Articles Posted in Expert Witness Testimony

A North Carolina-based paratrooper charged in the death of another soldier he helped subdue outside a bar has agreed to a plea bargain and could testify against five other soldiers, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Sgt. Christopher Mignocchi, 22, of Hollywood, Fla., had been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death last summer of Pfc. Luke Brown, 27, of Fredericksburg, Va., The Fayetteville Observer reported Tuesday. He will plead to a lesser charge that is being determined. Boyle’s attorneys asked for medical expert witnesses to testify about the condition of Brown’s heart and whether alcohol and energy drinks may have affected it.

Excerpted from MiamiHerald.com.

A 28-year-old Mission Valley, CA, man who claims to operate a medical marijuana collective was ordered Monday to stand trial for allegedly selling and transporting the drug. Judge John Thompson ruled there was enough evidence to try Eugene Zhenya Davidovich on charges of selling marijuana, possessing marijuana for sale and transporting marijuana. San Diego police investigators testified that Davidovich sold seven grams of marijuana to an undercover detective last November, and had 11 baggies containing a combined 34.10 grams of the drug in his car when they served a search warrant in April at his Rancho Mission Road residence.

Drug abuse expert witness Conrado Decastro testified that he based his opinion of collectives and medical marijuana on training he received during his career. “I believed that Mr. Davidovich possessed marijuana for sale,” Detective Conrado Decastro said. Decastro testified that authorities began to crack down on people selling illicit drugs in Pacific Beach last year, and the detective who bought from the defendant received a doctor’s prescription for marijuana by using a false name.

Excerpted from SanDiegoNewsNetwork.com.

Siobhan Reynolds, president of the Santa Fe, N.M.-based Pain Relief Network, is being investigated by a federal grand jury in Topeka for her role in the case of a Kansas doctor whose clinic has been linked by prosecutors to 59 overdose deaths. Reynolds’ group has supported Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, who were indicted in December 2007 on 34 counts accusing them of unlawfully prescribing painkillers and over billing for services at their clinic in the Wichita suburb of Haysville.

The Pain Relief Network, which opposes what it sees as federal efforts to crack down on chronic pain treatment, has helped the Schneiders line up attorneys and pain expert witnesses, and has put up billboards supporting them.

Excerpted from KansasCity.com.

The Arizona Court of Appeals has reversed and remanded the high-profile case of Harold Fish, who’s serving time for shooting a man in what he calls self-defense. The new trial will allow Fish to introduce testimony that was barred from his first case in which the state disallowed Fish from having a psychology expert witness testify that his “fight or flight” instinct could have interfered with his memory.

The case began in 2004, after Fish ran into Grant Kuenzli and his dogs while hiking on a lonely trail in northern Arizona. According to Fish, the only witness, Kuenzli charged aggressively at Fish after failing to control his unleashed canines. Fish pointed a his 10-millimeter handgun at Kuenzli, yelled at him to stop, and then fired three shots that hit the man in the chest.

Excerpted from PhoenixNewTimes.com.

A $3 million study blaming a massive coal ash spill in Tennessee on a complex combination of structural and geologic factors is wrong, says an engineering expert witness who evaluated the disaster for his own mining and utility clients. Though no one was injured, the disaster was one of the worst of its kind in the US and has brought new attention to the risks and lack of regulation of coal ash storage sites around the country. TVA, the nation’s largest public utility, estimates it could take years and up to $1 billion to clean up the mess. Residents fear lingering environmental harm.

Barry Thacker, who has been designing hydraulic-fill structures similar to the Kingston Fossil Plant landfill for 30 years. In a report shared with regulators, the expert witness concludes the Dec. 22 breach that sent 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic-laden muck into the Emory River and a lakeside neighborhood about 40 miles west of Knoxville occurred because of an undiagnosed and preventable buildup of water pressure against a perimeter clay dike.

Thacker doesn’t agree with the more exotic conclusion of Tennessee Valley Authority consultant AECOM USA Inc. last month that the spill was due to several factors in and under a mountainous dredge cell upstream of the dike, including liquifying soils and a deep, unknown, unstable layer of silt and ash dubbed “slimes.”

In Virginia last week Ben W. Hunter, 42, now of Phoenix, Ariz., was found not guilty on all but two of 32 charges which included 13 counts of distributing steroids and 13 counts of distributing drugs to a minor. The former wrestling coach had also been charged with selling drugs on or near school property, distributing drugs and abuse and neglect of a child. Dr. James Shipe, a researcher in athletic drug testing at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine, was called as a drug abuse expert witness in the case.

