Wilson v. State

How later courts described this case

• holding that an expert’s conclusion that SIDS deaths in a single family are genetically related was inadmissible even when based on a reliable statistical method—the “product rule”—because there was not general agreement in the medical community for such a conclusion
• noting that “the issue of recurrent SIDS within a family raises the possibility of genetically determined conditions.... But when SIDS occurrences among siblings of SIDS cases were compared with those among non-SIDS siblings in maternal age—and birth rank matched—control families, there was no statistically significant difference in SIDS rates.... Thus, the notion that having a SIDS baby makes having another more likely was dispelled.”
• “[P]rior to the admission of expert testimony based on the application of new scientific techniques, it must be first established that the particular scientific method is itself reliable.” (citation omitted)
• “Where the validity and reliability of a scientific technique is so broadly and generally accepted within the scientific community, as is the case of ballistic tests, blood tests, and the like, a trial court may take judicial notice of its reliability.” (citation omitted)

Written by the judges who cited it.