Fix the incentives that underlie the system’s pervasive failures, argues the journalist who’s exposed crime-lab scandals and expert unreliability in a series of widely discussed articles. [Reason]
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Posts tagged as:
expert witnesses
In dozens of prosecutions each year, parents or caregivers are charged after infants who died under their care have been found to display supposedly infallible indicators of abuse — in particular, subdural and retinal hemorrhage with brain swelling. Many convicted defendants stoutly maintain their innocence all along; others are sent to prison on the basis of equivocal “confessions”. Even when (as is common) there is no pattern of previous child abuse, it often happens that authorities remove other children from an alleged abuser’s home as legal action proceeds. Has the hope of using cutting-edge forensics to identify abusers wound up leading the authorities and courts to inflict new injustices? [Emily Bazelon, New York Times Magazine] More: Balko.
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- Paper by Lester Brickman previews his much-anticipated new book Lawyer Barons [Mass Tort Lit, SSRN] More: Sheila Scheuerman, TortsProf.
- “A Players’ Class Action Against the NFL for Concussions?” [Russell Jackson]
- C’mon, DoJ, stop spreading domestic violence myths [Christina Hoff Sommers, USA Today]
- “Historians as Experts: A Plea for Help” [Bill Childs, TortsProf; related, Nathan Schachtman]
- Might not really work, though: “A call for aviation liability reform in South Dakota” [PoL]
- “Chevron Turns Tables on Ecuador Plaintiffs; Sues Them” [WSJ Law Blog, ShopFloor, more, yet more, NYLJ]
- Hedge funder plays race card against NYC’s famed Dakota co-op. How plausibly? [Business Insider]
- N.C. official: citizen who challenged road plans might be practicing engineering without a license [N&O]
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NPR, ProPublica and FrontLine collaborate on an extensive investigation of the many problems with coroners’ and medical examiners’ role in death investigation.
Kevin at Lowering the Bar spots a promising new theory in a defense expert’s testimony, though it’s not clear the lawyers actually wound up making use of it. [Vail Daily, same at Denver Post]
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The Mississippi Attorney General keeps defending a capital conviction based on dubious bite-mark testimony [Radley Balko, Reason]
- Eugene Volokh on Lineage II “addictive videogame” lawsuit [Volokh Conspiracy, earlier]
- New “Trial Lawyers Inc.” report on environmental litigation [Manhattan Institute, related from Jim Copland on a Richard Blumenthal suit]
- Furor continues over Philadelphia’s $300 “business privilege tax” on bloggers and other low-revenue businesses [City Paper, Instapundit, Atlantic Wire, Kennerly]
- “DoJ seeks Ebonics translators” story affords glimpse of oft-abused market for prosecution experts [Ken at Popehat]
- Much more on FASB show-the-adversary-your-cards litigation accounting proposals [Cal Biz Lit and more, Beck, Hartley, ShopFloor, PoL (with Chamber views), earlier]
- “The Many Ways In Which Fashion Copyrights Will Harm The Fashion Industry” [Masnick, TechDirt, on the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act, earlier links here]
- Denmark carries out a real-world experiment in the incentive effects of unemployment compensation [Stossel]
- “Junk fax” suit demands $2 trillion [eight years ago at Overlawyered]
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- Former producer at “Oprah” show — yearning for the simpler life? — takes job at rough blue-collar outfit. One $500K harassment settlement later… [Des Moines Register]
- “Insurer writing ‘loser pays’ policies to defendants” [LNL]
- “$1.4 Million Award Reversed due to Attorney’s ‘Inflammatory’ Comments” [DBR]
- New book examines shaky evidentiary basis of international criminal law convictions [Nancy Combs]
- Litigation slush funds, cont’d: new Department of Justice rules steer public settlement money to private advocacy groups [York, Examiner]
- Second Circuit upholds Judge Weinstein’s steps to curb conspiracy to evade protective order in Zyprexa case [Drug and Device Law, Dan Popeo, NYLJ] More from the busy Dr. David Egilman: “Plaintiff’s Expert Files Appeal in ‘Popcorn Lung’ Lawsuit” [On Point News and more] Also: “Being an Expert Expert Doesn’t Make You an Expert” [Zacher, Abnormal Use]
- “FTC Seeks to Clarify — and Justify — Its Blogger Endorsement Guidelines” [Citizen Media Law]
- “Winnebago cruise control” and suchlike urban legends are purposely devised and spread by sinister interests, or so claim L.A. Times and Prof. Turley [five years ago on Overlawyered]
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The Texas Supreme Court applies skepticism to the theories of a plaintiff’s expert witness in a suit against Wal-Mart. [Wajert; Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Merrell, No. 09-0224 (Tex. 6/18/10), PDF]
“The paper [published this week by the American Psychological Association] is a critique of a rating scale that is widely used in criminal courts to determine whether a person is a psychopath and likely to commit acts of violence. It was accepted for publication in a psychological journal in 2007, but the inventor of the rating scale saw a draft and threatened a lawsuit if it was published, setting in motion a stultifying series of reviews, revisions and legal correspondence.” [Benedict Carey, New York Times]
