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Law and legal expert witness Stephen Saltzburg told the House Judiciary Committee Thursday that the CIA’s official explanation for destroying at least two videotapes depicting severe interrogation techniques “fails the straight-face test.” Expert witness Saltzburg is general counsel for the National Institute of Military Justice and a George Washington University Law School professor. RawStory.com also writes:

‘The rationale for destroying the tapes to protect the identity of the interrogators is almost as embarrassing as the destruction itself,’ said Saltzberg. He said that the tapes could easily have been modified to obscure the faces of those involved, and that regardless, the CIA keeps a written record of which officers interrogated detainees.

‘And so the explanation for destruction fails the straight-face test,’ he said. “The only plausible explanation, I believe, is that the CIA wanted to assure that those tapes would never be seen by any judicial tribunal — not even a military commission — and they would never be seen by a committee of Congress.’

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Crookston, MN Police Officer Donald Rasicot was found not guilty Wednesday of misconduct and assault during a 2006 arrest of a drunken man. The man’s injuries were not consistent with a kick to the head, according to police procedures expert witness, Joe Dutton, a 30-year veteran of the Golden Valley Police Department who has trained thousands of law enforcement officers, including FBI agents, on proper use of force. He was the final expert witness and said Rasicot used appropriate force and that he would have done the same in similar circumstances. GrandForksHerald.com reports the:

Former Marine and veteran police officer who has been in trouble once before over his use of force, Rasicot faced possible time behind bars. He was charged early this year with two counts of misconduct by a public officer, both gross misdemeanors, and a count of fifth-degree assault, a misdemeanor. The first two counts each carried a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $3,000 fine. The charges came from allegations made by Jason Knutson, 24, Crookston, after Rasicot arrested him in August of last year.

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In Get the Most From Engineering Experts, Christopher L. Brinkley writes on how thorough preparation of engineering expert witnesses is the key to winning your case. In this excerpt Brinkley discusses the reliability of the expert witness’s work.

The reliability of an engineer’s work may also be supported by testimony from defense witnesses. The defendant’s in-house engineers and testifying expert should be questioned regarding the processes they followed in drawing their conclusions about the product and the materials on which they relied in performing their work. When the engineering experts testfiying on behalf of both the plaintiff and the defendant have used the same type of methodology and data, you can make the inference that the work is reliable, notwithstanding any difference in the ultimate conclusions.

More to follow…….

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In Get the Most From Engineering Experts, Christopher L. Brinkley writes on how thorough preparation of engineering expert witnesses is the key to winning your case. In this excerpt Brinkley discusses challenges you may face regarding their expert witness testimony.

It is good practice for the expert to conduct his or her analyses in a manner that will satisfy a Daubert challenge. The expert should rely on materials and methods that are used by engineers working in the relevant industry. These include:

6) raw test data, test reports, applicable test protocols, photographs and videotapes, and equipment calibration reports 7) mathematical formulas, input data, and calculations preformed 8) notes, photographs, videotapes, and other materials related to inspections, measurements, examinations, or analyses 8) other factual information relevant to the engineer’s analysis 10) diagrams, animations, models, charts, or illustrations of the engineer’s work and the underlying engineering concepts.

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In Get the Most From Engineering Experts, Christopher L. Brinkley writes on how thorough preparation of engineering expert witnesses is the key to winning your case. In this excerpt Brinkley discusses challenges you may face regarding their expert witness testimony.

It is good practice for the expert to conduct his or her analyses in a manner that will satisfy a Daubert challenge. The expert should rely on materials and methods that are used by engineers working in the relevant industry. These include:

1) industry or government treatises, studies, and other publications referencing applicable engineering principals 2) engineering and design and performance standards related to the product at issue 3) engineering reports and drawings related to the product at issue, similar products, and products with alternative designs 4) patents related to the product at issue and improved designs

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In Get the Most From Engineering Experts, Christopher L. Brinkley writes on how thorough preparation of engineering expert witnesses is the key to winning your case. In this excerpt Brinkley discusses challenges you may face regarding their expert witness testimony.

