Expert Witness Blog

Tupelo City Council members have hired an expert witness to support their efforts in annexing 16 square miles Lee County, Mississippi. Michael Slaughter of Slaughter & Associates in Oxford will testify supporting the city’s annexation plan. Urban planning expert witness Slaughter has worked on prior annexations with Tupelo. Slaughter told the Daily Journal on Wednesday that based on a preliminary review, the areas Tupelo wants to annex appear to be reasonable and meet the state criteria for annexation. The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal writes that:
….the county might oppose the city’s current annexation attempt as it did the previous one. It recently made a similar attempt in which it tried to annex 10.2 square miles of county territory and 2,500 of its residents. That attempt was opposed by county officials, black community leaders in Tupelo and residents living in the proposed annexation area. The case lingered two years and cost taxpayers more than $600,000 in city and county legal fees before retired Chancellor Charles Thomas dismissed it in October, citing concerns about the city’s evidence.

A gang expert witness said Wednesday that the beating in which nine men punched Sgt. Juwan Johnson more than 200 times was a Gangster Disciples rite of passage that went wrong. Detective John Bowman, head gang investigator with the Killeen, Texas, Police Department, testified Wednesday as a gang crimes expert witness during the court martial.
Twenty-two year-old Pvt. Terrence Norman is charged with involuntary manslaughter in Johnson’s death. Johnson was scheduled to leave the Army three weeks after the date of his beating. Expert witness Bowman said he never heard of a “jump-in ceremony” happening so close to the time a person was set to leave the area where a gang operated. If convicted on all charges, Norman could spend 19 years behind bars. Stars and Stripes also reports:

Expert witness Col. Kathleen Ingwersen, the medical examiner who performed Johnson’s autopsy, testified that the 25-year-old died from multiple blunt force injuries and that, medically, Johnson’s death was a homicide….The autopsy showed Johnson suffered severe injuries to his brain and heart.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco chose not to rule Thursday on whether to dismiss criminal charges against the former chief executive of Brocade Communications Systems Inc. Gregory Reyes is on trial for allegedly tampering with stock options and faces 10 felony security charges. Reyes’ defense relied upon the testimony of an accounting expert witness. The expert witness described the applicable accounting rules and testified regarding the confusion about their interpretation. Reyes is charged with lying to investors and auditors about Brocade’s stock options practices and falsifying records. MercuryNews.com further reports:

Reyes is accused of backdating stock options-picking favorable grant dates in the past when the company’s stock price was low to boost the potential windfall for the recipient. The practice is not illegal if accounted for properly. Prosecutors allege that Reyes intentionally concealed the expenses to mislead investors about the true profitability of San Jose-based Brocade, which makes switches and software used to connect corporate servers and data storage systems. Reyes’ defense lawyer, Richard Marmaro, said prosecutors have not proven that Reyes had criminal intent when he approved backdated stock option awards and signed off on faulty financial statements. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Crudo, the lead prosecutor, says “This crime was not an accident. This was an intentional and routine effort to game the system to keep the company growing while avoiding compensation expenses that would hurt the bottom line.”

In USA v. Dean, 221 Fed. Appx. 849; 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 6219, Dean appealed his US Dist Ct, Middle District of Georgia, convictions for armed bank robbery stating that the expert witness in the lower court should not have testified. Dean argued that the district court erred by allowing Dr. Cindy Parker, a board-certified emergency room physician, to testify as an emergency medicine expert witness and give opinions beyond the reasonable limits of her expertise. Dean also objected to Parker’s description of his behavior as “a little bit bizarre” during her examination of him and asserted claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel.

The appellate court ruled that Dean “could not carry his burden on the third prong of the plain error test — an effect on his substantial rights — given that several other government witnesses testified to the fact that Dean was not acting normally.” Under a plain error analysis, an appellant has the burden of persuading the court that: (1) there was an error; (2) the error was plain or obvious; and (3) the error materially prejudiced a substantial right. The higher court affrimed Dean’s convictions.

Notre Dame’s head football coach Charlie Weis is suing two surgeons he says bungled his care after gastric bypass surgery five years ago. Gastric surgery expert witness Dr. Alan Wittgrove testified that one of the doctors made the wrong decisions when Weis took a turn for the worst after undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 2002.

Expert witness Wittgrove said Dr. Hodin should not have prescribed a blood thinner for Weis. The BostonChannel.com reports: “He should have operated on him to stop the bleeding. And in doing so, he would have repaired the leak that was also there,” Wittgrove said. Weis is expected to take the stand on Wednesday.

