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Sam Sommers, a Tufts University assistant professor of psychology, testified last week as an expert witness on whether juror racism tainted Christopher McCowen’s first-degree murder conviction in 2006. A predominantly white jury found McCowen, who is black, guilty of the 2002 murder of Christa Worthington. Also convicted of aggravated rape and aggravated burglary, McCowan was sentenced to state prison for life without parole. The psychology expert witness testified on how racial stereotypes can affect jury deliberations. Mary Ann Bragg of Cape Cod Times also reports:

…Sommers acknowledged most individuals are not “at the mercy of these stereotypes” and they have the capacity – if reminded about the seriousness of the decision – to put their stereotypes aside enough to serve as impartial jurors…In Nickerson’s questioning of 12 jurors last week, the judge focused primarily on three alleged incidents of potential juror misconduct: whether juror Marlo George, who is white, used the term “black man” in a racist manner; whether juror Carol Cahill, who is also white, told fellow jurors she feared McCowen because he was a black man staring at her; and whether juror Eric Gomes, a Cape Verdean, told fellow jurors that blacks had a tendency toward violence.

…Sommers testified that choices of adjectives to describe a defendant such as “black” show what information a speaker thinks is relevant. Use of the adjective “black” would be warranted if the speaker needed to distinguish between two men, one black and one white, Sommers said. Otherwise, “it’s an indication of the belief that race is relevant,” the Tufts professor testified.

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In How Attorneys Can Best Utilize Their Medical Expert Witness: A Medical Expert’s Perspective, Dr. Vernon M. Neppe MD, PhD, FRSSAf, FAPA, writes that expert witness testimony depends on finding an appropriate match for your case. This excerpt deals with document preparation.

There are costs that are necessary:

Rather obvious is the review of the appropriate medical records. All records that are relevant to the expert’s testimony should be supplied. Sometimes, with key witnesses, this may mean all documents pertinent to the case. Whereas this may not be entirely ideal, pragmatism plays a role. The attorney should be careful whom (s)he chooses for that task, as doing this for five or six experts could easily make costs overwhelming. Generally, in each case, there may be one or two key witnesses. The others may be declared in a limited way and receive all relevant documents for the specific area of expertise only. They should carefully obtain only what is relevant information for the specific declaration. The easiest cost saver is a well constructed file of pertinent pages with indexes as well as a brief summary letter containing only facts, e.g. date of alleged incident, demographics, alleged claims and questions to be answered.

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Anne Sutherland, a professor of anthropology at UC Riverside, testified as an expert witness Friday during the penalty phase of Tony Ricky Yonko’s murder trial. Yonko, 45, a Gypsy, was convicted last month of murder for the October 2002 beating death of Paul Ngo, 41, inside his Lake Elsinore home during a burglary. The behavioral science expert witness stated that a Gypsy being convicted of murder is uncommon because of the American Gypsy culture’s distain for violence. Sutherland testified that in her extensive study of American Gypsies she had not come across a murder case involving a Gypsy defendant before this one. Tammy McCoy of PE.com also writes:

Sutherland was hired by Yonko’s defense team and testified about the Gypsy culture and the role it played in Yonko’s life. “They don’t commit acts of violence. They consider that really prohibited,” Sutherland said of her experience studying American Gypsies.

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Sam Sommers, a Tufts University assistant professor of psychology, testified yesterday as an expert witness on whether juror racism tainted Christopher McCowen’s first-degree murder conviction in 2006. A predominantly white jury found McCowen, who is black, guilty of the 2002 murder of Christa Worthington. Also convicted of aggravated rape and aggravated burglary, McCowan was sentenced to state prison for life without parole. The psychology expert witness testified on how racial stereotypes can affect jury deliberations. Mary Ann Bragg of Cape Cod Times also reports:

“Stereotypes are very pervasive in our society at large,” Sommers said on the witness stand in the small, over-heated courtroom. One common stereotype is the association of black men with violent tendencies, Sommers said. And even for jurors who believe they’re fair-minded, that type of stereotype can be triggered when a trial is “racially charged” by factors including media publicity and remarks in testimony, he said.

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The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, owner of the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Hartford CT, has challenged the November vote by dealers to unionize. During the NLRB hearing, the tribe questioned why the ballots were printed only in English and why an election notice was only printed in one Chinese dialect. Both the tribe and the UAW called their own language and linguistics expert witnesses to testify. Heather Allen of The Day.com also reports that the UAW’s expert witness, Guanhua Wang, an associate professor of history at the University of Connecticut said:

…the difference in the two languages really comes down to 2,000 to 3,000 written characters. Professor Wang said in traditional Chinese, there are probably 50,000 to 60,000 written characters and only a couple of thousand look differently. In a perfect world, the educator said, both the simplified and traditional translations would be included, but he said it is not always the case…

Richard Hankins, one of the three attorneys representing the tribe, noted that in the last five years, the NLRB regional office has held 24 union elections, and in only one – the Foxwoods election – were the ballots not printed in other languages. He added that more than a quarter of the eligible voters in the election – about 700 dealers – identify themselves as Asian or Pacific Islander, proving that “a significant percentage of those voters need written communication in Chinese.”

