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11 Must See Expert Witnesses

Witness.net — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 02:45:42 +0000

Allow me to introduce (in no particular order) some of the newest members of our network at http://www.witness.net .

Please take a moment to
• see who they are
• review their expertise
• visit their website
• and connect with them on LinkedIn

Gary Cole
http://cli.gs/cole

Kenneth Goodman
http://cli.gs/goodman

Barry Lusk
http://cli.gs/lusk

Lamar Casparis
http://cli.gs/casparis

Stuart Bagley
http://cli.gs/bagley

Ayman Nassar
http://cli.gs/nassar

Jesse Hackell
http://cli.gs/hackell

Donald Parker
http://cli.gs/parker

Chuck Tomb
http://cli.gs/tomb

Bruce Silverman
http://cli.gs/silverman

Mukul Verma
http://cli.gs/verma

If you would like more information on how the Expert Witness Network can help you with your expert witness practice, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly.

Have a great day.

Rich Spies
http://www.witness.net
207-939-3266
rspies@witness.net

Featured Expert Witnesses

Witness.net — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:09:57 +0000

Allow me to introduce (in no particular order) some of the newest members of our network at http://www.witness.net . Please take a moment to see who they are, what they do and then introduce yourself.

Lou Fey
Fey Consulting LLC
http://ow.ly/1tIfE

Gary Lee
Underwriting Solutions, LLC
http://ow.ly/1tIlM

Paul Dicke
Holistech Energy Solutions, LLC
http://ow.ly/1tIny

Eric Uffman, Ph.D.
Chemir Analytical Services
http://ow.ly/1tIoD

Larry A Fabian
Larry A. Fabian, LLC
http://ow.ly/1tIpb

Rocky Arnold
http://ow.ly/1tIpR

Ashok Abbott
Business Valuation, Inc.
http://ow.ly/1tIqB

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly with any questions or if you are interested hearing more about how the Expert witness Network can help you “get found”..

Rich Spies
http://www.witness.net
207-939-3266
expert@witness.net

Can a frog be an expert witness?

Witness.net — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:16:40 +0000

Megan Lynch Reporting
megan.lynch@cbsradio.com

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. (KMOX) — Some tiny amphibians could impact a Metro East court case.

As KMOX News has reported, the Holiday Shores Sanitary District is suing the makers of Atrazine to get the common agriculture chemical cleaned out of drinking water.

Now University of California – Berkeley biologist Tyrone Hayes says male frogs exposed to the herbicide started producing the female hormone estrogen, “and the problem that humans should worry about is that the local production of estrogen is very important in breast cancer. So we have a chemical that potentially promotes the growth of breast cancer.”

Hayes tells KMOX some of the male African clawed frogs exposed to EPA-acceptable levels of atrazine were chemically castrated. Others turned into egg-laying females.

Manufacturers fighting the Southern Illinois lawsuit to clean Atrazine out of water supplies say the new research on frogs is all wet. Syngenta is questioning Hayes’ methods, saying they lack transparency.

“Well, that’s money talking, not science,” says Hayes, who adds his research is triple-checked by the peer review journals that publish it. “Remember I worked with those guys and I know that they manipulate data and statistics to make things look the way they want it to look. That’s why I stopped working with them.”

The US EPA is in the process of re-evaluating the safety of Atrazine. Some agriculture groups fear a loss of the chemical could cut crop yields.

The Dirty Dozen Contraindications of Spinal Manipulation

Witness.net — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:55:44 +0000

Dr. Andrew Mark Rodgers, D.C,,M.S.,B.S.,C.F.S.

There is a standard of care to be followed that dictates the caution that must be exercised when administering medical spinal manipulation treatments.

The medical spinal manipulation can be chiropractic, osteopathic or rendered by other medical or non-medical persons all potentially ending in disastrous results. A definitive diagnosis and prognosis must be reached prior to treatment through a comprehensive history evaluation and examination. There is a systematic medical protocol that must be adhered to. This may even lead to radiological or imaging studies (MRI) prior to spinal manipulative treatment (SMT).

Most important in this discovery procedure is to determine if this patient is a candidate for spinal manipulative treatment (SMT). There symptoms may not be coming from spinal or pelvic misalignments. There spinal and or pelvic structures may not be in good structural condition to accept a manipulation procedure. There can be so many co-morbidity factors, such as congenital abnormalities, prior accidents, family histories and or cardiovascular susceptibilities that could end in death or stroke. These all must be ruled out prior to any treatment.

