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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.

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In How to Use Experts to Prove the Plaintiff’s Case, Thomas M. Demsey advises attorneys on how to find the right fit with an expert witness. In complex factual situations Demsey states that “Too often the initial consideration is not well thought-out.” Finding the right medical malpractice expert witness involves optimizing lines of communication.

Make sure you go over in detail the theories of your case about which your expert will testify. Success often relies upon you laying out precise legal language for your case so that your expert can phrase his or her testimony accordingly.

Make sure that your expert does not go beyond the realm of his or her area of expertise. This means that you may need multiple experts to deal with a particular issue. It is better to have two creditable experts whose testimony may somewhat overlap, than to have one expert who is so stretching the limit so his or her expertise that even in the areas in which he or she is comfortable are suspect and not believable.

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In How to Use Experts to Prove the Plaintiff’s Case, Thomas M. Demsey advises attorneys on how to find the right fit with an expert witness. In complex factual situations such as products liability cases Demsey states that “Too often the initial consideration is not well thought-out.” Finding the right products liability expert witness involves asking for recommendations from other attorneys and making sure you can afford the expert.

Not only must the expert be available for consultation and advice during the discovery part of your csae, but you should not feel that you cannot afford to seek this consultation when it is necessary. This does not mean you are constantly running to the individual for consultation on trivial matters, but you must be able to contact this person whenever the need truly arises.

Sometimes an expert will not be able to testify for you, but that same expert can lead you to others who would be able to testify in your case. Furthermore, an expert can be used as a consultant, and this alone is often worth the time, effort and expense of consulting an expert.

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In How to Use Experts to Prove the Plaintiff’s Case, Thomas M. Demsey advises attorneys on how to find the right fit with an expert witness. In complex factual situations such as medical malpractice cases Demsey states that “Too often the initial consideration is not well thought-out.” Finding the right medical malpractice expert witness begins with meeting the expert.

This has several purposes, one of which is to evaluate this person’s ability to analyze, communicate, and deal with adversity (e.g cross-examination). Make sure your theories and personality mesh with the expert. This is someone with whom you will be associated for the duration of the lawsuit, so it should be someone with whom you feel comfortable in approaching and discussing various aspects of the case. In addition, it will help you to know whether or not he or she will have the time and willingness to help you prepare and conduct your trial.

From How to Use Experts to Prove the Plaintiff’s Case, Thomas M. Dempsey, The Advocate Magazine, January 2008.

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Dr. Joseph Maytal, expert witness and specialist at Schneider Children’s Hospital on Long Island, testified Friday that an infant boy taken away from his parents amid allegations that he was shaken was not the victim of child abuse. “I think that we have enough here to at least doubt that there is child abuse,” said the pediatrics expert witness. Dr. Maytal testified in St. George Family Court during the trial to determine whether Qundeel Sajjad and her husband, Sohail Sajjad, can regain custody of their two young boys from the city Administration for Children’s Services. silive.com also reports:

Mrs. Sajjad, 31, was the first Islander to be accused under Cynthia’s Law when prosecutors alleged that she violently shook her 7-month-old and caused him to be hospitalized with internal bleeding on the brain in December 2006. The mother of two and her husband claimed the infant fell 3 feet from a baby swing onto a hard kitchen floor….

Dr. Maytal, who reviewed the child’s hospital and follow-up medical records, said the baby suffered from “external hydrocephalus,” a condition that can cause bleeding on the brain in infants. “It means the child is susceptible to bleeding,” Dr. Maytal said. ‘Infants with external hydrocephalus] don’t need to have a major trauma to have a subdural hematoma,’ Dr. Maytal explained, noting that the baby’s condition could have been the result of genetics rather than a violent shaking.