Articles Posted in Expert Witness Testimony

U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed struck down a 1998 U.S. law that makes it a crime for operators of Internet sites to let anyone under 17 have access to sexual material, rebuffing the government’s argument that software filters are ineffective and upholding earlier rulings that the law infringed on free-speech rights. The testimony of software expert witnesses were key to the decision.

The judge agreed with the expert witnesses that filtering software was generally effective. He found that there are many products that allow parents to block sexually explicit material. Furthermore, the products were widely available and often offered free by service providers. He noted that even the government’s own expert witness concluded that software filters are effective, the vast majority blocking at least 95 percent of sexually explicit Web pages.

Several medical expert witnesses and psychology experts are again expected to testify in the retrial of Daniel Ramsey of Keokuk, Iowa. His retrial began on Monday, April 2, 2007 in Lewistown, Iowa for the July 8, 1996, slayings of two girls. Ramsey was 18 when he was accused of the slayings, and 19 when he was first convicted and sentenced to death in 1997 by a Knox County jury. Ramsey’s conviction was overturned three years later, and it has taken seven years to start a new trial. The reasoning was that the insanity defense used in his first trial was later ruled unconstitutional. This will be the centerpiece of the expert witness testimony.

Former Lt. Gov. Earle E. Morris Jr.’s appeal of his securities-fraud conviction has been bumped up to the South Carolina Supreme Court.

Morris, 78, was former board chairman of Carolina Investors. In November 2004, he was convicted on 23 counts of lying to investors during the Upstate firm’s financial collapse. He was sentenced to a 44-month jail term, or almost four years.

Morris appealed in part because one of his securities expert witnesses was excluded. He also argued that one of the state’s expert witnesses should not have been alowed to testify.

As reported in Pennsylvania’s Times Leader, U.S. District Judge James Munley allowed gang expert witness Jared Lewis to testify as an expert witness at a Pennsylvania trial regarding the Illegal Immigration Relief Act. Lewis testified that the gang named “MS-13” had a presence in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and was one of the most dangerous gangs in the world.

Lewis was allowed to testify even though he had minimal law enforcement experience, did not include any published authoritative works in his resume, and his expert report did not include any information based on gang statistics specific to the area. The court found that his area of expertise is not an area about which many authoritative books have been written.

Mike Cutler, a retired agent from the former U.S. Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services, is expected to testify as an expert witness for the defense, and is also expected to be the final witness in the trial.

Montana District Judge Stewart Stadler granted a continuance request to continue a sex crimes’ trial in part because the defense attorney had not yet paid for his expert witnesses.

As reported in the The Daily Interlake, former Children’s House Montessori administrator David Farr is accused of sex crimes against five boys. Farr’s attorney Jack Quatman said he hired Philip Esplin as a child sexual abuse expert witness who is “uniquely qualified to testify in cases in which Wendy Dutton testifies for the prosecution.” Dutton will be a prosecution witness.

The court surprisingly allowed the case to be continued believing that Esplin’s schedule, and the volume of material he must review, meant he could not be prepared without a continuance. Quatman said he could find no other expert witness.

Handwriting experts will square off in Virginia federal court over allegations that one stole the other’s analysis of the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note.

As reported in the Virginia Pilot:

Cina L. Wong, a forensic document examiner with an office on Granby Street, is seeking to stop author and handwriting expert Michelle Dresbold from holding up the ransom note analysis as her own. Wong also wants unspecified monetary damages.

Oracle said Wednesday that it has sued software expert SAP “about corporate theft on a grand scale” seeking undisclosed damages. Oracle also argues that the theft formed the basis of SAP’s “Safe Passage” program, which is designed to entice Oracle customers to switch to SAP.

As alleged in the complaint:

Oracle brings this lawsuit after discovering that SAP is engaged in systematic, illegal access to – and taking from – Oracle’s computerized customer support systems. Through this scheme, SAP has stolen thousands of proprietary, copyrighted software products and other confidential materials that Oracle developed to service its own support customers.”

A Canadian shoe impressions expert witness was allowed to testify in a South Carolina murder trial regarding bootprints made at the scene 11 years ago. Crime scene expert Robert Kennedy said foot impressions made inside the insole of a pair of low-top boots were similar to test impressions made by the defendant Jeffery Jones. This is the second trial for Jones after his original guilty sentence was overturned.

As reported in the South Carolina’s The State:

[Forensic expert] Kennedy, who retired last June after 40 years with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was a fingerprint expert, tire track expert, and footprint expert before 1989, when he began studying the impressions feet make inside shoes.

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Payouts for medical malpractice claims remain lower in Oregon than in all but seven other states, despite the loss of a cap on damage awards in 1999. What is interesting is that Oregon also does not have standards for expert witnesses to testify.

As reported in the The Oregonian:

The findings come from one of the first studies that attempts to gauge the effects of various malpractice reforms that states have adopted, mostly to cut costs…Expert witness standards made the most difference in number and size of payouts.Some states require expert witnesses to practice or to have training in the type of medicine under scrutiny in the lawsuit. These laws had about three times to four times the effect of caps on damage awards, researchers concluded.

Fourth District Judge Samuel McVey will allow the prosecution to use an endocrinology expert witness to explain the female body in a case involving sexual abuse.

Dr. Larry Andrew is on trial for allegedly inappropriately touching patients during infertility treatments. The defendant has said he massaged the patients genitals to relive pain. The prosecution has argued that the defendant did this soley for sexual gratification.

As reported in the Utah Daily Herald: