Articles Posted in Expert Witness Testimony

Former paratroopers argued before New York Justice Henry Kron this week that Specialist Osvaldo Hernandez deserved to have his civil rights restored. Hernandez served a year on Rikers Island for illegal gun possession before joining the Army and serving a 15-month tour in Afghanistan. Hernandez hopes to join the New York police force.

His lawyer, James D. Harmon Jr., a former prosecutor who served in Vietnam and their expert witness, Randy Jergensen, a retired New York police detective who parachuted into battle in Korea, testified on behalf of Hernanez. They believe that his service in the army and certificate of good conduct from the parole board remove any legal barriers to Mr. Hernandez’s joining the police force. The decision is now up to police officials, who have said that the city’s administrative code forbids hiring anyone with a felony conviction as a police officer.

Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick of the Army Recruiting Command says the Army has accepted 372 felons this year as of October 10, down from 511 last year. A recent military study showed that such recruits were promoted faster, were more likely to re-enlist, and received more awards.

Opening arguments began last week in federal court in San Francisco in the landmark human rights case of Bowoto v. Chevron. In its seventh year of litigation, the case raises important issues regarding liability of multinational corporations in U.S. courts. Survivor Larry Bowoto and eighteen other plaintiffs are accusing Chevron of collaboration with Nigerian military in brutal suppression of a protest by unarmed villagers on a Chevron offshore oil platform in the Niger Delta in 1998. Bowoto was shot during the protest; two other protesters were killed. International business expert Michael Watts, professor at the University of California at Berkeley, is among the expert witnesses testifying in the case.

For more see: AllAfrica.com

Consumer products expert witness Gabriele Goldaper describes a case she worked on regarding a “needle in a stack.”

I was engaged by a plaintiff, who purchased several pairs of pants from a leading upscale sportswear retailer. At home, while trying on one of the pants and sitting down, he suffered severe, medically documented, injuries in a very sensitive area of his body, from a needle which was apparently still in the seam of the crotch area of the pants. My role was to testify about the manufacturing process and standard quality control needed in the production cycle of men’s pants.

To support my opinion that not enough necessary action was taken to avoid this unpleasant accident, I was able to find evidence of the lack of good quality control when reading the depositions of the various production managers and the records they kept. Product safety dictates that at each step of the production cycle inspections take place. In this case, there were not enough, satisfactory or detailed records to indicate that procedures where in place to assure the safety of the product. Typically a basic check at the finish line of production is to use a mechanism, much like a metal detector, to see if any metal, like a needle point, is lodged in any area of the garment. No record of such basic final inspection could be found.

Marketing expert witness Gabriele Goldaper writes that there are BIG BUCKS IN STRIPES! She represented a leading sports apparel manufacturer which sought a declaratory judgment to allow them to continue to use stripes on their athletic apparel. The defendant took the position that stripes were a part of their trademarked logo and could not be used on any other sports apparel.

My position was that striping is used as an element of design to indicate motion and action and no one can “own” the rights to an “element of design.” Among the elements of design are: “shape”, the outline of the garment, “line”, indicating the direction of visual interest, straight lines are used to create moods and feelings and angled lines are used to suggest motion, “repetition” to create a sense of movement. A successful design is achieved when all the elements work together harmoniously. It was my opinion, supported, with documentation, that stripes, in the past and still today, are used to signal to consumers that a garment is for athletes or those wanting to look like athletes. Stripes have acquired this communicative function.

The Vancouver Sun reports:

neurosurgery expert witness Dr. George Stuart Cameron testified Thursday that whatever happened to brain-damaged Thomas McKay while in police cells was more than just a fall. “I would expect his head was traveling at a higher velocity than just a simple fall,” said the expert.

McKay had a skull fracture over his left eye, extending across the top of his head. Cameron performed surgery to remove a blood clot formed underneath McKay’s skull lying against his brain, part of an injury he agreed was life-threatening. McKay and his family say Victoria Police Constable Greg Smith pushed McKay while his hands were cuffed behind his back so that his head struck the concrete floor.