In an odd turn of events, the first trial ended in a mistrial in February after a juror collapsed and the physicans being sued rushed to his aid.

Post traumatic disorder expert witness Maria Mouratidis testified yesterday at Camp Pendleton that brain damage and mental illness may have impaired the judgment of Marine Cpl. Trent Thomas. Thomas is charged with assisting in the kidnapping and execution of a man in Hamdaniya, Iraq, on April 26, 2006. Expert witness Mouratidis, head of the Traumatic Stress and Brain Injury Program at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland, said Thomas suffers from mild traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from exposure to explosions and other combat factors. Mouratidis testified that the two mental problems might have caused Thomas to take part in the alleged abduction and murder plot. SignOnSanDiego also reports:

“In a situation that is high-pressured, Cpl. Thomas would have found it very difficult to act in any way other than the way his superiors wanted him to,” Mouratidis said. She testified that Thomas told her about withstanding 25 to 30 bomb blasts in Iraq, including four that knocked him out. In addition, psychological tests show that Thomas lacks impulse control and the ability to properly process and assess things going on around him, Mouratidis said.

St. Louis-based utility company Ameren, the Missouri State Public Counsel, and the Missouri State Attorney General have asked for an appeal of the $43 million annual rate increase awarded to Ameren in May. Utility regulators relied on the testimony of an electrical power and utilities expert witness in calculating the award. The expert witness had recommended a 9.8% rate increase while Ameren had asked for a 10.9% which would translate into a $361 million rate increase for its 1.2 million Missouri electric customers.

Ameren argues that the awarded increase still leaves rates 37% below the national average. As reported on Forbes.com: State Public Counsel Lewis Mills Jr., who represents consumer interests, and Attorney General Jay Nixon, who represents the state, both say Ameren should instead be forced to lower its electricity rates.

Guy Richard, director of structures for the Quebec Transport Department, denies his department was responsible for the collapse of an overpass that killed five people last September. Richard’s testimony contradicts every independent expert witness who has appeared before the commission to date and raises questions regarding his impartiality. Although Richard appeared as an independent transporation engineering expert witness Friday at the Johnson Commission hearings, he is a senior official at the transport department. He described the shear crack as hidden inside the overpass and that cutting into the overpass to check it would have damaged the structure. As reported in Canada.com:

Patrick Henry, lawyer for the employees of Desjardins Sauriol, the company that built the overpass, said Richard’s credibility is very low because he essentially wears several hats. “He was the boss of the men who did the last two inspections, which have been criticized by a variety of experts,” Henry noted. “He’s testifying for his own cause.” Henry said in an interview he will urge the commission in his pleadings to give very little credibility to Richard’s report.

Finnish computer voting expert witness Harri Hursti recommended in March that the Riverside, CA, Elections Review Committee drop their electronic voting machines. On July 17, 2007, the Riverside County “Blue Ribbon” Elections Review Committee will present the Board of Supervisors with the same recommentation. Riverside County is the first in the nation to move to touch-screen electronic voting systems. Now the county is being urged to use paper ballots which will be counted by optical scanners. The committee spent thousands of hours going over evidence contained in reports, interviews, and presentations by expert witnesses. As reported in the BradBlog:

The committee’s findings also match the recommendations made by SAVE R VOTE (Secure Accurate Verifiable Elections Require Voter Observation of Touchscreen Equipment) to both the “Blue Ribbon” Elections Review Committee (ERC) and the Board Of Supervisors (BoS) earlier this year.

The 9th Circuit Appellate Court in Seattle has overturned a Missoula judge’s decision to ban dozens of expert witnesses and nonexperts from testifying in the criminal case against W.R. Grace & Co. Grace is charged with concealing the dangers of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite mined near Libby. The three appellate judges ruled in favor of federal prosecutors who argued that U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy’s decision to exlude asbestos expert witnesses impeded their efforts to bring Grace and seven of its current and former senior executives and managers to trial last September. Missoulian.com also reports:

“I am gratified by today’s decision by the 9th Circuit,” said Montana U.S. Attorney Bill Mercer. “It moves the United States one step closer to the ultimate goal of trying the grand jury’s charge against W.R. Grace and the individual defendants to a jury with a full complement of evidence.” In February 2005, the government obtained a 49-page, 10-count indictment against Grace and its officers, alleging criminal acts spanning 26 years and creating at least 1,200 victims and 230 potential witnesses. Those charges relate to the improper disposal of disease-causing asbestos, which experts say led to hundreds of deaths and sickened thousands more in Libby.