The Mississippi Supreme Court is seeking public comment on proposed rule amendments that address discovery deadlines and expert witnesses in trial courts. The motion calls for extending the time for discovery from 90 to 180 days and allowing either party or the court no later than 30 days before trial to request a determination of the admissibility of an expert witness' testimony with a definitive ruling at least 10 days prior to trial.

The Mississippi Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Rules requested the changes. A copy of the petition and proposed rules are available online at http://tinyurl.com/rulesforcomment. Comments must be filed by Friday with the clerk of the Supreme Court, Gartin Justice Building, Box 249, Jackson MS 39205.

Excerpted from clarionledger.com.

A Hall County, Georgia, jury has decided that The Red Hat Club author libeled a former friend in a novel.  On Nov. 19, the jury found that Haywood Smith's bestselling 2003 novel damaged Vicki Stewart because it featured a character who closely resembled Stewart and portrayed her as a sexually promiscuous alcoholic. The jury rejected a claim of invasion of privacy.

The jury of eight men and four women awarded Stewart $100,000 in damages but denied her request for attorney fees. Because Stewart is not a public figure, her attorneys needed to prove only that Smith acted with negligence, not the higher standard of actual malice.

Dean Hugh Ruppersburg, libel expert witness for the defense, said "from the first sentence, the first paragraph of The Red Hat Club, it presented itself to me as a work of fiction."

 

For more, see www.firstamendmentcenter.org

Capt. Michael Fontana is accused of killing three terminally ill patients last summer at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio.  The nurse faces three counts of murder, or possibly lesser charges of attempted murder or negligent homicide, as well as conduct unbecoming an officer.

Army Lt. Col. Pedro Lucero, a critical care physician at Brooke Army Medical Center and an medical expert witness for the government, said the 70 milligrams of morphine Dorothy Gray received in two doses 70 minutes apart caused her death.  But Dr. Robert Bux, a forensic pathologist and defense witness, disagreed with a ruling by the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office that Gray's death was a homicide. He said her blood samples were “shaky” because he didn't know what part of her body they came from.

Dr. Robert Fine, an expert on palliative care and internal medicine for the defense, said medication orders were vague and inconsistent. More disturbing, he said, was a decision doctors made after consulting family members to take Dorothy Gray, a stroke victim, off a ventilator.

For more, see mysanantonio.com.

Superior Court Justice Daniel Procaccini is presiding over the wrongful death suit against Rhode Island Kent Hospital.  Medical expert witness Dr. John Schreiber said that for everything Dr. Kelli Naylor, co-defendant in the suit, did, she did nothing to treat what was indicated as an acute cardiac crisis by an electrocardiogram (EKG) that was available to her at 5:45 p.m. on July 26, 2006. He said everything that she did between the time the EKG was available and the time Woods was pronounced dead at 7:30 p.m. did nothing to address an “anterior infarction” on the results that appeared above a banner-like line above the EKG that clearly stated in capital letters, “ABNORMAL EKG,” indicting an acute cardiac event.

For more, see www.warwick.com.

Shelton-based Health Net of the Northeast Inc. surprised state officials and regulators Wednesday when it admitted private information on 450,000 Connecticut residents has been missing for about a half-year.  According to the company and state regulators, an unencrypted portable disk drive containing personal information on past Health Net clients and providers disasppeared from the Shelton office in May, but not reported until now.

The company said the breach was not reported because it took a long time to conduct a detailed forensic investigation to determine what information is missing. According to state officials, the disk drive contained health information, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and other personal information on members and providers dating to 2002.

Although the company said a special program is needed to view the documents, Tarek Sobh, a computer engineering expert and dean of the University of Bridgeport's School of Engineering, said that's not much protection.

For more, see connpost.com.

Prosecutors will be allowed to use all of their intended witnesses in the upcoming competency hearing of accused Elizabeth Smart kidnapper Brian David Mitchell, including their forensic psychiatry expert witness, Dr. Michael Welner.  Welner, a renowned forensic psychiatrist from New York City, has prepared a 206-page report on Mitchell in which he concludes Mitchell is competent to stand trial. In his report, Welner lists 161 sources of information, according to court records.

On Monday, U.S. Magistrate Dale Kimball denied several motions by Mitchell aimed at preventing the testimonies of Welner.  With the exception of Smart, who already delivered her testimony in October, and growing speculation that co-defendant Wanda Barzee will take the stand against her estranged husband, Welner is expected to be the government's key witness during the competency hearing.

Excerpted from deseretnews.com.

The trial of a 17-year-old Bremerton, WA, boy accused of setting a fire that caused an estimated $12 million in damage began Monday. Attorney Thomas Weaver says the boy was easily swayed by police questioning and the case hinges on inconsistent statements to police that don’t match the physical evidence.  Weaver said he will call a forensic psychology expert who gave the boy a psychological exam that shows he is highly susceptible to leading questioning under pressure. That expert is expected to testify Thursday.