Please understand that this list is not meant to decrease the scope of what spinal manipulation treats, but to minimize injuries caused by spinal manipulative treatment (SMT).

These are some of the deadly sins, but the Dirty Dozen Contraindications are as follows:

1) Rule out extruded disc myelopathy and refer out for a MRI any suspicion of a protruded disc that may have any degree of an annular tear.

2) Rule out cardiovascular predisposing factors based on family history. Perform at least four vertebral artery insufficiency tests. Especially in cases of females, smokers, or users of steroid, birth control and blood thinner medications.

3) Check the structural integrity of the osseous integrity of the osseous structures prior to spinal manipulative treatment (SMT). For example: Osteoporotic and Osteoarthiritic Degenerative Disease.

4) Check for congenital abnormalities or space-occupying lesions. Yes, this can take time, but dig deep and be a good detective and refer for additional radiological and/or diagnostic imaging studies.

5) Check vital signs, especially temperature. There could be an infectious process developing.

6) Remember that visceral symptoms mimicking musculoskeletal symptoms may not warrant spinal manipulative treatment (SMT) and may require immediate medical or emergency room referral.

7) Do not perform spinal manipulative treatment (SMT) into an acute spastic muscle region.

Do not perform spinal manipulative treatment (SMT) into a spinal region with bilateral radicular extremity symptoms without an MRI. This is crucial if other orthopedic neurological tests are positive.

9) Spinal manipulative treatment (SMT) is not going to decrease the progressive destructive effects of congenital juvenile idiopathic scoliosis.

10) The “standard of care” is that if symptoms do not abate, even a little, within two weeks of care is to refer the patient and co-treat with another medical physician for further diagnostics and treatment.

11) Unbelievable as it may seem and quite obvious, do not perform spinal manipulative treatment (SMT) into surgical fusion hardware, especially if the surgery was recent.

12) Finally, remember “What can do good can do harm!” Activator and other mechanical spinal manipulative treatment (SMT) tools can do harm to a contraindicated patient.

Please note that this listing is not meant to decrease the scope of treatment possibilities that spinal manipulative treatment (SMT) can be of value to, but to point out the need to exercise caution when considering a patient for spinal manipulative treatment (SMT), which is certainly a medical procedure.

Dr. Andrew Rodgers, D.C.,M.S.,B.S.,C.F.S.

Fort Lee Chiropractic Associates

Fort Lee, NJ

201-592-6200

The role of medical expert witnesses: the Goudge Inquiry

Witness.net — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:04:00 +0000

The role of a medical expert witness needs to be strictly defined and carefully controlled during legal proceedings and physicians need to be aware of their role, states an analysis of the Goudge Inquiry into pediatric forensic pathology published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

The Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology by Justice Stephen Goudge looked into the flawed expert testimony of Ontario pathologist Dr. Charles Smith which has been linked to several miscarriages of justice, including the wrongful conviction of Sherry Sherret-Robinson that was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal in December 2009.

“Several commentators have suggested that, when the adversarial system is working as it should, our courts are a robust forum for highlighting matters of scientific controversy,” write the authors. “Goudge’s report is a tragic narrative of the mischief that results when the system is not functioning effectively.”

In the CMAJ analysis, the Honourable Frank Iacobucci and coauthor Graeme Hamilton describe 4 reasons to carefully control the use of expert witnesses, a 4-part test for determining legal admissibility of expert evidence and summarize Justice Goudge’s concerns over how pathologists interact with the Canadian legal system. They also include recommendations from the Goudge Inquiry on the role of the expert medical witness.

They conclude that for the legal system to function well, each participant must do their part. “Expert witnesses must give fair, objective and impartial testimony, irrespective of whether they have been retained by a party or appointed by the court. They must also be sensitive to the vulnerabilities of the system and do their utmost to present evidence in a manner than ensures its intelligibility.”

San Diego DUI Lawyer Finds Dishonesty in DUI CaseTestimony

Witness.net — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:29:00 +0000

From Scottsdale-DUI-Lawyer Blog

When it comes to court time, the prosecution (police or sheriff’s department) will often use evidence from their key witness in the crime lab. The expert that provides evidence of toxicology is the crime lab’s blood-alcohol expert. These key witnesses, often called forensic toxicologists, will often go to the stand and describe what amount of alcohol was found in the blood, what is done to find this level while describing the steps in laymen’s terms. They are probably the singe most important witness, because they back up the evidence of blood alcohol levels — something that a breathalyzer may not do 100 percent of the time.

