled all of its Taser stun guns off the street for testing after lab results revealed problems with some of the weapons.

Tasers are supposed to allow police officers to subdue violent individuals without killing them. A police officer can "take down" a threatening suspect without worrying that a stray bullet might kill or injure an innocent bystander.

In some cases, the current was up to 50 per cent stronger than specified. The X26 Tasers were manufactured before 2005 and are one of the most commonly used models.

In November 2007, the UN Committee Against Torture released a statement saying "use of Taser X26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and … in certain cases, it could also cause death."

The report called for an independent provincial body to investigate police actions and warned that public confidence in the RCMP was flagging.

Mar 15, 2023 — This blog helps you understand the full meaning of the pictograms (eg, flame, bomb, dead fish), signal words (DANGER, WARNING) and hazard codes/statements.

In Canada, however, Tasers are a prohibited weapon. Only one company can import them into Canada under a special permit, and they can only sell the devices to law enforcement agencies, said RCMP Cpl. Greg Gillis, who trains police officers in how to use Tasers. Each Taser sale is registered and tracked, much like a handgun, he said.

The hiring of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely upon advertisement. Before you decide, ask the attorney to send you free, written information about qualifications and experience.

[1] Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir 1923) [2]Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 509 U.S. 579 (1993) [3] Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 509 U.S. at 600-601. [4] See, Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999) (applying the Daubert standard to non-scientists, holding that there is no relevant distinction between experts who rely on scientific concepts and those who rely on skill or years of experience-based observations) [5] See, D.R. Horton, Inc. – Jacksonville v. Heron’s Landing Condo Ass’n of Jacksonville, 44 Fla. L. Weekly D109 (Fla. 1st DCA Dec. 27, 2018) [6] The Florida Legislature amended F.S. §90.702 (Testimony by experts) and §90.704 (Basis of opinion testimony by experts) [7] In re Amendments to the Florida Evidence Code, 210 So. 3d 1231 (Fla. 2017) [8] Id. at 1239. [9] DeLisle v. Crane Co., et al., 258 So. 3d 1221 (Fla. 2018) [10] In re Amendments to the Florida Evidence Code, No. SC19-107, May23, 2019. [11] Id. at p. 4

In 2017, the issue came to a head when the Florida Supreme Court issued its “rules” opinion, declining to adopt the Legislature’s 2013 amendments to the Florida Evidence Code, which implemented the Daubert standard.[7]  In doing so, the Court held that the changes to the Evidence Code were “procedural” in nature, not substantive, and as matters of procedure were exclusively within the judiciary’s rulemaking authority, it appeared the Legislature had overstepped its authority, giving rise to “grave constitutional concerns.”[8] As a result, the Court once again held that Frye was the appropriate standard for evaluating expert opinion testimony in Florida state courts.

Although Florida’s statutory framework never codified the Frye “general acceptance” analysis, the Florida courts consistently applied it when evaluating the admissibility of an expert’s opinion.  All such testimony was admitted into evidence for the jury’s consideration, so long as the expert testified that any opinions based on new methods or novel techniques were “generally accepted” principles in the expert’s field of practice. The analysis was not applicable to “pure opinion” testimony, as that testimony was based on the expert’s own knowledge, training, and experience (and therefore admissible).

The jolt stuns the target by causing an uncontrollable contraction of the muscle tissue. The target is immobilized and falls to the ground — regardless of pain tolerance or mental focus.

A coroner concluded Dziekanski died as a result of the stress from both the Taser stuns and the struggle with police as they pinned him to the ground and handcuffed him.

202415 — Property owners may be able to avoid liability for a slip-and-fall injury if they can prove the victim was adequately warned about the danger.

It's possible to suffer a fatal shock from a household electrical socket, at just 120 volts with 15 amps, if enough current passes through the body.

In the United States, Tasers are not considered firearms and are legal for civilian use in most states. Some cities, counties and states do restrict — or ban — their use by people who are not police officers. The company will not ship its product outside the United States unless the person placing the order holds a valid import/export permit.

Taser stands for "Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle." It is named after a series of children's science-fiction novels written in the early 20th century featuring the young genius inventor Tom Swift.

A low-voltage, high-current circuit would be analogous to a storm sewer. A great deal of water passes through but at low pressure.

Voltage is the amount of force that is driving a flow of electrons. If you imagine electricity as water flowing through a pipe, the voltage is the water pressure in the pipe.

In 2008, the RCMP, which introduced Tasers into its arsenal in 2001, had 2,800 Tasers and 9,100 officers who were trained to use them.

On Oct. 14, 2007, Robert Dziekanski, 40, of Pieszyce, Poland, died at Vancouver International Airport after being shocked five times with a Taser by RCMP officers.

The city of Montreal also held public hearings about police use of stun guns in April 2010. A report is expected later in the year.

4 Pair Camera Rear Lens Cover and Body Set, for M42 Screw Mount Camera Accessories, Hard Plastic, Protect The Lens from Dust, Moisture, Small Size and ...

