The Evidentiary Admissibility of Parental Jennifer Hoult, J.D. ∗ Abstract

Jennifer Hoult
Vol. 26 ♦ No. 1 ♦ Spring 2006
Children’s Legal Rights Journal
Evidentiary Admissibility of Parental Alienation Syndrome
http://209.198.129.131/images/EvidentiaryAmissibilityofPAW_Hoult_CLRJ_2006.pdf  


The Evidentiary Admissibility of Parental
Jennifer Hoult, J.D.
∗
Abstract
Since 1985, in jurisdictions all over the United
States, fathers have been awarded sole custody of
their children based on claims that mothers
alienated these children due to a pathological
medical syndrome called Parental Alienation
Syndrome (“PAS”). Given that some such cases
have involved stark outcomes, including murder
and suicide, PAS’s admissibility in U.S. courts
deserves scrutiny.
 This article presents the first comprehensive
analysis of the science, law, and policy issues
involved in PAS’s evidentiary admissibility. As a
novel scientific theory, PAS’s admissibility is
governed by a variety of evidentiary gatekeeping
standards that seek to protect legal fora from the
influence of pseudo-science. This article analyzes
every precedent-bearing decision and law review
article referencing PAS in the past twenty years,
finding that precedent holds PAS inadmissible
and the majority of legal scholarship views it
negatively. The article further analyzes PAS’s
admissibility under the standards defined in Frye
v. United States,  Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals,  Kumho Tire Company v. Carmichael, and
Rules 702 and 704(b) of the Federal Rules of
Evidence, including analysis of PAS’s scientific
validity and reliability; concluding that PAS
remains an ipse dixit and inadmissible under these
standards. The article also analyzes the writings of
PAS’s originator, child psychiatrist Richard
Gardner—including twenty-three peer-reviewed
articles and fifty legal decisions he cited in support
of his claim that PAS is scientifically valid and
legally admissible—finding that these materials
support neither PAS’s existence, nor its legal
admissibility. Finally, the article examines the
policy issues raised by PAS’s admissibility through
an analysis of PAS’s roots in Gardner’s theory of
human sexuality, a theory that views adult-child
sexual contact as benign and beneficial to the
reproduction of the species.
 The article concludes that science, law, and
policy all support PAS’s present and future inadmissibility.