United States v. I. Lewis Libby

During an investigation into who leaked classified information to journalists, exposing the name of Valerie Plame Wilson as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, I. Lewis Libby (defendant) was charged with obstruction of justice, making false statements, and perjury. Libby’s charges stemmed from comments he made to special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in October and November 2003 and to a grand jury in March 2004 that were allegedly false. Libby’s alleged false statements related to his recollection of statements he had made to FBI agents and a grand jury in June and July 2003 and conversations he had with various journalists. Libby pursued a faulty-memory defense and planned to argue that the state’s witnesses failed to correctly recall relevant details and that any mistakes he made were unintentional. Libby moved to introduce the expert testimony of Dr. Robert A. Bjork, who would testify that given how memory works, either the prosecution’s witnesses, Libby, or both could have simply remembered the subject conversations incorrectly. Federal Rule of Evidence 702 (Rule 702) governed the admissibility of expert testimony. In Daubert, the United States Supreme Court established a test for determining the admissibility of expert testimony under Rule 702. Expert testimony was admissible if the principles and methods on which the expert’s testimony was based (1) were scientifically reliable and (2) applicable to the facts at issue in the case and, therefore, of assistance to the fact-finder. The state did not object to Bjork’s testimony based on the first prong of the Daubert test, because science relating to memory was well established and had gained acceptance within the scientific community. However, the state argued that Bjork’s testimony would not aid the jury in understanding key issues in the case. Bjork was relying on studies showing that juries were often unaware of how fallible memory could be, but the studies were in relation to issues affecting the reliability of identifications of alleged perpetrators of crime made by eyewitnesses. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia did not believe that research related to the issues affecting the reliability of eyewitness identifications of alleged perpetrators of crime was applicable to issues affecting memory in other contexts. The typical juror was not often confronted, if ever, with having to identify an alleged criminal. However, a typical juror was faced daily with issues relating to memory and recalling information.