Articles Posted in Expert Witness Testimony

Accident reconstruction expert witness Glen Urquhart says Robert Farquharson, a man accused of killing his three sons by driving his car into a dam, would have steered the vehicle toward the water. The expert witness says Farquharson made three distinct steering movements before the car entered the dam at between 60 to 80 mph. Urquhart testified that the car made an initial sharp turn to the right, then straightened and finally made a more subtle turn to the right before it entered the water. HeraldSun.com also writes:

Farquharson, 38, was at the wheel of his car with his three children inside when it plunged into a farm dam in Winchelsea, south-west of Melbourne, on Father’s Day 2005. The children – Jai, 10, Tyler, seven, and Bailey, two – drowned in the dam at Winchelsea while he swam to safety. The court has heard Farquharson said he had a coughing fit, blacked out and woke as the car was in the dam. However, the prosecution alleges he deliberately drove into the dam to get back at his estranged wife.

Buccino & Associates, Inc. was hired in 2003 as an expert witness in the Just For Feet (JFF) Chapter 7 case. Their forensic accounting expert witness report resulted in the largest out of pocket payment by outside directors in history. The former JFF directors will pay $41.5 million, more than the combined payments of former directors in the Enron and WorldCom cases. EarthTimes.org describes Buccino as being hired to:

…perform forensic analysis, opine on corporate governance matters, evaluate Chapter 11 options, opine on insolvency issues, value the pro-forma reorganized company on a fair market operating basis, and, finally to determine financial damages. From 1996 to 1999, earnings were overstated by tens of millions of dollars. In 1999 alone, pre-tax income was reported as $43 million; and, if properly stated would have been a loss in excess of $100 million. In November, 1999, JFF filed for Chapter 11 and in early 2000 the case was converted to a Chapter 7 and its assets auctioned.

No matter the verdict in Phil Spector’s criminal case, his defense team will be back in court in two weeks defending him in a civil suit filed by Clarkson’s mother, Donna. Forensic pathology expert witnesses from the criminal trial would be called again. CourtTVNews.com reports:

Should Spector be acquitted, lawyers for Donna Clarkson would have to start from square one with the civil jury…’We would have to retry the whole case,’ said John Taylor, a civil lawyer for the Clarkson family. The bartender from Trader Vic’s, Dr. Pena, Lynne Herold, Adriano DeSouza – they’d all be back on the witness stand. The defense may call some of Spector’s expert witnesses from the criminal trial, as well as Clarkson’s friends, like Punkin Pie and Jennifer Hayes-Riedl.

Christian Nielsen is charged with quadruple murder in western Maine. His lawyers want to have the 32-year-old cook declared incompetent to stand trial for the 2006 killings. Expert witness Dr. Ann LeBlanc, director of the state forensic service, testified Nielsen suffers from schizoid personality disorder but it does not make him incompetent to stand trial. Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson says Nielsen comprehends the charges against him, understands what’s at stake in the legal process and is capable of assisting in his defense if he chooses to while defense lawyers Ron Hoffman and Margot Joly say Nielsen is emotionally detached and disinterested in his legal defense. MaineToday.com also reports:

Forensic psychology expert witness LeBlanc acknowledged Thursday that “he’s not a mentally healthy person at all.” But she said there’s no evidence that he has ever sunk into psychosis or that he was delusional, two signs of bigger mental health problems. Asked if he was capable of “logically organized thinking,” LeBlanc responded that “he could do it.” Nielsen is aware enough of his situation that he thinks he’s “going to spend the rest of his life in prison or in a mental institution,” she said.

Four organized-crime figures and a retired police officer were convicted Monday on federal racketeering charges in connection with 18 mob-related slayings dating back to the 1970s. Two of those convicted were Joseph “The Clown” Lombardo, 78, and Paul “The Indian” Schiro, 69. Expert witness James W. Wagner, president of the Chicago Crime Commission and past supervisor at the FBI’s organized crime unit in Chicago, testified for the prosecution. The RICO and racketeering expert witness said, “All that matters is that those who committed the murders be brought to justice, no matter how old the files might be or how long the case takes to get to court.” LATimes.com also reports:

The first of the 18 mob-related killings — forgotten by many amid this city’s notoriously corrupt and violent history — happened more than three decades ago. Two of the men connected to the so-called Family Secrets mob conspiracy case, designed in part to solve these cold-case killings, died before the case ever went to trial. A third was deemed too old and infirm for a courtroom…Frank Calabrese Sr., the 70-year-old convicted loan shark believed to be involved in more than a dozen slayings, also was found guilty of extortion and running a sports-bookmaking operation.

