An expert psychiatrist has testified that a murder defendant had a diminished ability to premeditate or deliberate the killing of his wife due to a dissociative episode.

The Crime

On December 5, 2013, Cynthia Grantham received a call from her brother-in-law, Joseph Levi Graham. Grantham was crying and said, “Cynthia, have you heard?”  Grantham told Cynthia that his wife, Constance, was dead. When Cynthia asked what happened, Grantham told her, “I shot her.  I shot her in the head.” Grantham told Cynthia to tell his brother not to come to his house because he had turned on the gas, that they would never see him again, and that he loved her.

Cynthia and her husband went to the nearby house of the sheriff, Maynard Reid. Reid sent a deputy to the Grantham house to do a welfare check.

The body of Constance Grantham was found with two gunshot wounds to the head and one gunshot wound to the chest. Joseph Levi Grantham was charged with first-degree murder in connection with his wife’s death. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Expert Testimony

Grantham’s defense attorney retained Dr. George Corvin to testify as an expert in forensic psychiatry. Dr. Corvin has been practicing general and forensic psychiatry since the early 1990s.

Dr. Corvin testified that he has spent about eight hours with Grantham over the past five years. He interviewed Grantham in June 2014, April 2015, May 2018, and October 2018. Dr. Corvin testified that he evaluated Grantham’s level of competency to stand trial. Dr. Corvin opined that Grantham had the capacity to do and understand what was needed of him to stand trial.

Dr. Corvin also evaluated Grantham’s mental state on the night that he killed his wife. To reach his conclusions about Grantham’s mental state, Dr. Corvin utilized Grantham’s first interview with detectives, his wife’s autopsy and medical records, Grantham’s medical records and workers compensation records, transcripts of interviews with Grantham’s family, photo of the victim’s autopsy and the Grantham’s home, and a video of Grantham’s first appearance in court.

Dr. Corvin concluded that Grantham was “very simple” and “marginally educated.” Dr. Corvin testified that Grantham had “seemed so limited” that he wondered if he was intellectually disabled. Grantham was given a Wechsler IQ test, which is designed to measure intelligence and cognitive ability in adults and older adolescents. Grantham scored a 94, which is within the range of average.

Dr. Corvin testified that, although Grantham’s Wechsler score indicated that Grantham’s innate intelligence was okay, his “fund of knowledge” was limited. According to Dr. Corvin, Grantham’s leaving school in the eighth grade combined with his life experiences caused Grantham to have a childlike view of that world that caused “his ability to understand and react well to stresses” to be “very limited.”

Dr. Corvin concluded that Grantham had an acute dissociative reaction to stressful events, which can lead to the experience of depersonalization and derealization. He opined that Grantham suffers from a schizotypal personality disorder, which can cause odd beliefs, magical thinking, bodily illusions, eccentric/peculiar behavior and social anxiety. Dr. Corvin stated that Grantham’s ability to premeditate or deliberate killing his wife was “diminished and complicated” due to a “period of dissociation.”

Verdict

The jury apparently rejected Dr. Corvin’s testimony. Gratham was found guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The FTC’s lawsuit against Qualcomm is awaiting a verdict, which could have a significant impact of the future of smartphones. Experts for each side have differing view on whether Qualcomm’s policies hurt competition.

Qualcomm is the world’s largest provider of mobile chips.  It created the technology that connects phones to cellular networks. Qualcomm makes a significant portion of its revenue from licensing its inventions to cellphone makers with its fee based on the value of each phone.

Qualcomm owns patents that are related to 3G, 4G, and 5G networks, which means that all cellphone makers pay Qualcomm a licensing fee, even if they do not use Qualcomm chips.

The FTC filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm in January 2017, arguing that Qualcomm maintained a monopoly and extracted high royalty fees that weakened competition. Qualcomm has denied all allegations and says that the FTC does not have any evidence of anticompetitive behavior.

The trial was held before Judge Lucy Koh in United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

FTC’s Expert Witness Testimony

The FTC retained Professor Carl Shapiro as an expert witness.  Shapiro is an industrial organization economics professor at Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley. He formerly held a position in the antitrust division of the Justice Department.

Shapiro analyzed Qualcomm’s market power in CDMA and premium LTE modems during the period of time between 2006-2016. According to Shapiro, three of Qualcomm’s policies gave it the market power to demand supra-FRAND royalties, or royalties that are not fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory. These three policies were: its “no license, no chips” policy, its incentive payments to phone OEMs, and its refusal to license standard essential patents to rival chip makers.

According to Shapiro, Qualcomm is using its market power and monopoly power to extract an “unusually high amount” for royalties for patents.