“Traditionally, testing originated for Olympic athletes,” the expert witness explained after the case. “All tests were developed using a witnessed urine test as the specimen” because, he added, some athletes from various countries had religious or moral protests to drawing blood samples.

Hunter faces sentencing for one felony count of failure to appear and one misdemeanor county of failure to appear on October 30 in Lancaster County Circuit Court. His attorney, James Broccoletti of Norfolk, requested a pre-sentencing report be prepared for the hearing.

A Maryland state psychiatry expert witness believes Victoria Adele Sparrow knew what she was doing was wrong and is therefore guilty of first-degree murder when she poisoned her 3-year-old daughter and then tried to kill herself. Psychiatric experts – one employed by the state and the other hired by the defense – are set to testify on July 20 in Queen Anne’s County Circuit Court in Centreville. They will be the only witnesses, attorneys said. Sparrow, 43, waived her right to a jury trial Tuesday and agreed to let Judge Thomas G. Ross determine if she was “criminally responsible” for her actions inside her home on Dec. 18.

Defense attorney Peter S. O’Neill filed a motion earlier this year claiming his client was not fit to stand trial. He hired a medical expert who determined that Sparrow would be able to assist in her defense. That expert, however, did not believe Sparrow was sane at the time of the killing. Queen Anne’s County State’s Attorney Lance Richardson said a state psychiatrist does not agree with the defense’s medical expert.

Excerpted from HometownAnnapolis.com.

On Wednesday, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal in Baton Rouge threw out a $2 million judgment that a 19th Judicial District Court jury had awarded former UL football coach Jerry Baldwin in 2007. In that case, Baldwin claimed racial discrimination by the university, the UL Board of Supervisors and former athletic director Nelson Schexnayder for his firing after the Ragin’ Cajuns’ 2001 season.

Baldwin claimed breach of contract, discrimination and emotional distress, and the racially-balanced jury – six white, six black – voted 10-2 to award Baldwin $500,000 for general damages and emotional distress, $600,000 for lost wages and $900,000 for future lost wages. The jury heard from the plaintiff’s sports expert witness who said Baldwin’s firing cost him the chance to coach professionally in the NFL, and hence the $900,000 award for future lost wages.

Excerpted from NewOrleans.com.

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on James P. Chasse Jr. after he died in police custody says Chasse suffered 46 separate abrasions or contusions on his body, including six to the head and 19 strikes to the torso. Chasse, 42, who suffered from schizophrenia, died in police custody on Sept. 17, 2006. Two Portland officers, Officer Christopher Humphreys and Sgt. Kyle Nice, and then-Multnomah County sheriff’s deputy Bret Burton struggled to arrest Chasse after one of the officers said he appeared to be urinating on a city street. Police said he ran when they approached. They chased him, knocked him to the ground and struggled to handcuff him.

The medical expert witness said fractures to Chasse’s rear ribs also likely did not result from Chasse getting knocked to the ground or someone falling on top of him, but more likely resulted from a kick or knee-drop. Police procedures expert witness Lou Reiter, a retired Los Angeles police deputy chief hired by Chasse’s family, said in a statement filed in court that the officers used excessive force through “impact strikes,” kicking and using their knees once Chasse was on the ground.

Excerpted from OregonLive.com.

Pathology expert witness Dr. Janice Ophoven testified Tuesday in the trial of Amy Dierks, the Sioux Falls day care provider accused of shaking a six-month-old child into a coma-like state in November 2007. In reviewing the Baby Henry Johnson case, she told jurors she doesn’t believe Dierks abused the child; rather Ophoven believes he had a stroke and seizures. The expert witness told the jury she reviewed Henry Johnson’s medical records and reports and believes the child showed preexisting symptoms and conditions before he was hospitalized. She went on to say he showed no signs of trauma or abuse.

“The child was having a stroke with signs and symptoms that appeared a week earlier,” Dr. Ophoven said. Prosecutors recalled Dr. Ed Mailloux to the stand, who disagreed with many of Dr. Ophoven’s statements and stood by Baby Henry’s head trauma diagnosis. The prosecution plans to call one more rebuttal witness Wednesday morning before closing statements and the case is turned over to the jury.

Excerpted from Keloland.com.