Chicago Murder Prosecution Falters When Expert Fails to Stay Within His Lane
Currently, a murder trial is underway in Chicago wherein former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke is charged with unlawfully killing Laquan McDonald by shooting him 16 times. The shooting was captured on police dashcam video. The prosecution called FBI forensic video analyst Mark Messick who had enhanced the video evidence and inserted...
Stay Within Your Lane!: The Importance of Knowing Your Boundaries as an Expert Witness
When an expert witness is tendered before the court, the attorney presenting the witness must advise the judge as to the specific field(s) of expertise in which the attorney wants the witness qualified. At the conclusion of the qualification voir dire, in which the proposed expert’s qualifications are examined, and after hearing legal...
Does an Expert Witness Need to be Certified?
A question that sometimes arises in the context of expert evidence is whether an expert must be “certified” in order to be an expert witness. There is a frequently espoused view that an expert who has been certified by an organization is better than one who has not been so certified. This quest...
Image Comparison Evidence: The United States Experience
Image comparison evidence can be a very powerful form of evidence in court. This kind of expert forensic video analysis evidence is frequently challenged by opposing attorneys. Through this evidence, using the objective lens of the camera and the analyst’s trained eye and detailed analysis, the trier of fact may be better positioned...
Expert Witnesses: The Need to Remain Current
Expert witnesses are professionally and ethically obligated to remain current in their field of expertise. Parties who retain experts and the courts that rely upon their testimony are entitled to expect that they are receiving the latest information from their experts. When I am tendering an expert witness before the court, in the...
What Should be in an Expert Report?
The culmination of an expert’s work is the expert report. The expert report represents the final written product of the expert and serves a number of important purposes. First, it documents the methodology and work of the expert, thereby outlining for counsel what work the expert has undertaken, what processes were used and...