As a threshold matter, engineering experts must satisfy the jurisdiction’s criteria for the admissibility of expert testimony and must support their work accordingly. In the federal courts, Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and the Daubert trilogy of cases provide the prerequisites for admissibility. Under Daubert, expert evidence must be relevant and based on sound reasoning and methods. To determine if an expert’s analysis is reliable, the trial court must consider whether the underlying methodology has been tested, has been subjected to peer review and publication, has an identifiable error rate, has standards controlling the application of the technique, and has been generally accepted in the field.

Excerpted from Trial Magazine, November 2007

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In Get the Most From Engineering Experts, Christopher L. Brinkley writes on how thorough preparation of engineering expert witnesses is the key to winning your case. In this excerpt Brinkley discusses challenges you may face regarding their expert witness testimony.

Virtually every products liability case requires the assistance of one or more experts in the field of engineering. To use thse expert effectively at trial, you must be prepared to contront and overcome the unique legal and practical challenges associated with their testimony.

The law views expert engineering evidence from a unique perspective. Whether an engineer’s work constitutes sound practice within the engineering community is often of secondary importance to how the law evaluates the engineer’s methodology. As a result, you must make sure your engineering experts are aware of the procedural and substantive law that is applicable to their testimony.

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Two expert witnesses in Louisville, KY had a bad day in court this week. First, antique weapon expert witness R.L. Wilson, along with Michael Salisbury, and Karen Salisbury, were charged with conspiring to defraud Owsley Brown Frazier and his International History Museum by taking commissions and kickbacks totaling $1.75 million.

Second, appraisal & valuation expert witness C.W. Slagle was forced to admit on Friday that he had fabricated part of his resume and admitted that he had falsely described himself as a University of Illinois graduate in civil engineering. Courier-journal.com also reports:

In response to questioning, Slagle claimed he attended the university though he didn’t finish — but an attorney for one of the defendants showed the jury letters from the university saying there was no record that he’d ever enrolled…. Slagle, of Scottsdale, Ariz., was hired to appraise weapons in September 2002, after museum officials began to suspect that Wilson may have inflated his valuations.

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Boston orthopedic surgery expert witness Dr. Brian Awbrey testified Wednesday that a succession of issues would have been avoided if Dubuque podiatrist Dr. Michael Arnz had avoided his use of a circular frame. Daniel Day is seeking monetary damages from The Finley Hospital. “There would have been no infection of the tibia, and we wouldn’t be here today,” Dr. Awbrey said. A former team doctor for the New England Revolution professional soccer team, Awbrey testified as an expert witness for Day’s attorneys. THonline also reports:

Day subsequently developed osteomyelitis, a serious bone infection that required four surgical procedures to remove dead bone. ‘The exposure of these additional risks (from the pins of the circular frame) is what led to his osteomyelitis directly,’ Awbrey said. Awbrey testified it would be unwise to operate on Day’s foot or tibia in the future, because any procedure would run the risk of reawakening any dormant osteomyelitis. However, on cross-examination, Awbrey did admit that a leg amputation could be performed and that this procedure would eliminate the risk of future osteomyelitis.

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Reporter Jennifer McPhee writes that some people say the “CSI effect” raises jurors’ expectations about what kind of forensic evidence they can expect criminalistics expert witnesses to deliver from every crime scene in the real world. “If I only come to court with a single fingerprint or a single piece of DNA, they are either going to think I’m stupid or lazy,” says Richard Devine, team leader at the Ontario Police College’s forensic training unit. In LawTimes.com McPhee also reports:

And even when the science on television is realistic, the scenarios aren’t, Devine later tells Law Times. “The bad guys in this province just drive by and shoot you. There’s nothing special about that. A good forensic investigator should be able to place the shooter. But I don’t want any bias that says a good forensic officer would have done this because that’s what they do on television.” Devine says one impact of these shows is they’ve made real world forensic investigators more professional and careful. Jurors are coming in looking for what they’ve seen on television, and also want to know how the Crown got the evidence and what it means for the trial, he says. Where people used to go to sleep during the forensic stuff, they don’t anymore. They are wide awake and they are listening. And they have a standard and that standard is created by the media,” says Devine.