Should the Courts Incorporate a Best Evidence Rule into the Standard Determining the Admissibility of Scientific Testimony: Enough is Enough Even When It Is Not the Best

Striving to better, oft we mar what's well."'At one time the best evidence principle dominated the law of evidence.2 In a 1700 opinion, Chief Justice Holt referred to a requirement for "the best proof that the nature of the thing will afford ... , Midway through the 18th century Sir Geoffrey Gilbert 4 authored one of the first English evidence treatises.In that treatise, Gilbert proclaimed: "The first... and most signal Rule, in Relation to Evidence, is this, That a Man must have the utmost Evidence, the Nature of the Fact is capable of .... 5 Gilbert endeavored to "'subsume the whole of the law [of evidence] under a single principle, 'the best evidence rule.' 6 In the same vein, in his celebrated Commentaries, Blackstone stated that "the best evidence the nature of the case will admit of shall always be required, if possible to be had."7 In the 19th century, American writers took up the same theme.Greenleaf,