Expert Witness Blog

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.

Dr. Brobson Lutz, a New Orleans physician and public health expert, was the first expert witness called in the St. Rita’s nursing home trial. Sal and Mabel Mangano are charged with negligent homicide in the deaths of 35 residents who drowned in their nursing home during Hurricane Katrina. Defense attorneys contend the Manganos feared some residents might not survive an evacuation. The public health expert witness testified that “The bottom line on all the research is that there is no evidence-based proof that you actually save lives by evacuating patients from nursing homes,” he said. The Times-Picayune.com also reports the expert stating:

Medical studies on nursing home evacuations show that the number of elderly residents in an evacuated region who die in transit is about the same as the number who would have been killed by the storm if they hadn’t left.

It was clear from the physician’s testimony that he was speaking about nursing home evacuations as a broad public health issue and was not suggesting that 35 residents would have died on the roads had they been rushed from St. Rita’s as the hurricane approached in late August of 2005.

Once you have researched and found the right expert for your case, give them the best preparation you can. This includes:

1. Make sure your expert has all the materials necessary. While this can mean giving them more than they need, it can also prevent opposing counsel from saying that the expert did not review all the materials available.

2. Review your approach to the case with your expert so that he is comfortable with the facts and your arguments.

While DUI trials are common, a trial on a charge of felony driving under the influence of drugs is rare. Palmer, AK police officer and drug-recognition expert witness Peter Steen says most defendants accept a plea agreement. Andrian Marutsheff, 40, charged with driving under the influence of a prescription sedative, decided to go to trial. The Anchorage Daily News also reports:

The problem with trials involving drivers impaired by drugs, Steen said, is that the evidence allowed into court is usually limited to toxicology reports from blood draws and officers’ observations of how impaired the driver is. Without a drug recognition expert it’s tough to knit the two pieces together, Steen said. Prosecutors could show the driver was impaired and blood tests might turn up positive for a certain drug.

Steen’s turn on the stand was the first time a drug recognition expert was certified to testify as an expert witness in Superior Court anywhere in the state, Steen said. In only one other case – a misdemeanor trial in District Court in Anchorage – did a certified drug recognition expert testify, Steen said. He hopes his testimony will set a precedent for more such testimony.