Al Hixon is suing the city of Golden Valley, MN, and two of its police officers stating that his civil rights were violated by excessive force, battery and assault. Expert witness and former Minneapolis Police Chief Tony Bouza testified Monday in U.S. District Court that “The force used in this case was excessive, unnecessary, and constituted police brutality.” The police procedures expert witness spent an hour on the witness stand answering questions about the use of pepper spray. When asked by Hixon’s attorney Anthony Edwards, “Is it ever acceptable to spray a compliant subject?” “Never,” Bouza replied. StarTribune.com also reports:

Under questioning from defense attorney Jon Iverson, Bouza said he had no problems with officers using pepper spray to overcome resistance. But he insisted that it be ‘active resistance’ rather than ‘passive resistance.’ And he classified Hixon’s actions during the incident as passive resistance.

Jennifer Kukla says a voice inside her head told her to murder her children in order to save them from an even worse fate. Kukla allegedly fatally stabbed her two children, Alexandra, 8, and Ashley, 5, inside their Macomb Township, MI trailer home. Forensic psychology expert witness Dr. George Watson of the Center for Forensic Psychology told the Macomb Circuit jury that “In her misguided, deluded way, she thought she was protecting her children.” Watson testified he felt Kukla was legally insane on Feb. 4, when she allegedly fatally stabbed her two children. DetroitNews.com writes Kukla told the expert witness:

…during his evaluation in March that the voice she was hearing was benign at first — ‘but as the evening went on, she said the nature of the voice became sinister and threatening,’ Watson said. ‘The voice told her that her children were in danger. It was the devil or a demon, telling her she had to kill them in order to prevent something worse happening to them.’ After Kukla allegedly stabbed her children, along with three dogs and a pet mouse, she sat outside her trailer and ‘waited for a vehicle to take her to hell,’ Watson testified. Watson said he reached his determination of Kukla’s insanity based on tests he administered, along with other witnesses who saw Kukla apparently talking to someone who wasn’t there.

Louise Ogborn, while working at McDonald’s in Bullitt County, Ky. three years ago, was accused by a caller of theft, stripped, and then sexually humiliated in the restaurant office. Ogden is seeking $200 million, including $100 million in punitive damages, from McDonald’s for failing to warn her and other employees about a hoax caller who had already struck 32 other McDonald’s stores. McDonald’s has hired eight expert witnesses in the fields of psychiatry, probability, corporate security and human behavior. McDonald’s restaurant security expert witness Steven Millwee has already testified in his depostion that “There is no way you can train every restaurant employee on every conceivable event.” USAToday.com also reports:

‘It is an interesting collision of forces going to battle over a bizarre set of facts,’ said William McMurry, the Louisville lawyer who helped win a $25.7 million settlement in sex-abuse cases against the Archdiocese of Louisville. ‘There is no middle ground,’ he said. ‘It will be either a zero verdict for the plaintiff or a gazillion dollars. I have never seen as sensational a case as this, with so much to lose on both sides.’

Phil Spector’s murder trial will go to the jury on Monday after more than four months. The nine-man, three-woman panel will decide whether to convict him of the single count of murder. Spector, 67, would face a sentence of 15 years to life.

Lots has gone wrong for Spector’s defense team. The lead attorney rubbed the judge and jury the wrong way and then quit on the final day of testimony. The lead forensics and laboratory testing expert witness for the defense, Henry Lee, was not able to testify because the judge accused him of lying about the evidence. Expert witness Lee picked up evidence at the crime scene and did not turn it over immediately. Independent.com also reports:

The prosecution has been led by a masterful deputy district attorney, Alan Jackson, who accused his adversaries of mounting no more than a ‘chequebook defence’, in which expert witnesses were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to come up with sympathetic interpretations of the facts.

Jose Alberto Felix’s murder trial took an interesting turn of events on Tuesday when DNA testing done by the defense linked him to the crime. Felix is charged with the kidnapping and slaying of Dallas restaurateur Oscar Sanchez. Expert witness Rick Staub of the Orchid Cellmark lab in Dallas testified that only one in nearly 1.8 billion people not related to Mr. Sanchez would have the same partial DNA profile. DallasNews.com goes on to write:

The tests were ordered last week when attorneys discovered in the middle of the trial that a statuette thought to have Mr. Felix’s palm print in Mr. Sanchez’s blood on it was never submitted for DNA testing. Prosecutors said they thought the tests had already been done.

Although the state and a lab hired by the defense divided each of the five DNA samples, only the defense’s tests provided conclusive results. State District Judge Lana Myers ruled that the state could call the defense’s DNA expert witness to testify about the results.