Qualcomm’s Expert Witness Testimony

Qualcomm retained Tasneem Chipty as an expert. Chipty is an expert in competition and antitrust economics. Her practice focuses on competition analysis, including market definition, market power, and competitive effects of different types of conduct across a variety of industries. Chipty has previously served on the faculties of The Ohio State University, Brandeis University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she taught courses in antitrust and regulation, industrial organization, and econometrics.

Chipty testified that “Qualcomm doesn’t have sufficient market power to coerce OEMs [handset makers] into onerous business terms that would rob them of billions of dollars.”  She noted that Qualcomm had cut its chip pricing in response to competitors hitting the market or Intel potentially winning business with Apple. Chipty noted that this behavior may have helped Qualcomm win business, but did not mean that the company was anticompetitive.

Chipty also noted that Qualcomm lost 50 points of market share in premium handsets from 2014 to 2017. Chipty addressed the FTC expert’s testimony, stating, “Shapiro has overstated Qualcomm’s market power.” Chipty opined that there’s no “evidence of consistent and unconstrained market power of the type” that would hurt competition.

A federal judge will not allow a hoarding expert to testify in the trial of the Orange County, New Jersey GOP Chairman who is on trial for tax evasion.

The Charges

On January 10, 2019, Orange County GOP Chairman George Gilmore was indicted on six federal tax charges. 

Gilmore was charged with one count of income tax evasion for the calendar years 2013, 2014, and 2015; two counts of filing false tax returns for calendar years 2013 and 2014; failing to collect, account for, and pay payroll taxes for two quarters in 2016; and making false statements on a 2015 loan application submitted to OceanFirst Bank.

Gilmore could face years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines if he is convicted.

The federal grand jury alleged that Gilmore spent more than $2.5 million on personal expenses while owing more than $1 million in federal taxes. Gilmore’s purchases included $440,000 in antiques, artwork, and collectibles, over $100,000 for Colorado vacations; and over $700,000 for mortgages and related expenses on five different properties that he owned.

Gilmore also borrowed more than $1.7 million from professional associates, friends, and clients from January 2014 to December 2016. Gilmore also obtained more than $572,000 from the cash-out portion of a home mortgage loan that he refinanced.

When indicted, Gilmore referred all questions to his attorney, Kevin Marino. Marino said, “George Gilmore faithfully reported every penny of his income, repeatedly expressed his intention to pay his taxes together with interest and penalties, freely conceded that he was unable to pay his taxes in a timely fashion, and shared with the government the reasons why… That is not tax evasion by anyone’s lights. We look forward to Mr. Gilmore’s full vindication at trial.”

The Proposed Hoarding Expert

Marino submitted a letter to the court on March 28 indicating that his client was acting on good-faith in his dealing with the Internal Revenue Service. He wrote that Gilmore believed that “as long as he paid his back taxes, including payroll taxes, with interest and penalties, the fact that he may have incorrectly reported some of the monies he received from his law firm, or failed to pay over all of his firm’s payroll taxes in a timely fashion, would not expose him to criminal liability.”

Marino also proposed the introduction of expert witness Dr. Steven Simring, a psychiatrist and author to testify in Gilmore’s defense. Dr. Simring submitted a report that indicated that Gimore met the criteria for hoarding disorder as described in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association.

The U.S. Attorney’s office moved to exclude Dr. Simring’s testimony, noting that the doctor’s report did not explain why the alleged disorder “would cause Gilmore to pay some bills, including mortgage payments for multiple homes and credit card bills, but not others, like his federal tax bill.”

U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson granted the government’s motion to exclude Dr. Simring’s testimony.

A former priest who was defrocked after allegations of child sexual abuse has also lost his licenses to practice medicine.

Sex Abuse Allegations

The Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas began receiving allegations of sexual abuse of minors against Reverend John H. Wisner beginning in May 2012. Reverend Wisner was immediately suspended from active ministry and law enforcement was notified. 

The archdiocese conducted an investigation and found the allegations to be credible. In November 2012, archdiocesan officials sent the results to the Vatican. 

Wisner denied that he had engaged in sexual misconduct. He was never criminally charged in connection with the allegations.

The Reverend John H. Wisner was laicized, or returned to the lay state, by a decree issued by Joseph F. Naumann on December 21, 2017. The order was affirmed by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on March 2, 2018. The announcement was published on May 25, 2018 in The Leaven, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Kansas City.

Wisner had been ordained in 1972. He served as an associate pastor at St. Agnes Parish in Roeland Park and worked at Sacred Heart and Christ the King parishes in Kansas City, Kansas, and St. Joseph Parish in Shawnee.

Wisner also had been an associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department. He retired in September 2012.