Marketing expert witness Gabriele Goldaper writes that there are BIG BUCKS IN STRIPES! She represented a leading sports apparel manufacturer which sought a declaratory judgment to allow them to continue to use stripes on their athletic apparel. The defendant took the position that stripes were a part of their trademarked logo and could not be used on any other sports apparel. The particular logo at issue had three stripes, spaced evenly apart. The apparel maker for whom she was rendering an opinion was using stripes, not three stripes and not similarly evenly spaced apart for their line of athletic wear.

Goldaper argued that stripes have been used well before manufacturers were making sports related apparel. As an example we saw early in our history, slaves and prisoners clothed in garments with lots of horizontal stripes. She provided extensive information and documentation of examples to support her opinion that the use of stripes has been associated with sports and athletic apparel since the development of this category of clothing. In the Olympic games in the early twentieth century we saw runners and hurdlers, males and females, wearing shorts and tops with stripes on them. The use of stripes in athletic sportswear was seen well before either the plaintiff or defendants started to produce this category of clothing.

ChannelWeb reports:

Attorneys for Cisco (NSDQ:CSCO) and one of its solution providers on Friday presented closing arguments to the jury in the breech of contract lawsuit between the two, with the solution provider’s attorney characterizing Cisco as purposely throwing its partner overboard and destroying its business and Cisco’s attorney claiming the vendor is really the victim.

Infra-Comm, a San Juan Capistrano, Calif.-based solution, alleges Cisco breached its Indirect Channel Partner Agreement (ICPA) and the terms of its deal registration program by passing a potential large deal with the Irvine Company, a property development company, toAT&T (NYSE: T). Networking and IP telephony vendor Cisco, in return, is accusing Infra-Comm of harming Cisco’s business and misusing its brand name….

Judge Tom Yeager will preside over the seating of a grand jury in St. Tammany Parish, LA, which will determine if Amanda Gutweiler Hypes is re-indicted in connection with the 2001 Tioga house fire that claimed the lives of her three children. Hypes’ 2002 indictment was thrown out in 2006 when the judge said that the lead prosecutor with the Rapides Parish District Attorney’s Office had erred in showing secret grand jury proceedings to a fire expert witness.

Hypes’ attorney, Mike Small, has said the expert witnesses expected to testify before the grand jury are “absolutely convinced the fire is not arson.”

A Louisiana District Court judge acquitted two men of 48 counts of dogfighting on Wednesday. Although Kathy Strouse, a superintendent for the Chesapeake Animal Control Unit in Virginia, was brought in as a dog expert witness by the United States Humane Society, the judge said a state prosecutor failed to provide substantial evidence of their involvement in the illegal sport.

Floyd Boudreaux Guy faced charges after an investigation led Louisiana State Police officers on March 11, 2005, to seize 57 pit bulls the officers believed were being used for illegal dogfighting. The dogs were seized from the men’s Youngsville home. Expert witness Strouse was involved in the dogfighting prosecution of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. Dogfighting has been illegal since 1982.

Defense witnesses began testimony Tuesday in the case against Brian Nichols. On March 11, 2005, Nichols was on trial for rape when he allegedly overpowered a deputy, took her gun, and went into the Fulton County, Georgia, courtroom and shot both the judge and a court reporter. Nichols is also charged with killing a sheriff’s deputy outside the courthouse and a federal agent a few miles from the courthouse.

In his taped confession, Nichols said Federal Agent David Wilhelm pulled a gun on him. He also said actually pulled the trigger to try to shoot him. Nichols claimed he heard a click, that the gun misfired and he shot and killed Wilhelm in self-defense but prosecutors say that is impossible. Wilhelm wore thick rubber work gloves that night and it would have been impossible to fire a gun while wearing them. According to ballistics expert witness Bernadette Davy, Wilhelm’s weapon did not misfire.