iv. PAS Treatment Is Legal Coercion, Not Medical Treatment

Evidentiary Admissibility of Parental Alienation Syndrome


Jennifer Hoult, J.D.

Page 7 

iv. PAS Treatment Is Legal Coercion,
Not Medical Treatment
http://209.198.129.131/images/EvidentiaryAmissibilityofPAW_Hoult_CLRJ_2006.pdf



Children’s Legal Rights Journal
American Psychological Association (“APA”). The
1996 APA Presidential Task Force on Violence
and the Family (“APA Task Force”) specifically
noted that there is no data supporting PAS’s
existence.
113
 Following the 2005 airing of a film
about PAS on the Public Broadcasting Service, the
APA issued a statement indicating that the
organization takes no official position on this
“purported syndrome.”
114
 While Gardner claimed
PAS is admissible under  Frye, PAS lacks any
indicia of general acceptance by major medical
institutions making it inadmissible under Frye.
2. Daubert & Kumho Tire: Reliability
115
In Daubert, the United States Supreme Court held
that FRE 702 superseded  Frye in federal court.
Daubert  defined an admissibility test whose
“overarching subject is the scientific validity—and
thus the evidentiary relevance and reliability—of
the principles that underlie a proposed submission.”
116
 Defining “scientific knowledge,”  Daubert
noted that “the word ‘knowledge’ connotes more
than subjective belief or unsupported speculation”
and specified that to qualify as knowledge “an
inference or assertion must be derived by the
scientific method.”
117
 The Court intended
Daubert’s test to be  more  flexible  than  the  Frye
test, allowing courts to consider several factors to
determine admissibility.
118
 Relevant factors
include whether the theory can be and has been
tested, whether it has been the subject of
publication and the scrutiny of the scientific
community through peer-review, and its known or
potential error rate.
119
 While  Daubert claimed to
discard  Frye’s “general acceptance” standard, the
decision includes “widespread acceptance” as a
relevant factor, noting that “a known technique
which has been able to attract only minimal
support within the community” may properly be
viewed with skepticism.
120
 
 The relevant factors for determining whether
PAS is admissible under Daubert are PAS’s lack of
widespread acceptance discussed above under the
Frye standard, an analysis of whether it is a valid
medical syndrome, the error rate of its diagnostic
criteria, the results of inter-rater reliability testing,
and the nature of peer-review reportage.