Lost Medical Licenses

Despite Wisner’s defrocking, his medical licenses remained active for months afterward. This fact was reported by the Kansas City Star in September 2018. Victims’ advocates voiced their opinions that Wisner should not be allowed to retain his medical license. “This is a matter of protecting the public,” said Patrick Wall, a former Catholic priest who works as an investigator for a Minnesota law firm that represents sex abuse victims. “Just because he was granted a medical license at one time doesn’t mean he has a right to have it for life.”

However, Kansas medical registration records now list Wisner’s license as inactive. Wisner’s  medical license was not due to expire until July 31.

According to Kathleen Selzler Lippert, executive director of the State Board of Healing Arts, Kansas uses the inactive designation to designate a person who isn’t regularly practicing medicine in the state and “who does not hold oneself out to the public as being professionally engaged in such practice.”

Wisner’s license to practice medicine in Missouri was not revoked; it lapsed because it wasn’t renewed.

Wisner, 72, has declined to comment on the abuse allegations.

Former Expert Witness Practice

Wisner spent many years as a psychiatrist expert witness in civil and criminal trials including high-profile murder cases and sexual abuse cases.

Rebecca Randles, an attorney who has represented hundreds of sexual abuse victims in Kansas City, has said that Wisner’s medical license status is a cause for both relief and concern. She said,  “Because his license lapsed or was not renewed, the board likely lost jurisdiction to act on it.” This means that Wisner could seek reinstatement of his medical license in the state or elsewhere.

A pediatric forensic pathologist has testified that weak bones was a likely cause of death in the case of a man who is accused of killing his 6-week-old son.

The Death

On December 18, 2016, the El Dorado County sheriff’s department responded to a call requesting medical aid for an infant. A six-week-old Samuel Swope was transported to Marshall Hospital in Placerville, where he was pronounced dead. The subsequent investigation determined that the death was a homicide. It was also revealed that Michael Swope, the baby’s father, was not the biological father of the child and he reportedly admitted not wanting to care for another man’s child. Swope also admitted tossing Samuel to his wife during an argument.

Michael Swope was charged with second-degree murder and felony child abuse and endangerment in connection with Samuel’s death.

The Expert Testimony

Defense attorney Philip Cozens retained Dr. Janice Ophoven to testify on Swope’s behalf. Dr. Ophoven is a pediatric forensic pathologist who has worked on hundreds of cases involving the death of children.

Dr. Ophoven has over thirty years of clinical, administrative, and quality improvement experience. She is board certified in pathology, forensic pathology, quality assurance, and utilization review. Dr. Ophoven has consulted as a court-certified medical expert in pediatric forensic pathology in criminal and civil cases for both the prosecution and defense. She has also has consulted with medical examiners, coroners, physicians, law enforcement, and legal professionals who have asked her to determine the cause and manner of the child’s injury or death.

Dr. Ophoven testified that she has worked on many cases where an infant had suffered fractures and was initially thought to be the victim of child abuse, but bone disease turned out to be the cause of the breakage. She opined that the case of baby Samuel may fall into that category. However, Dr. Ophoven also said that a fatal blow to Samuel’s head was the likely case of the precipitating fatal incident. Dr. Ophoven said that if baby Samuel’s bones were already compromised due to bone disease, he would be much more susceptible to injury from a blow or other trauma.

Dr. Ophoven concluded that baby Samuel’s abnormal weakness could have accounted for some 30 fractures to the baby’s ribs. These injuries, which were found during Samuel’s autopsy, were a contributing factor to the Sacramento pathologist Brian Nagao calling law enforcement for what he believed was a criminal case of child abuse.

Cross Examination

Prosecuting attorney Lisette Suder of the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office raised the issue of expert fees. Suder pointed out that the defense team had paid Dr. Ophoven more than $15,600 so far, implying that the doctor’s testimony would be more favorable to the defense position.

Suder asked Dr. Ophoven whether her “goal was to say that the mom did it and that it (the fatal injury) didn’t happen that day?” Dr. Ophoven denied that contention and said that her findings came straight from the record.

A judge has approved a forensic consultant as an expert witness in the case of a Wisconsin man that is accused of killing his wife in 1982.

The Crime

On April 28, 1982, the body of 33-year-old Barbara Mendez was found at the Park City Credit Union where she worked. Barbara’s body was found bludgeoned to death. According to court documents, Barbara died from multiple blows to her head that likely came from a pry bar. 

Barbara’s husband’s family worked in the furniture business and frequently used pry bars in their work. A member of the family turned a pry bar in to the police in 2003.

At the time of Barbara’s death, no charges were brought. Years later, Barbara’s daughters wrote to the television show Cold Justice, asking them to look into the case. Cold Justice ran a segment on the case and did an additional investigation. 

