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LaVon Chisley, 23, a former Penn State football player from Maryland, was convicted Friday of murder in the stabbing death of former roommate Langston Carraway. Chisley was found guilty of first- and third-degree murder based on DNA evidence and expert witness testimony. The footprint expert witness testified that a pattern left by a shoe on the victim’s linoleum floor matched the wear pattern on shoes owned by the defendant.

At one time Chisley had a promising football career, but he was kicked off the Penn State team because of poor grades and at the time of the murder he was $50,000 in debt. He may have been after the cash that Carraway, kept in his apartment.

BaltimoreSun.com goes on to write:

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In How to Choose the Right Expert Court Witness Chris Robertson gives quick tips on how to narrow your search for the right expert witness. Robertson, of Majon International, an internet marketing company in Los Osos, CA, writes “For court matters involving real estate, business partnerships, Board of Directors, wrongful terminations, minority shareholder rights, and other related subjects, finding the right expert court witness for the job is not always a simple process.” Bias and conflict of interest should be considered in researching and hiring the best expert witness for your case.

Bias and Conflict of Interest

Before hiring an expert court witness, be sure that he does not have a conflict of interest or any potential reasons to be biased in the case (past or present). Even if the expert is not biased, there may be things in his past that the other side could point out and weaken his influence and evidence in the eyes of the court.

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In How to Choose the Right Expert Court Witness Chris Robertson gives quick tips on how to narrow your search for the right expert witness. Robertson, of Majon International, an internet marketing company in Los Osos, CA, writes:

Choosing a Court Witness for Complex Cases

With complex cases, be sure the court witness you are considering is willing to work closely with your team. Keep him informed of every development in the case, and involve him in important decisions that would benefit from his opinion. But even during a complex case, please do respect his privacy and independence.

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Friday’s arguments in the class-action lawsuit against DuPont and New York-based T.L. Diamond & Co. mark the end of the first phase of what could be a four-part trial. Both sides attempted to discredit each other’s expert witnesses in the lawsuit which alleges that DuPont and Diamond dumped arsenic, cadmium and lead on the site of a former plant. The plaintiffs are seeking long-term medical monitoring, property damages, and punitive damages paid to thousands of people in and around Spelter, W. Va. Environmental expert witnesses testified on testing methods, comparison standards, and dangers to humans. According to BusinessWeek.com:

An attorney for some of the residents said the former zinc-smelting plant left “a big cancerous tumor” in a small West Virginia community, and DuPont should be required not only to clean up the mess but also to monitor the health of the people living around it.

Defense attorneys, however, say there is no evidence to support that claim, and DuPont capped the site so it might someday be redeveloped. “It cannot be denied that DuPont did good things here,” insisted defense attorney Jeffrey A. Hall.

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In How to Choose the Right Expert Court Witness Chris Robertson gives quick tips on how to narrow your search for the right expert witness. Robertson, of Majon International, an internet marketing company in Los Osos, CA, writes:

For court matters involving real estate, business partnerships, Board of Directors, wrongful terminations, minority shareholder rights, and other related subjects, finding the right expert court witness for the job is not always a simple process. There are many factors to consider. Here are some quick tips to narrow your search for a dependable court witness in these fields.

The Right Qualifications

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The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation plans to open its lab for a rare weekend testing to accomodate expert witnesses hired by defense attorneys in the murder case against Clint Baker. Baker is accused of beating and cutting the throat of Todd Rich in March. The small amount of blood found for DNA testing would not be sufficient for separate tests. Previously the OSBI had told the court it was not permitted to allow outside DNA expert witnesses into its lab to observe testing due to “confidentiality requirements.” NewsOK.com also writes:

A few days after the OSBI alerted prosecutors that the forensic evidence would be consumed during testing, attorneys for Baker protested the testing and asked that an expert hired by the defense be allowed to test the samples. In July, a judge ruled that experts hired by the defense should be allowed to be present when forensic testing was done on the DNA evidence.

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In Ten Ways to Torpedo Your Expert, Dr. Joni Johnston, President and CEO of Work Relationships, shares strategy on how to avoid “torpedoing” your expert witness.

Strategy #1B: Avoid the expert who is biased in their presentation. Johnston describes two common pitfalls: 1) the use of treating clinicians and 2) the hiring of the one-sided testifier.

A treating clinician relies on self-reported information from his or her patient. That’s very different from someone whose mission is to find corroborating or contradictory evidence in the total breadth of available data. A treating clinician should only be a fact witness, basing his or her testimony solely on a report of what they did, thought, and documented during therapy.

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In Ten Ways to Torpedo Your Expert, Dr. Joni Johnston, President and CEO of Work Relationships, gives strategy on how to avoid “torpedoing” your expert witness.

Strategy #1A: Avoid bias. Don’t use a misguided bias in selecting the expert. Dr. Johnson describes one of the most common biases in expert witness selection is “the belief that the most impressiviely credentialed expert is alwsays the best witness. In reality, the ivory tower academic who looks good on paper can windup boring the jury to tears. Or worse, come across as arrogant or unfeeling.” She describes a psychiatry expert witness who infuriated the jury by dissecting a distraught plaintiff. The expert’s unfeeling demeanor resulted in actually harming the defense.

Strategy #1B- 10 to follow.

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Environmental expert witness Erwin Iskandar said Thursday that Sutiyoso’s Jakarta administration should be held responsible for the massive floods that crippled the city in February. Iskandar is the head of Trisakti University’s research institute and said the local administration should have been able to properly anticipate the February floods. The governement has been criticized for failing to anticipate the floods. The JakartaPost.com also reports the expert witness stating:

‘Jakarta has been flooded for the past 400 years. With the help of his advisors, the governor should have been able to anticipate (the floods) through a number of efforts, including fixing the flood gates built during the Dutch colonial era’… The February floods inundated around 70 percent the national capital, paralyzing transport and commerce and forcing many to move to makeshift shelters… Thursday’s hearing was part of a court case filed by Jakarta residents represented by non-profit organization Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta) against the administration and Sutiyoso. The residents alleged both the governor and his administration had been negligent in their efforts to prevent and deal with the consequences of the flooding.

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Fracturing her skull and suffering permanent disabilities while ice skating, a patron of the Ice House Skating Rink in Carey, NC, filed a liability suit against the rink. The expert witness in her case testified that the skating rink should have had an employee patrolling the ice to stop unruly skaters and post signs warning against horseplay. The sports and recreation expert witness said the Ice House was negligent in not having a rink guard on the ice surface as required by the Ice Skating Institute of America. However injuryboard.com also reports:

Upon a motion made by lawyers for the Ice House Skating Rink, the trial judge dismissed the case without allowing a jury to rule on whether the Ice House was liable to the patron for her injuries. Because of her head injuries, the injured customer has no memory of the fall and could not locate any witnesses who saw the accident. However, her family members testified that a boy told the clamant that he was sorry shortly after the accident. In holding that the claimant’s evidence was not sufficient, the Court of Appeals wrote: “Given the lack of information about how plaintiff fell, the current record is devoid of evidence that supports an inference that a rink guard could have prevented the fall. Accordingly, the statement by teenage boy does not establish that an act or omission by defendant caused the plaintiff’s damages.”

This case demonstrates the difficulty of proving liability when there are no eyewitnesses to the occurrence in question.