And then came the second look [Scott Greenfield]
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Testimony by now-disgraced forensic pathologist Charles Smith sent Sherry Sherret-Robinson to jail for a year on charges of infanticide, and resulted in the permanent loss of her other child. Ontario’s highest court has cleared her, but it is rather late. [Jonathan Turley via Radley Balko; Wikipedia on Charles Randal Smith, CBC and more]
The comedian once served as an expert witness on pie-throwing. [Danny Jacobs/Maryland Daily Record, CAAFlog via Legal Blog Watch; L.A. Times]
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- “Sioux split on suit seeking money for Black Hills” [Associated Press]
- More on nomination of Mothers Against Drunk Driving CEO to head highway safety agency [Balko, see also comments on earlier post]
- Push by advocates in Congress to extend shakedown-enabling Community Reinvestment Act to all financial institutions [Victoria McGrane, Politico] And some numbers from Bank of America raise doubts about those oft-heard “CRA default rates lower than regular default rates” assertions [Weisenthal, Business Insider]
- Illinois attorney general Madigan to Craigslist: purge vice ads or I’ll see you in court [L.A. Times]
- Here and there, acknowledgments in the press of the damaging effects of laws entrenching auto dealers against termination [L.A. Times via Craig Newmark]
- How many people get arrested for “contempt of cop”? [Coyote Blog] Blogosphere has helped spread awareness of police-abuse issues [Greenfield]
- Virginia Postrel: I told you so on that light bulb ban story [earlier]
- U.K. law reform panel: “charlatan” and “biased” expert witnesses put defendants at risk of wrongful conviction [Times Online]
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- Forensics gone wrong: Alabama mom spends nine months in jail after medical examiner misdiagnoses stillbirth as murder [Patrick @ Popehat]
- Bouncer shot outside bar going after owners individually to collect $1.5 million verdict [W.V. Record]
- “Feds Seize Assets of Companies Suspected of Hiring Illegal Aliens” [Reisinger, Corporate Counsel]
- Dealing with compulsive-hoarder tenants who fill apartment up to the ceiling with trash can be legally tricky [San Francisco Weekly]
- NYC has paid more than a half billion dollars over past decade to settle police misconduct suits [NY Post]
- Los Angeles schools taking aim at state laws that make it near impossible to fire teachers [L.A. Daily News via Kaus]
- Another parent put through mistaken-identity child-support hell, this time in Pennsylvania [Harrisburg Patriot-News via Amy Alkon] For a similar case from California, see August 7-8, 2001;
- Disabled man finds vehicle towed, wheels himself in cold to distant lot, catches pneumonia. Liability for tow company and parking lot owner? [John Hochfelder, who also hosts Blawg Review #209 this week on a theme of remembering his father, a veteran of the WWII battle of Iwo Jima]
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- Those enviro-hazard warnings plastered all over because of Prop 65? They may be not merely pointless but untrue [California Civil Justice; a still-timely 2000 piece]
- Is it somehow wrong for a public medical examiner to testify against cops — even when it’s in another county? [Radley Balko, Reason]
- UCLA research scientists fight back against animal rights fanatics’ violence and intimidation [Orac/Respectful Insolence, "Pro-Test"]
- Ezra Levant, himself a target of Canada’s official speech tribunals, has written a new book denouncing them, buy before they ban it [Amazon; Andrew Coyne, Maclean's] Has odious censorship-complaint-filer Richard Warman finally gotten his comeuppance? [Ken @ Popehat] More: another Warman case [Cit Media Law]
- Roundup of recent sports/assumption of risk cases [John Hochfelder]
- Already in trouble on charges of faking a will, Allentown, Pa. police-brutality attorney John Karoly now faces tax charges including alleged failure to report $5 million in income for 2002, 2004 and 2005 [TaxGirl]
- Lawprof’s “Reparations, Reconciliation and Restorative Justice” seminar led to introduction of Maryland bill requiring insurers to disclose antebellum slaveholder policies [DelmarvaNow]
- Judge tosses suit by Clarksville, Tennessee officials against activists who called them cozy with developers [Sullum, Reason "Hit and Run"]
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The L.A. Times notices it in the context of the Phil Spector trial, and concludes that there must be a better way.
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- “Forensic Experts Aren’t Team Players. Nor Should They Be.” [Balko, Reason "Hit and Run"]
- Australia high court reverses 2 crim convictions, judge snored loudly a lot (not just your innocent-error naplet) [Lowering the Bar]
- Hear that V-3 hum: preview of 2012 post-bailout car from Congressional Motors [Iowahawk satire]
- California Supreme Court gets a Prop 8 amicus brief from “Divine Queen of the Almighty Eternal Creator” [Box Turtle Bulletin]
- Bristol, CT mulls ban on smoking on public streets [Connecticut Employment Law Blog]
- “Singers Sue Label For Failing To Sue Others For Infringement” [TechDirt; Hall & Oates, Warner/Chappell; h/t @tamerabennett]
- Lawyer must spend half her time deflecting jokes about her name [Sullivan & Cromwell]