The honesty of all those in the chain of evidence gathering at the police department is important to the case at hand, but recently a San Diego DUI lawyer found the toxicologist’s testimony odd since most of his account seem to come from a paper he was referring to during questioning.

Afterwards, San Diego attorney Cole Casey approached the toxicologist and asked him what he was reading during the testimony. To his surprise the witness showed him the paper he was referencing and found it to be a strict instruction list on how to answer. The instructions explained to the witness on what to say verbatim, not what their experience was or anything that they knew unique to the case.

If fact some of the questions where basically saying to play dumb and state that “it’s impossible to remember each blood draw.” This was the prosecutions method of putting away DUI cases without a matter of a doubt simply to make their toxicologist follow along a set of guidelines on what to do rather than what they know happened during testing — a true conflict and a pretty blatant case of dishonesty.

Another ‘Expert Witness’ Gone Wrong

Another toxicologist was found, not to have been giving testimony with scripted lines, but scripting a false resume instead. During an employee record audit at the San Diego Sheriff Department’s Crime lab, it was found that an often used key witness, Raymond Cole, had falsified his resume. It was found that Cole’s resume states that instead of graduating from Berkeley in pre-med, he had actually graduated with a bachelor’s in political science.

Unfortunately Cole had nearly 30 years working in the crime lab with many cases where he was used at the witness stand. Notices of the allegedly perjured testimony went out to the San Diego DUI lawyers that used him.

DUI Wars: A view from the expert witness perspective

Witness.net — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:05:00 +0000

From: DUIAttorney.com

Opinion – The continuing battle between prosecutors and defense attorneys in DUI trials is similar in many ways to the old arms race between the United States and the old Soviet Union. As one side develops a new “attack” strategy, the other side develops a new “defense”.

Sometimes the government wins, sometimes the defense wins.

Each side gains a better understanding of the legal and scientific aspects of DUI cases. The end result is that the government is encouraged to do a better job, investigating, documenting, and prosecuting DUI cases. As the government does their job better, the likelihood of a guilty person “getting off” of a DUI charge lowers significantly.

In the few years I’ve been available to the defense community as an independent criminalist, I’ve seen improvement in the way officers investigate DUI cases, document DUI investigations, crime labs carry out analysis, and prosecutor’s conduct cases.

After a seminar I gave on blood alcohol analysis, I was approached by an employee of the Arizona Department of Public Safety Crime Lab. They told me I made some valid points in my presentation.

Within a few months that lab had instituted new changes, to improve the quality of their analysis.

Another laboratory has purchased new equipment, when old equipment couldn’t adequately be shown to be contaminant free.

One law enforcement agency now properly handles blood draw samples, to help ensure the integrity of the evidence.

Officers have approached me during trial breaks to clarify points I made during testimony about misunderstandings the officer had about field sobriety testing.

Common terms incorrectly used during testimony as being phased out for more accurate terms.

It’s interesting to note that my work as an independent criminalist has had a greater effect in improving the quality of DUI investigation in Arizona, than when I worked for the government.

About the author: Erik Brown is a forensic scientist who frequently testifies and consults about DUI blood and breath testing, field sobriety testing and gives expert opinions in court. He is the author of the forensics blog, Benchnotes.

Job of expert witness is no easy thing to endure…

Witness.net — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:20:00 +0000

By Richard Meehan
For The Norwich Bulletin

Trials often require expert testimony to establish facts that only one possessing certain training and experience can describe. Most often, experts are highly credentialed medical doctors or have doctorate degrees. An expert, however, can be anyone possessing knowledge in an area beyond that of the average juror. The classic comic example is mechanic/hairdresser/girlfriend, Mona LIsa Vito, in the movie “My Cousin Vinny.” A knowledgeable car mechanic can qualify as an expert in automotives issues.

Once a proper foundation is developed, the expert may give an opinion based upon the facts of the case and a reasonable degree of certainty. An expert may not testify to possibilities, nor engage in speculation and conjecture.

Jurors may accept or reject part or all of an expert’s opinion. The trial lawyer’s challenge is to educate the jury on the expert’s background and basis of the opinions offered.

