A New York appellate court recently called years of expert witness testimony on shaken baby syndrome into question by overturning a 2001 conviction due to insufficient scientific support for evidence supporting the prosecution’s case. Shaken baby syndrome prosecutions rely on expert witness testimony due to the medical science involved in connecting the victim’s injuries with the […]
Two Michigan men accused of killing infants have consulted expert witnesses to dispute allegations that the children died from Shaken Baby Syndrome. The cases, which have gone to trial, will serve as a critique of Shaken Baby Syndrome with both sides presenting experts to debate not only whether or not the condition explains the deaths, […]
A New York father has been acquitted of charges stemming from the tragic death of his 4-month old son, whose suspicious death led prosecutors to believe that Adrian Thomas had caused his child’s death by violently shaking him. As has become common in trials following suspicious death of infants, the Thomas verdict was heavily influenced […]
The tragic death of 4-month-old Lincoln Wilber in 2007, initially determined to be the result of child abuse, is getting a second look by a handful of nationally renowned medical expert witnesses. At the behest of Northwestern University’s Medill Justice Project, experts in abusive head trauma, pathology, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) reviewed the […]
Chantal Thoss was convicted of felonious assault in an Ohio court. The only evidence supporting her conviction came from an expert witness. Because the expert overstepped the boundaries of acceptable expert testimony, the Ohio Court of Appeals reversed the conviction. Trial Evidence A police officer was dispatched to a home in response to a call […]
The medical examiners testifying in the aggravated manslaughter trial of Michael Marrara offered vastly different explanations for why his son died on March 26, 2012. Death of Andrew Marrara On March 26, 2012, Michael Marrara called 911 to report that he found his son blue and non-responsive. Andrew Marrara was pronounced dead a short time […]
Professional associations often create standards governing the conduct of their members, including guidelines for testifying as an expert. Sometimes the guidelines appear to be based on the concern that an expert might testify against other members of the same profession in a lawsuit that alleges professional malpractice. Guidelines should never discourage experts from giving honest […]
An Irish woman in Boston who was accused of causing the death of a child under her care earned relief last week when prosecutors dropped all charges against her due to medical expert witness reports that cast doubt on the infant’s cause of death. Although the child’s death was initially ruled a homicide by medical examiners, […]
Legal teams that seek to free wrongly convicted defendants from prison frequently turn to expert witnesses to help them prove a client’s innocence. New evidence provided by DNA experts has resulted in 330 post-conviction exonerations in the United States. Many of those innocent defendants were facing the death penalty. As ExpertPages has reported, expert testimony […]
The extent to which an expert witness’ controversial beliefs may be used to impeach the expert, when the beliefs are unrelated to the expert’s testimony, was spotlighted in a ProPublica report concerning Dr. David Ayoub. Dr. Ayoub is a radiologist who often testifies as an expert in child abuse cases. Credibility Attacked Dr. Ayoub’s credibility […]