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The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, owner of the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Hartford CT, has challenged the November vote by dealers to unionize. During the NLRB hearing, the tribe questioned why the ballots were printed only in English and why an election notice was only printed in one Chinese dialect. Both the tribe and the UAW called their own language and linguistics expert witnesses to testify. The Day.com reports that the tribe’s expert witness, Alex Want argued that:

..many immigrants – including dealers at the casino – cannot read traditional written Chinese, but only “simplified written Chinese.” Tribal attorneys tried to establish that “traditionally written Chinese” is generally understood by highly educated members of the population, while UAW lawyers countered that it is now more common for people to have the ability to read both.

Wang, who operates a language translation service with is wife in Minnesota, said the spoken word in the two variations of Chinese is exactly the same, but the written characters are different, and that’s what poses a problem in the posting of the election notice.

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New York Plainview Water District and its hydrology and ground water expert witnesses did not convince a state judge that oil companies should pay for clean up as a result of gas stations spills. Newsday.com also writes:

The lawsuit had drawn interest because it could have required ExxonMobil, Shell Oil and Cumberland Farms to pay for future pollution, even though contamination from leaking underground storage tanks had yet to reach the district’s wells. But Justice Kenneth A. Davis dismissed the case Wednesday in State Supreme Court, ruling that the district had failed to prove the spills, which contained the potentially carcinogenic fuel additive MTBE, posed a “real and imminent” threat to the wells. Davis’ decision followed weeks of exhaustive testimony during the summer from expert witnesses on local hydrology and various computer models used to predict whether the contamination was likely to hit Plainview’s wells. The judge agreed with the defendants’ argument that MTBE did not threaten the wells, a conclusion shared by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

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In How Attorneys Can Best Utilize Their Medical Expert Witness: A Medical Expert’s Perspective, Dr. Vernon M. Neppe MD, PhD, FRSSAf, FAPA, writes that expert witness testimony depends on finding an appropriate match for your case. This excerpt deals with balanced opinions.

The medical expert’s perception of the strengths and weaknesses of a case must be balanced and not rejected because his / her opinion disagrees with that of the retaining attorney’s. The expert’s opinions may involve multiple different areas of the case. For example, the expert may describe significant brain damage and this may not be something the defense attorney may want to hear; on the other hand, he may describe the profound limitations of ascribing causality to the injury that is being alleged. Alternatively, his / her perception of brain damage may actually be less than that of an opposition expert so (s)he may still be so declared!

More to follow on assisting civil litigation attorneys with medical experts from Dr. Neppe, Director, Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute, Seattle, WA, www.brainvoyage.com.

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Expert witness James P. Graham testified for the defense in Maria Parra Helenius’ lawsuit against the Dodgers and her assailant. Helenius says she was left legally blind from a punch in the right eye by Denis Ordaz and that Ordaz should have been ejected earlier by the Dodgers security team. The security expert witness supervised various bicentennial events in 1776 and opined that “Miss Helenius violated the No. 1 personal safety rule: A person should always flee from an aggressive person and not confront them unless trapped.” KNBC.com also reports:

When Helenius complained to two uniformed Los Angeles police officers supplementing the Dodger security team that day about Ordaz’s unruly behavior, they did the right thing by relocating Ordaz’s group instead of detaining or ejecting her, Graham said.

“It is my opinion that the L.A. Dodgers took reasonable, professional, thorough and effective security precautions,” Graham said. “They had no right to detain (Ordaz) because she had not committed a crime.”

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Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court will hear an appeal of a massive class-action lawsuit that alleges Wal-Mart Stores Inc. deprived hourly employees of their earned wages and rest and meal breaks. Wal-Mart employees’ attorney, Robert Bonsignore, has 35 cases pending against Wal-Mart in other states. Wal-Mart employees have already won a $167 million judgment in California and a $151 million judgment in Pennsylvania. The class action expert witness for the employees says that Wal-Mart employees were deprived of compensation for over 10 million missed rest breaks and over 21,000 incidents of one-minute clock-outs. Donna Goodison of
Boston Herald.com also writes:

But a Wal-Mart spokesperson said a “great majority” of courts have ruled that wage-and-hour cases aren’t suited for class-action status because “every individual’s circumstances are unique. It is our policy to pay every associate for every hour worked, and any manager who violates that policy is subject to discipline, up to and including termination,” the spokesperson said. “The company has very clear policies on meal and rest breaks.”