Earlier this year, the issue was once again pushed to the forefront of controversy when the Florida Supreme Court, in a stunning reversal of its 2017 rule-making opinion,[10] on its own authority without any case before it, ruled that effective immediately, Daubert, not Frye, will be the governing standard for the admissibility of expert opinion testimony.  In receding from its prior 2017 “rules” decision, the court stated that the earlier “grave constitutional concerns” expressed by those who favored Frye and opposed Daubert “appear unfounded.”[11]

In July 2005, for example, a Chicago medical examiner ruled that the death of a man in February 2005 was the result of being shot with a Taser by Chicago police. Media reports said it was the first time a death had been linked directly to a police stun gun, although the medical examiner said the victim also had a lot of methamphetamine in his system.

Canada Police Records Management System (RMS) Software Market by Application The Canada Police Records Management System (RMS) software ...

Taser International says more than 16,200 law enforcement agencies in more than 40 countries use its devices. Since early 1998, more than 543,000 Taser brand immobilizers have been sold to law enforcement agencies.

It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges.

The jury determined the company was negligent for failing to warn police that prolonged deployment of the stun gun could increase the risk of cardiac arrest.

As a practical matter, it is not significant which standard the trial court applies in determining admissibility of expert opinion testimony. In either case, under both standards the burden is on the party offering the expert’s opinion to convince the trial judge that the proffered opinion testimony will be helpful to the jury in determining the facts in dispute.  To the extent that the evidence is trustworthy and has integrity, it should be easy for a seasoned surety or  Fort Lauderdale construction litigation attorney to frame the issue in the case and tailor the proffer of opinion testimony to reflect its inherent reliability.  Moreover, given the nature of an expert’s testimony in surety, construction defect, and related structural damage cases, where there are rarely, if ever, new or novel opinions, the ultimate outcome of the Frye versus Daubert debate will have no real consequence on the surety or construction  law trial attorney practicing in state court.

A further wrinkle to the debate came in 2013 when the Florida Legislature amended the Florida Evidence Code.  The new rules of evidence[6] mandated that all Florida courts adhere to the federal standard (or Daubert standard) before admitting expert evidence at trial, presumably making Florida a Daubert state.  At that time the vast majority of states followed the Daubert standard.

Tasers are hand-held weapons that deliver a jolt of electricity through a pair of wires propelled by compressed air from up to 10.6 metres away.

In June 2008, Taser International lost its first civil suit. The company was ordered to pay more than $5 million in damages after a jury in San Jose, Calif., found that shocks from the company's devices contributed 15 per cent to the Feb. 19, 2005, death of Robert Heston, 40. The jury found that Heston's own actions, including toxic methamphetamine ingestion, were 85 per cent responsible for his death.

The BRPD BWC program is partially funded from City-Parish government and a Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) grant.

In conclusion, and in borrowing an observation from the Bard of Avon, for the astute construction law practitioner, the Supreme Court’s recent decision and reversion from Frye back to Daubert, is “much ado about nothing.”

Taser International also says that while its device can deliver up to 50,000 volts in an open air arc only, it does not deliver that much voltage to a person's body. The company says its Taser X26 delivers an average of 1,200 volts.

To summarize the competing facets of the two standards, a Frye determination only applies to “new or novel” scientific evidence (such as the results of a lie detector test in 1923), whereas Daubert applies to all types of expert opinions, not just those opinions determined to be new or scientifically novel.  By way of specific examples, non-scientific expert opinions that could face a reliability challenge under Daubert include engineering, mathematics, forensic accounting, statistical extrapolation, and qualitative sampling methods used to quantify building code violations in construction defect cases.[5]

Initially, the Mounties speculated that he died from a rare condition called excited delirium. Excited delirium is described as an agitated state in which a person experiences an irregular heartbeat and suddenly dies. It can happen to psychiatric patients and people using drugs such as cocaine. But critics charge that excited delirium is not a valid medical term.

In effect, this screening process required the trial judge to be an “amateur scientist,” who in all likelihood lacked the educational background and scientific literacy to effectively fulfill the role of gatekeeper, an admonition that Chief Justice William Rehnquist noted in his dissent in Daubert.[3]  For the most part, these concerns have largely gone unnoticed.  In later years the Supreme Court expanded the scope of its Daubert decision and applied it to any qualified expert witness testimony in federal court.[4]

It's possible for an electrical circuit to have high voltage, but low current. It would be analogous to a dentist's water jet used to remove plaque: high pressure, but low flow.

Alberta will be testing all of its police Tasers after pulling 50 that failed to work properly in independent tests, the province announced in April 2009.

In March 2009, the RCMP watchdog released new figures showing RCMP officers used stun guns 1,106 times in 2008, about 30 per cent less than the previous year. The numbers included incidents when officers drew Tasers from their holsters but didn't fire.

The procedures, conducted by U.S.-based lab National Technical Systems, found that 10 per cent of the X26 model Tasers produced more electrical current than the weapon's specifications.

Tasers are designed to incapacitate a person through up to five centimetres of clothing. Taser International says the electrical pulse is delivered at a high voltage because the electric current has to pass through clothing and air — neither of which is a good conductor of electricity — to make a complete circuit with the target's skin.

According to some psychologists, a person with excited delirium acts agitated, violent, sweats profusely and is unusually strong and insensitive to pain. Then, the victim's heart races and eventually stops beating.