SKAPP funded two pilot research projects in 2007:

• Stragegic Idealizations of Science to Oppose Environmental Regulation: A Case Study of Five TMDL Controversies
  David S. Caudill, JD, PhD, Villanova University School of Law
  Donald E. Curley, MSE, AM, PhD, Donald Curley, PC
  This study was structured to identify whether and how arguments and challenges based on idealizations of science are used in the initial (pre-litigation) stages of local water quality controversies. The investigators focused on the scientific disputes that followed from five TMDLs (Total Maximum Daily Loads) recently issued to pollutant dischargers with respect to impaired waters in the Philadelphia area.
• Judicial Gatekeeping of Expert Future Dangerousness Predictions
  Erica Beecher-Monas, Wayne State University Law School
  This pilot study will assess the feasibility of research into judicial evaluations of expert testimony.  It will focus on the important area of psychological future dangerousness testimony in Texas courts. This type of testimony is proffered in civil as well as criminal cases, and in both federal and state actions, despite being widely castigated as wholly unscientific by the scientific community.  This project will assess whether judges are insisting on some level of scrutiny of the proffered expert testimony, and what standards they are using for examining such testimony.   This project will also assess the frequency of challenges to expert future dangerousness testimony, the frequency of Daubert (or Robinson, the Texas equivalent to Daubert) hearings in response to such challenges, the factors explicitly considered (to the extent we are able to discern them from the trial court documents, and from the record on appeal, if any), and the outcomes in such cases.  The pilot study will also examine the feasibility of evaluating judicial decision making in the area of  expert future dangerousness testimony.