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Chico State students Chris Bizot and Mike Murphy and Butte College student Matthew Krupp face charges for hazing pledges in 2007. All three belonged to Beta Theta Pi, a fraternity that lost university and international recognition after the police were contacted about hazing activities. Bizot’s lawyer, Bill Mayo has requested the names of medical expert witnesses used in the prosecution’s argument saying he wants time to bring in his own expert witnesses to argue for the defense. OrionOnline.com also reports:

Krupp, Murphy and Bizot allegedly forced pledges to submerge themselves to their necks in a bathtub filled with ice water, locked them in a stairwell closet, threw beer and “other disgusting things” at them and forced them to run through mud and do calisthenics, District Attorney Mike Ramsey said….Although these activities may be humiliating, there was no risk of serious bodily injury and they can’t be considered hazing under the current definition, Mayo said…”It’s a new case, it’s a new law and these guys are really trying to stretch it and make the shoe fit,” Mayo said.

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Vermont prosecutors say they need more time to find an expert witness to testify against a Colchester orthopedic surgeon charged with performing improper examinations on nine young female patients. According to WPTZ.com:

Joseph Abate, head of sports medicine at Fletcher Allen Health Care’s orthopedic and rehabilitation department, is facing 14 felony charges from aggravated sexual assault to lewd and lascivious conduct. Assistant Attorney General Cindy Maguire said the surgery expert witness the state had lined up to question Abate’s examinations now could not testify. Abate’s lawyer, Eric Miller, who has called the charges a “tragic mistake,” said the state’s case is falling apart.

Despite his objections, the judge on Monday gave state prosecutors 60 days to find replacement expert witnesses.

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Alcohol, Drug & DUI Testing expert witnesses can save clients in a DWI case and they would not have easy access to these expert witnesses without the criminal defense attorney. If the client chooses a public defender, they will not get the best possible defense. American Chronicle.com writes on the advantages of hiring an experienced criminal lawyer.

Public defenders, no matter how experienced they are, are only Jack of all trades. It means they handle all sorts of cases and not specific ones that need to specialized skills. They do not have specialization in handling DWI cases… You would want the best possible defense for your case, and this is possible only if you hire a specialized DWI legal professional…When you hire a DWI legal representative, you get an opportunity to take advantage of their specialized knowledge of the various aspects associated with DWI cases. They know the in and out of the DWI laws and they can easily use the same to handle your specific case in the most efficient

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Maryland’s highest court is deciding whether a consumer suing a car company under the federal lemon law needs an expert witness to testify about a defect in the car. Mary Crickenberger, represented by Kimmel & Silverman, says she had numerous electrical problems with her Hyundai in the three years after she bought it, with the car sputtering to a stop one day. Hyundai filed a motion to exclude Kimmel & Silverman’s automotive expert witness. Kimmel & Silverman withdrew the expert but did not substitute another. The Maryland Daily Record also reports:

The defendant, Hyundai Motor America, wants the court to hold that not only did Kimmel & Silverman need an expert in plaintiff Mary S. Crickenberger’s case, but that the firm must show a defect in Crickenberger’s case and all of the firm’s other cases…

A group called the Product Liability Advisory Council Inc., which represents manufacturers, filed an amicus curiae brief in the case, arguing that permitting Kimmel & Silverman to pursue lemon-law cases without requiring expert testimony will drastically alter the landscape of product-liability law.

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The Defense Department announced Monday that charges have been sworn against six detainees at Guantanamo, alleged to be responsible for the planning and execution of the attacks upon the United States of America which occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. Those attacks resulted in the death of nearly 3,000 people. The charges allege a long term, highly sophisticated, organized plan by al Qaeda to attack the United States. Under the Military Commissions Act the defendants are guaranteed the right to obtain evidence and to call witnesses on his own behalf including terrorism expert witnesses.

The accused are: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarek Bin ‘Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, and Mohamed al Kahtani. Each of the defendants is charged with conspiracy and the separate, substantive offenses of: murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism. The first four defendants, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarek Bin ‘Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali are also charged with the substantive offense of hijacking or hazarding a vessel.

In the military commissions process, every defendant has the following rights: The right to remain silent and to have no adverse inference drawn from it; the right to be represented by detailed military counsel, as well as civilian counsel of his own selection and at no expense to the government; the right to examine all evidence used against him by the prosecution; the right to obtain evidence and to call witnesses on his own behalf including expert witnesses; the right to cross-examine every witness called by the prosecution; the right to be present during the presentation of evidence; the right to have a military commission panel of at least five military members determine his guilt by a 2/3 majority, or in the case of a capital offense, a unanimous decision of a military commission composed of at least 12 members; and the right to an appeal to the Court of Military Commission Review, then through the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals to the United States Supreme Court.

