Medical Experts As Defense Experts

In Dakota County, an intriguing argument is raised over whether medical examiners should be allowed to testify as defense experts. When medical examiners step inside the yellow crime-scene tape, they bring expertise held by just a handful of people in the state. But do they do so as impartial sleuths who simply "follow the evidence," to borrow a phrase, or as public employees with their own loyalties and biases?  Or are they both?

The question is at the heart of an unusual dispute stemming from a Dakota County deputy medical examiner's work with a defense attorney in a Washington County murder trial last year. Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom took exception to a representative of a public office potentially calling prosecution evidence into question during a criminal trial, and his sharp e-mail exchange with medical examiner Dr. Lindsey Thomas led to accusations of coercion when the deputy medical examiner withdrew from the trial.