Expert Witness Blog

In Cyberbullying, Trolling, and Cyberstalking: the Dark Side of Free Speech (part 1b), computer security expert witness Steve Burgess answers the question What is Free Speech?

Also not protected is harassment, the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of one party or a group, including threats and demands. This could include discrimination based on race, gender, or sexual preference. It could include particularly aggressive bill collecting, or some forms of blackmail

Threatening to inflict great bodily harm (“I will stab you in the eyeball,” would qualify. “I will smack you in the kisser,” would not) or death would be illegal if the person has an apparent ability to carry out the action. Idle threats would not likely be found to be illegal.

Gasoline explosion expert witnesses may report and testify on fuel explosions, flammable materials, and tanker truck explosions. On March 26 in Huimanguillo, in the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco, villagers tried to take gasoline from a tanker truck that had overturned late at night. Unfortunately, residents broke through a police perimeter and chased off firefighters in an attempt to take fuel. Eighteen people were killed in the explosion. Due to the flammability of the cargo, the possibility of survivors in the vicinity of a tanker truck accident is low.

http://www.cvtips.com/ writes:

Tanker trucks are powerful vehicles that haul liquid or semi-liquid cargo in long metal containers. Examples of liquid cargo can include fuel, food products and chemicals. The cargo can often be dangerous. The liquids can be flammable, corrosive, poisonous or even explosive. Handling such cargo requires extensive safety training. Driving trucks with a heavy liquid load also requires a different touch than hauling dry goods like lumber or furniture.

In Undue Influence in Making Bequests: A Forensic Psychiatrist Examines the Evidence, undue influence expert witness Stephen M. Raffle, M.D., writes:

One of the inferences for the exertion of “undue” influence is if a close or isolative relationship existed between the testator and the proponent of the changed will or trust at the time changes are entered into. When the beneficiary/caregiver isolates the testator from his/her other natural heirs, there is an index of suspicion to the psychiatrist for undue influence.

Another circumstantial fact may be a financial relationship between the “favored” beneficiary and the testator. For example, the favored beneficiary has check-writing authority and is otherwise being empowered to take over the financial affairs of the testator. Yet other example may be the receipt of a joint tenancy interest in real property even though the property was paid for entirely by the testator, or being employed by the testator’s business (or promoted if already an employee) up to and including being made an officer of the company.

In Cyberbullying, Trolling, and Cyberstalking: the Dark Side of Free Speech (part 1a), computer security expert witness Steve Burgess answers the question What is Free Speech?

To listen to, read, or watch the news, it is clear that there is broad misunderstanding about the right to free speech. It is not the freedom to say anything to anyone anywhere, but rather a prohibition to keep the government from denying us the right to express ourselves. The Bill of Rights asserts that we have certain freedoms simply by dint of being born human beings.

We treasure our freedoms and freedom of expression or speech is one of the most sacred. Having this right allows us to speak truth to power and to satirize fools. In fact, one of the earliest forms of protected speech may have been the Celtic bards who worked for tribal kings, satirizing poor (or opposing) rulers, but immune from retribution under Brehon law many hundreds of years ago, or even thousands of years under European Celtic tradition.