Trying complex cases over three decades, I’ve had a legion of experts on the witness stand ranging from the world of the Miss Vitos’ to Yale and Harvard professors. We start with a recitation of the expert’s education and training, professional associations, honors, awards, publications or teaching experience.

Next, a review of the evidence through a hypothetical question that asks the expert to assume certain facts. Often those facts are disputed, which later presents a platform for opposing counsel to challenge the opinion on cross-examination.

With the exception of standard of care experts in malpractice cases, experts are not permitted to give opinions on the ultimate fact in issue. That is viewed as invading the fact-finding province of the jury.

Recently, I had the unique experience of testifying as an expert in a criminal trial practice. The issue was whether a defense lawyer failed to provide a convicted client effective assistance of counsel as required by the Sixth Amendment. My opinion was that he had not.

Read the entire article here.

What Jurors Probably Don’t Know About Defense Medical Experts

Witness.net — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:05:00 +0000

Written by Alison De Villiers
From InjuryBoard.com

When a Plaintiff is injured due to the negligence of another, the Plaintiff must rely on her doctors to testify as to the nature and extent of her injuries. In most states, like Ohio, the attorney for the Defendant/insurance company is then allowed to hire a doctor to examine the Plaintiff and render an opinion on the nature and extent of the Plaintiff’s injuries. In the Cincinnati area, my clients are repeatedly sent to the same few doctors to be examined. It is extremely rare that one of these doctors will agree with the Plaintiff’s treating physicians regarding the extent of the Plaintiff’s injuries.

To the typical juror, the defense medical experts may seem to be on equal footing as the Plaintiff’s treating physicians. The attorney for the Plaintiff can do her best to show how much the defense medical expert is being paid for his time and how much that equals out to per year. But, it seems to have little effect on jurors. The defense attorneys often argue: Why would this doctor risk his medical reputation by sticking his neck out for me or my firm in this case?
What the jurors do not know is that if the defense medical doctors start agreeing with the Plaintiff’s doctors, the attorney for Allstate or State Farm will not be as inclined hire them to do defense medical exams. Lose one insurance company and that could equal hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in lost income.

Although this article written for doctors about serving as an expert witness in cases was written in 2003, the information remains relevant. It emphasizes the high ethical obligations of medical expert witnesses, both for the Plaintiffs and the Defendants. It points out that one of the main problems in the legal system in regards to expert testimony is the lack of accountability for statements made by expert witnesses under oath. The article suggests peer review of expert witness testimony to ensure that it is medically sound. Another suggestion is to have court appointed defense medical examiners.

The 6 Phases of Denial

Witness.net — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:02:00 +0000

Article written by one of the Expert Witness Networks newest expert consultants….Bo Mitchellof 911 Consulting, Inc. To learn more about Mr. Mitchell, please visit his expert link here: 911 Consulting

“I never thought this could happen.”

Every fire fighter or police officer at the scene of an organization like yours has heard that whisper of astonishment. It’s human nature to hope that nothing will ever go wrong.

But it does.

Denial is an expensive enemy. 911 Consulting has identified “The 6 Phases of Denial” among workplace leaders:

It won’t happen to us
It won’t happen here
It won’t happen now
If it does happen, it won’t be so bad
If it is bad, our insurance will cover it
Ohmygod, why weren’t we prepared for this?!

The price of denial is only realized after a disaster befalls the organization. Few can afford the productivity collapse, ruinous lawsuits and critical publicity that follow a crisis.

Luck is not a strategy. Emergency preparedness is.

Are you making any of these 7 dangerous assumptions?

No one, including visitors, will ever suffer a medical event while at our site
None of our employees have a violent person in their lives
Everyone knows their primary and secondary emergency exit routes
No one needs to know how to use the fire extinguishers
When anyone calls 911, emergency responders always arrive within 4 minutes
There will never be a toxic release upwind from our location
We have an emergency preparedness plan that’s legal and up to standard

Dangerous assumptions place your people in jeopardy and expose your organization to risk.

When you plan and prepare for emergencies, you can better protect your people, assets and property—and mitigate the losses, critical publicity and ruinous lawsuits that follow a crisis.

911 Consulting guides you in compliance, preventing incidents, preparing for emergencies, responding to a crisis and resuming operations.

Don’t expose your organization to unnecessary risk. We’ll transform dangerous assumptions into safe practices.

911consulting.net