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Gary Dodds, a former New Hampshire congressional candidate, is accused of faking his disappearance after a car crash in April 2006 in a plot to attract attention to his campaign. Dodds claims he wandered away dazed from the car accident with a head injury, crossed a river and collapsed but Murray Hamlet, a phycial medicine and rehabilitation expert witness who specializes in cold weather injuries testified that the damage to Gary Dodds’ feet was far more severe than what he would have suffered from crossing a river and spending the night outdoors.

Expert witness Murray Hamlet, a veterinarian and retired Army officer who spent decades studying cold weather injuries and training military and medical personnel on the subject said that based on Dodds’ medical records and reports from those who examined him, Dodds’ foot injuries were more serious than what one would expect given the scenario he described. Boston.com also reports that “Dodds faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of falsifying evidence, creating false public alarm and leaving the scene of the crash. He continued campaigning after the crash but came in third in the four-way Democratic primary.”

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n How Attorneys Can Best Utilize Their Medical Expert Witness: A Medical Expert’s Perspective, Dr. Vernon M. Neppe MD, PhD, FRSSAf, FAPA, writes that expert witness testimony depends on finding an appropriate match for your case. This excerpt deals with computerized materials.

Experts’ styles vary. For example, my specific preferences may not be generalizable, particularly if the expert is not very computer savvy. Personally, I like to summarize information as I read it, extracting key information. This I will do digitally by dictation, generally referencing dates, pages and medical professionals. This saves enormous time in reviewing cases later. I also like to use text documents (e.g. in Microsoft Word). This allows me to fashion the detail and extract what is relevant without wasting time rewriting.

In this regard, scanning by the attorney is worthwhile, particularly if text (as opposed to pictures [e.g. TIFF, PICT]) is produced. This text is editable in summary documents, and can be searched almost instantaneously. It becomes a great time saver. Depositions should always be ordered in text form so they can have the relevant facets extracted. Hard copies should also be available. The attorney should ensure that the expert knows what has been duplicated on CD and paper. However, scanned computerized material supplied as PDFs that cannot be converted into text has an enormous downside of taking up time in locating particular pages. Consequently, an index is essential for any scanned non-text documents, and additionally

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Patrick Ball was the first expert witness called in the case against the former Serbian president, who was representing himself against mass atrocity charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia. The statistics expert witness spent 10 months crunching numbers about migration patterns in Kosovo. Ball’s findings suggested that hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled to Albania were spurred by the violence of Mr. Milosevic’s army. CSMonitor.com also writes:

When the analysis showed the movements were neither random nor likely to follow NATO or KLA activities, Ball wrote: “The migration patterns of Kosovar Albanians are consistent with the hypothesis that there was a coordinated and organized effort to drive them from their homes.” In layman’s terms, the data suggested ethnic cleansing. In fact, the migration patterns matched killing patterns “so unbelievably perfectly” that he concluded that the two situations might be explained by the same external influence.

Ball also wrote software that allowed a human rights commission to aggregate and analyze the human rights records of officers in the El Salvadoran Army. The results forced a quarter of the military leadership to retire. He has also worked on finding ways to uncover the scale and pattern of human rights violations in South Africa, Haiti, Guatemala, East Timor, and Peru.

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Former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman are charged with passing classified information. The government has hired three expert witnesses to show that the former lobbyists broke the law and exposed America to a national security threat. The first terroism expert witness is Dale Watson, who headed the FBI’s counter-terrorism operation until 2002, was in charge of investigating early Al Qaeda attacks against the United States in Saudi Arabia, as well as the bombing of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the assault on the USS Cole in Yemen. Forward.com also writes:

While details of what Watson will be asked to testify about were kept under seal, sources following the case said that he will be asked about the importance of the information given to Rosen and Weissman in terms of fighting the war against terror.

Another expert witness who will be called by the prosecution is William McNair, the former information review officer for the CIA’s directorate of operations. McNair, who retired in 2003, was the CIA’s lead official in dealing with issues regarding the release of classified information. He appeared many times in court, opposing requests based on the Freedom of Information Act. According to press reports, McNair was one of only a few officials within the agency who had access to all classified documents.

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Oracle says it may file an amended complaint alleging what its attorneys are calling “a broader program of copyright infringement” by SAP (Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing) beyond the allegations it has already made against SAPs subsidiary TomorrowNow. Oracle discovered some TomorrowNow employees were downloading Oracle customer files and claims SAP violated the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as well as the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act. Both sides are limited to three software expert witnesses in the case. The internetnews.com also reports:

SAP acknowledged that some TomorrowNow employees were guilty of some “inappropriate” downloads but dismissed the vast majority of Oracle’s allegations. In November, SAP announced that TomorrowNow CEO Andrew Nelson and other senior executives had resigned and that it was considering a number of strategic options, including the possible sale of services subsidiary.

Ahead of next week’s case management hearing, Judge Jenkins gave both sides a limit of 20 depositions, 150 document requests, three expert witnesses to evaluate forensic evidence and determine potential damages and an August 8 deadline to submit its expert disclosure reports. He also said the last day he will hear pre-trial motions will be November 13.