Last year, ExpertPages called attention to the difference that expert witnesses might have made in the prosecution of Rosa Jimenez. Prosecutors in Travis County, Texas claimed that Jimenez caused the death of a child by stuffing paper towels down his throat. No witness saw Jimenez place paper towels in the child’s mouth, but medical experts […]

When experts merely state the obvious without grounding their testimony in known facts, their testimony is typically excluded as being unhelpful to the jury. At a preliminary hearing in a criminal prosecution, however, decisions are made by a judge rather than a jury. Judges tend to be more lax about admitting expert testimony when they […]