Expert witness

Chemically related database searches can be used to estabhsh concepts and patentable ideas. For instance, searches have identified researchers using particular monomers in a potentially patentable latex formulation found precedents for a polymeric emulsifier summarized pubHcations of people being considered as consultants, expert witnesses, employees or speakers to an industrial group and provided market description information for a new pigment manufacturing firm to identify target markets. 

An expert witness is to be a person with substantial training in a specific field who can look at a set of data and come to a scientific conclusion about the merits of the issues. Target here is that any conflict between objectively and the highly opinionated atmosphere inherent in legal proceedings has always been problematic for technical people with ethics. 

As an expert witness, Frankland performed with an unbeatable combination of activism and authority. A poor lecturer in classrooms, he was nimble-witted on the witness stand, up-to-date on a multitude of facts, and, above all, able to explain clearly any relevant scientific principles. 

Kehoe was a smooth and practiced expert witness at government and judicial hearings. He opened his testimony by boasting that he knew more about lead than anyone else in the world. He boasted that he had served as the Ethyl Corporation s medical director because I was the only person who was familiar with the toxicology of tetraethyl lead and with the occupational hazards associated with its manufacture and distribution.. . . In developing the information on this subject (lead), I have had a greater responsibility than any other person in this country. Kehoe proudly... 

The Scientist or Engineer as an Expert Witness, James G. Speight... 

A typical court-room scene. Nathan Elias of New York City, the Prosecution s expert witness on chemical production, is testifying. Heinrich Buete-fisch, world s greatest synthetic fuel scientist, is cross examining Elias. On the walls are maps showing I. G. Farben s plants within Germany. 

Special attention should be called to the services rendered by Nathaniel Elias of New York. An expert chemist of considerable renown, he left his business and came to Numberg to spend several months advising us concerning many technical chemical problems involved in the trial. As an expert witness for the prosecution, he bested the chemical geniuses on trial when — dramatically leaving the dock to take over from their counsel the task of trying to break down Elias testimony — they cross-examined him relentlessly. 

During a trial, lawyers often call upon expert witnesses to help them make their case. These witnesses were not involved in the crime, but they have expertise that can help the jurors determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Similarly, in many essays, and particularly in research papers, much of your support will come in the form of expert opinion and analysis. The experts you call upon can help you demonstrate the validity of your thesis. 

If you are writing your paper about President John F. Kennedy, it might be important for you to include his personal statements about his final days in the White House. Maybe, he mentioned privately to one of his aids just before his assassination that he was worried about security. Perhaps, he had been warned about his trip to Dallas beforehand, and in a speech to White House staff, he acknowledged security worries. With strong confidence though, he vowed to undertake a trip that could mean danger. Direct quotations and statements from experts—witnesses who were alive at the time. 

In the 1500s, the term hysteria was used to describe anxietylike afflictions. One of the first English accounts of hysteria was written by the physician Edward Jorden in 1603. Jorden believed that the women who were accused of witchcraft were actually afflicted with what he called hysterical illness. He was often called as an expert witness for the defense in witchcraft trials, but was not always persuasive. 

Figure 1.2 In the photograph above. Dr. Jo Ellen Dyer, a pharmacist and toxicologist who specializes in GHB and sexual assault, serves as an expert witness at the rape trial of Max Factor heir, Andrew Luster. In 2003, Luster was convicted of raping a series of women after he used GHB, a "date rape" drug, to seduce his victims.

A notable case involving exhumation is that of Dr. X. In 1976, Dr. Mario E. Jascalevich, known as Dr. X before his true identity was revealed, was accused of murdering five patients 10 years earlier at Riverdell Hospital in Oradell, New Jersey, by administering curare, a muscle relaxant. The five bodies were exhumed, and toxicology results were presented at trial that lasted 34 weeks. A key argument between the prosecution and defense expert witnesses was whether curare was in fact detected in the bodily samples. The prosecutor could not prove that curare was present, and Dr. Jascalevich was eventually acquitted. 

Expert witness An individual that a judge qualifies to offer an opinion based on knowledge, skill, experience, training, and education, if the testimony is relevant and reliable. 

Legal assessment of trace amounts. In any case it depends on the expert witness to what extent sensorially irrelevant trace amounts, detected by (en-antio)-cGC analysis, have to be classified as an avoidable contamination or have to be assessed as inevitable for technological reasons. 

A closer examination of two prominent court cases suggests that the claim that courts are incapable of careful use of scientific evidence is overstated. Judge Jack Weinstein, in the Agent Orange litigation, was skeptical of animal studies and expert witnesses who espoused... 

Green, Michael D. 1992. Expert Witnesses and Sufficiency of Evidence in Toxic Substance Litigation—The Legacy of Agent Orange and Bendectin Litigation. Northwestern University Law Review 86(3) 643-99. 

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