The 2018 episode followed Steve Spingola, a former lieutenant detective with the Milwaukee Police Department, and prosecutor Kelly Siegler, who worked in the Harris County, Texas district attorney’s office for over 21 years. Singola and Siegler worked with local law enforcement and reviewed reports to investigate the unsolved crime.

Court documents show that Mendez began having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl the summer before his wife’s murder. Mendez told the girl that he wanted to marry her, but he couldn’t because the church did not approve of divorce. On the night of his wife’s death, Mendez reportedly saw the girl and told her that he was “footloose and fancy free now.” Mendez also coached the girl and his two daughters to lie to the police. 

As a result of the Cold Justice investigation, Oneida County District Attorney Michael Schiek recommended that Robin Mendez be charged. Mendez was charged with first-degree intentional homicide.

Tool Mark Analysis Expert Witness

Mendez waived his right to a jury trial. His trial will be held before Oneida County Circuit Court Judge Jill Falstad in April. The prosecution filed a motion requesting forensic Christopher Robinson to be allowed as an expert witness. 

Robinson is a forensic consultant who has over 20 years of experience in the forensic field. He spent over 12 years in law enforcement with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation as a firearms examiner and with the Atlanta Police Department as a Director of the Atlanta Police Crime Lab. Robinson has been called by both prosecution and defense to provide expert testimony in the areas of: firearms and tool mark examination, shooting reconstructions, gunshot residue analysis, blood spatter analysis, and crime scene reconstruction. He has provided testimony in state and federal courts in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Iowa, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Virginia, Missouri, Kansas, Alabama, Minnesota, and Alaska. Robinson has worked on cases involving unintentional discharges of firearms, police shootings, homicides, suicides, and assaults.

One of Robinson’s areas of expertise is tool mark analysis, which is the process of examining the marks left at a crime scene and a tool that is believed to have been used in a crime to see if a positive match can be achieved. Tool mark analysis is controversial because no scientific studies validate tool mark analysis and no standardized protocol allows examiners to determine whether a particular mark came from a particular tool.

Judge Falstad approved Robinson as a witness.

A murder defendant’s case was damaged by the testimony of his own expert witness.

The Crime

On November 16, 2015, Edith “Edie” Black-Scherer was found on the floor with a pillow wedged between the bedframe and her face. Black-Scherer is believed to have been killed by the ligature made with the drawstring of her sweatshirt, by strangulation with hands, and suffocation with a pillow. Black-Scherer was taken off life support five days later.

Black-Scherer, 45, was the mother of two children and a recently published author at the time of her death.

Black-Scherer’s husband, Axel Scherer, was implicated in her death. Scherer was charged with murder in connection with his wife’s death. Scherer admitted that he strangled his wife, but claimed mental illness as a defense.

The Trial

At trial, Prosecutor James Gubitose argued that mental illness alone was not enough to absolve Scherer of responsibility for the murder of his wife. Gubitose told the jury, “Millions of people in the United States suffer from mental health issues. . . . Does that mean they’re all not criminally responsible and can do whatever they want?” Gubitose argued that Scherer “knew what he was doing. . . . Every credible piece of evidence shows you that.”

Scherer’s own expert witness, psychologist Mark Schaeffer, provided the most damaging piece of evidence. Schaeffer testified that there was no evidence that Scherer was psychotic at the time that he strangled and smothered his wife. Schaeffer also conceded that there was no evidence that Scherer was psychotic at any point during 2015.

Gubitose pointed out that, “Dr. Schaefer even said he could appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions. . . . He knew what he was doing was wrong, according to the expert hired to help him. He was thinking clearly enough to understand that what he was doing when he was killing Edie was wrong.”  Gubitose also took issue with the fact that the expert had decided not to listen to the recording of the interview with the police before he concluded that Scherer was not criminally responsible.

Scherer’s defense attorney, Michael Phelan, argued that “If Axel Scherer wasn’t mentally ill, Edith would be here today.” He told the jury that his client had suffered from bipolar disorder in 2013 and 2014 and that he had been hospitalized in a manic state with psychotic features. Phelan said, “Clearly, there’s something going on with Mr. Scherer at this time.”

Phelan urged the jury to consider Scherer’s medical records from jail, where he reported delusions and hallucinations two months after the killing. Additionally, a court clinic psychologist believed that Scherer was psychotic on the day of his arraignment in January 2016. Phelan said that the prosecution’s theory of the case “defies logic” and that Scherer had no benefit to gain from the killing of his wife.

The Sentencing

Scherer, 48, was convicted of second-degree murder. He will receive life in prison, but become eligible for parole sometime after serving 15 years. Scherer will be sentenced by Salem Superior Court Judge James Lang at a hearing on February 26.