The prosecution called a fire cause and origin expert witness who said an accelerant was used to start the July 27 fire.  Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Leila Mills will determine a verdict in the case. Juvenile cases are not argued before juries.

For more, see kitsapsun.com.

ExxonMobil's natural gas expert expert witness testified on the production process for natural gas at the LaBarge Project in southwestern Wyoming. The case was sent to the Supreme Court of Wyoming, which ruled on November 12, (2009 WY 139).

The current litigation brings before us ExxonMobil's dispute with the Wyoming Department of Revenue over the taxation of natural gas for production year 2005. The Board of Equalization first heard and decided the dispute. ExxonMobil appealed two key aspects of the Board's decision to the district court. Pursuant to W.R.A.P. 12.09(b), the district court certified the case directly to us for review. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we will reverse the decision of the Board, and remand the case for further proceedings. 

Excerpted from leagle.com.

In What is a Hazardous Material?, safety engineering expert James L. Unmack, P.E., C.I.H., C.S.P., describes what makes a hazardous material:

Consider the characteristic of flammability, or more generally, the characteristic of being capable of supporting combustion. How may this characteristic be quantified in a meaningful way? What point on the scale represents a hazardous material?

Organizations such as the National Fire Protection Association and the American Society for Testing Materials have developed standard methods to test and criteria for labeling combustible materials. A flammable material is considered more hazardous than a combustible material. To simplify the quantification, solids, liquids, and gases are addressed separately. The flammability of a gas is easily described by the minimum concentration needed to support combustion, expressed as the lower flammability limit (LFL) or the lower explosive limit (LEL). The flammability of a liquid is measured by the flash point (FP), the minimum temperature at which the vapors, above the surface of the liquid, form an explosive mixture. The flammability of solids is much more complex and is usually addressed on a case by case basis.

The House Judiciary Committee has accused the NFL of neglect in denying the link between concussions and brain injury.  Retired pro football players have several times the national rate of Alzheimer’s disease and other memory afflictions than normal populations. Former players between the age of 30-40 experience memory-related  diseases at a rate of 19 times of that of men who didn’t play, according to an analysis of a study by the New York Times.   

Medical expert witness Dr. Ann McKee of Boston University School of Medicine showed the committee images of brains of dead football players and testified that all 11 of the former collegiate and professional football players she had examined showed “severe” signs of degradation. Before they died, many of the players had suffered from memory loss and emotional disturbances.

Excerpted from spotlight.vitals.com.

Jury selection will begin in February in the trial of a Bound Brook, NJ, nightclub and its co-owners on charges of not paying state sales taxes.  Borough resident Rafael Rosario and his half-brother Rafael Amaro, of Edison, and their nightclub, El Cafe Imperial, were indicted in June 2007 on nine counts of not paying state sales taxes on products sold at the Talmage Avenue establishment.  Rosario and Amaro are charged with keeping about $100,000 in unpaid taxes for their own use, Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne J. Forrest said at the time of the indictment.  Somerset County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Murphy said he had received this week a report from the defense's expert witnesses on the sales-tax issue.

Excerpted from mycentraljersey.com .

A New Jersey state appellate court has ruled that information from a GPS tracking device placed in the vehicle of a suspect can be not admitted as evidence during a trial unless there is expert testimony on the information's accuracy.  Investigators from the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office placed a GPS unit in a vehicle in 2005 to track Eric Pittman in a seven-month undercover drug investigation.

The prosecution sought to have the GPS information admitted into Pittman's trial. But the information was challenged by Pittman's lawyer, Steven Altman, who argued more expert testimony needed to be heard about the reliability of the GPS unit and if investigators had used the device correctly. 

The prosecution had initially argued that expert testimony was not needed because of the general acceptance of GPS technology, but Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman said a representative of the GPS's unit manufacturer, Orion, should be called to testify about the device.

Excerpted from mycentraljersey.com.

In More Hype Than Hope, environmental expert Zoltan Mester, Ph.D., explains how conservation evaporates ethanol's benefits for cars:

The question then arises whether improvements in fuel economy can achieve comparable gasoline savings as predicted by ethanol substitution.  Based on statistical information from the Federal Highway Administration in 2004 approximately 90 million pickups trucks, SUVs and vans were registered in the USA. Assuming 90 percent of this fleet was gasoline powered with 18mpg average fuel economy and 15,000 miles driven per vehicle annually this fleet of vehicles consumed 1.79 billion Barrels of gasoline per year (4.9 million Barrels per day). By raising the fuel economy to 20 miles per gallon corresponding to 11 percent increase would save 7.5 billion gallons of gasoline per year. This gasoline saving is equivalent to using 10.5 billion gallons of ethanol as gasoline substitute which is 40 percent more ethanol than set by the Energy Policy Act for 2012.

