TheAgitator.com
Forensic Experts Aren’t Team Players. Nor Should They Be.
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008Roger Koppl relays the story of a district attorney in the Midwest who threatened one of Koppl’s acquaintances, who happens to be a county medical examiner. The prosecutor’s complaint? The doctor had testified for the defense in a nearby jurisdiction. Koppl writes;
The email says, “I do not find this acceptable” and “I view this practice as a conflict of interest and inappropriate.” I think the DA sincerely believes that his ME acted wrongly. “I would never accept a request to review the matter in the first place. Nor do you have to accept these requests. If you continue to do so, I am giving you the courtesy of letting you know that neither the Sheriff or I will be in a position to continue to support your appointment as the [local] County Coroner.” That’s quite a threat: If you persist in testifying for the defense in other counties you’ll lose your job as ME in this county.
I think Koppl’s friend needs to publicly name this district attorney. It is the DA’s behavior that is unprofessional, irresponsible, and wholly inappropriate, here. A medical examiner is not part of the prosecution’s “team.” From the National Association of Medical Examiners’ Forensic Autopsy Performance Standards:
Medicolegal death investigation officers, be they appointed or elected, are charged by statute to investigate deaths deemed to be in the public interest–serving both the criminal justice and public health systems. These officials must investigate cooperatively with, but independent from, law enforcement and prosecutors. The parallel investigation promotes neutral and objective medical assessment of the cause and manner of death.
To promote competent and objective death investigations . . [m]edicolegal death investigation officers should operate without any undue influence from law enforcement agencies and prosecutors.
Many prosecutors don’t see it this way (pdf). They believe a medical examiner’s job is not to get at the truth, but to help the state win convictions. If his conclusions differ from the prosecutor’s theories about the crime, then the medical examiner’s job is to keep his mouth shut. This case is even more egregious, in that this particular prosecutor is objecting to his own county’s medical examiner testifying in another jurisdiction. As Koppl explains, this may be an effort by prosecutors in the area to gain a monopoly on “truth” by depriving defendants of qualified available experts.
Koppl and I wrote a piece for Slate earlier this year outlining steps to a more fair, accurate, and honest forensics system.
Prosecutor to ME: “If yer not with us, yer with the terrorists – err, criminals, I mean. Now shut up and play ball or go find a job somewhere else.”
Forensic experts are supposed to like referees – they make judgment calls. Since when should referees be “team players”? It’s basically a contradiction.
Was there ever any doubt that this kind of thing is and has been happening for a long time? What ihappens when the forensic “expert” just happens to be a state police trooper?
Google Fred Zain and see “When experts Lie.”
Shouldn’t the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME), and other relevant associations be manning the ramparts in support of the independence of MEs? It’s one thing to publish bromides about independence, another thing to actually do something to enforce it. NAME should be calling national attention to this, naming and shaming prosecutors, and decertifying any ME who is not independent.
Wouldn’t DAs be better off if their MEs testified on both sides? From my limited experience in mock trial, it’s nice to have your expert be able to say that they work for both sides instead of having to admit that they’re partisan.
It seems forensics are faulty across the board and still are allowed in court.Many field drug test kits have a high rate of false positives,B.A.C machine code is being hidden by there makes under court order,and people like Haynes are testifying about bite marks and two hands on the gun evidence.I’m waiting on the float test for witches to be used next.
Re#6.
At least the float test for witches is more verifiable and transparent than anything done by Hayne. You know that things are bad when Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a better exposition of experimental method than the Mississippi Medical Examiner.
I made a mistake,I should have said against a court order for the B.A.C. machine makers.One has been fined millions for not letting the defense see their code.Thousands of DUI’s may be tossed due to this and misconduct by L.E. in Texas,Florida and other states.
Pardon me, but isn’t telling a witness that something bad is going to happen to them if they don’t make themselves unavailable normally considered criminal witness tampering?
Re:#3 Looks like Fred Zain was finally indicted but never lived to see trial. He died of cancer at age 52 in Dec 2002. That almost makes me feel the way I do when someone commits some horrible act and then cheats justice by killing themselves. He should have lived through about 10 years of prison and then died of cancer.
I don’t see a problem here. The prosecutor has a job to do, and it’s much more difficult to get a conviction when the defense has experts testifying on their behalf like that. And this practice of holding trials and presenting facts has gotten way out of control. This anachronistic formality only serves to burden the public with unnecessary expense and hassle!
If the media weren’t so effing useless, I would say that a reporter should throw these words back at the prosecutor and ask “is it your office’s policy, based on these statements, that it is not in the state’s interest to take reasonable measures to ensure that innocent people aren’t prosecuted?”
“I think Koppl’s friend needs to publicly name this district attorney.”
Definitely. An DA that is this confused about the special role of medicolegal investigators and medical examiners needs to have his/her competence questioned. And due to the threatening nature of the correspondence, I’d say the DA’s ethics are shaky.
There ought to be a law, and here’s what the law should say: All communication between the ME and the DA shall be via email or transcribed.
Medical examiners and prosecutors should have the same goal: to find out the truth. That prosecutors stray from their legitimate goal, however, does not mean that medical examiners should follow.
It’s too bad that judges don’t allow witnesses to be asked certain questions that would totally undermine their credibility, when those witnesses in fact shouldn’t have any credibility. The judges probably don’t want to put people out of their jobs, but that’s no excuse: if a professional witness (ME, cop, etc.) has demonstrated that he is unwilling or unable to consistently give honest testimony, he shouldn’t remain employed as a professional witness.