In sum, ethanol from corn alone is not a significant source as gasoline substitute at the national level but it can ease the gasoline squeeze in and around areas where the corn industry thrives. The goals by the Energy Policy Act for ethanol production from any renewable source can be met by a relatively modest increase in fuel economy for SUVs, vans and pickup trucks not even taking into account passenger cars. Pending commercial viability, cellulose conversion to ethanol has a better chance to ease the gasoline squeeze at the national level.

 

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has completed the use of force report related to the incident at the Fort Worth Rainbow Lounge occurring on June 28, 2009. The 74-page report takes into account statements by eyewitnesses, use of force expert witnesses, TABC employees, and Fort Worth police officers.  The report clears TABC agents of targeting the Rainbow Lounge because it was a gay bar and states the agents did not use excessive force against three patrons who were arrested during the raid.

The agents, Christopher Aller and Jason Chapman, were fired along with their supervisor in August based on the findings of TABC’s first investigation into the June 28 raid, which dealt with policy violations. However, TABC’s second and final investigation clears Aller and Chapman of allegations that they targeted the bar and used excessive force against patrons Chad Gibson, Jose Macias and George Armstrong. Gibson was hospitalized for a week following the raid with a head injury.

Excerpted from dallasvoice.com.

Triumph Foods and Missouri Gas Energy reached a settlement Monday in the lawsuit that was set for a jury trial to begin the same day.  The pork company was suing the natural gas provider in Buchanan County Circuit Court for $19.9 million, stemming from a 2005 explosion that killed one person during the construction of the St. Joseph, MO, pork plant.

Triumph and MGE were in court Oct. 16 for a pretrial conference, asking for more than 40 expert witnesses to be accepted or excluded from the trial.  Triumph already settled with the other insurance companies, contractors and subcontractors involved in the facility’s construction, but the pork producer and MGE appeared to reach an impasse two months ago.

Triumph wanted $7.9 million in damages and $12 million in profits the company lost by delaying its opening for 62 days. Triumph’s attorneys argued MGE was responsible for not warning the pork company and its contractors that new steel pipes can absorb the natural gas’ odor while  Triumph attorney Mark Gottlieb said that had the company known about that possibility, it would have required spot testing as a safety precaution.

Source: stjoenews.net.

A former accident & emergency doctor in California has been found guilty of assaulting cyclists by overtaking them and then slamming on his brakes. Dr. Christopher Thompson was convicted by a jury at Los Angeles Superior Court on seven counts including assault with a deadly weapon, reckless driving causing specified bodily injury and battery with serious bodily injury.  In one incident he left a cyclist requiring 90 stitches and reconstructive surgery to his nose and several broken teeth.

 

An accident reconstruction expert used GPS data from an earlier incident which showed bicyclists traveling at the 30mph speed limit before the 60-year-old doctor passed them, then braked suddenly, forcing them to take evasive action to avoid a collision.  In a more serious accident, which took place on the road where Dr Thompson lives, one cyclist went through his rear windscreen while the other flew over the car and landed on the road.

Excerpted from http://road.cc/.

 

Judge Barbara Walther ruled that DNA expert Amy Smuts, a forensic analyst at a respected DNA lab, is qualified to testify about paternity tests indicating a nearly 100 percent probability defendant Raymond Merril Jessop fathered a child with a 16-year-old in November 2004 at the Yearning for Zion Ranch.  The DNA evidence is central to the prosecution’s mission to prove Jessop sexually assaulted an underage girl he’d taken as a “purported wife.” Prosecutors allege Jessop had one legal wife and eight “purported wives.”

Jessop, 38, and 11 other members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints face criminal charges. Jessop is the first to go to trial, and evidence seized during a historic April 2008 raid at the YFZ Ranch is expected to weigh heavily in the prosecution’s mission to prove those charges.

Source gosanangelo.com.

Jack W. Frandy, 69, of Rio, WI, was charged Thursday with two counts of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle and with misdemeanor obstructing an officer and faces 25 years in prison in the death of Ben VanderVenter.  A crash re-construction expert reported that both vehicles were traveling less than the speed limit at the time of the impact, with the Cadillac going 45 mph and the Saturn between 40 and 44 mph, according to a criminal complaint.

A blood test later revealed Frandy's blood-alcohol concentration to be 0.166 at the time of the collision, according to a criminal complaint, more than twice the legal level of 0.08 to drive in Wisconsin. Pamela Frandy, 60, Jack Frandy's wife, initially told authorities she was the driver; Frandy called her to the scene after the crash, according to a criminal complaint. Pamela drove from their Highway B residence to the accident before contacting 911, authorities said.

Source wiscnews.com.