Defense Experts= Hired Guns. State Experts= Humble Public Servants

An anonymous commenter posted this reaction to my interview with Dr. Greg Kane, an expert witness.

Wow!! Amazing!! A man who wants money from defense lawyers states that nothing LE does is correct?? What are the odds of that?

Dr. Kane detailed the statistical manipulation used to legitimize field sobriety testing. Dr. Kane is available for hire by any attorney, State or defense.

In my experience, jurors accept State expert witnesses as neutral and credible. The cynicism displayed in the comment about Dr. Kane, is missing.

The truth is that State experts are employees of the State, paid to testify for the State, trained to testify by the State, in a manner than benefits the State.

Take the DPS employees who certify and maintain the Intoxilyzer machine. These State “experts” are trained at government workshops. They are taught to ignore and disregard evidence that these machines are faulty. They will readily testify that if they didn’t believe in the machine they would lose their job. They are not neutral scientists in a lab somewhere. They are law enforcement employees with a vested interest in the machine, if not the verdict.

I’m all for skeptical jurors challenging expert witnesses. However, we should hold the same standards to State experts. Experience has shown that they are easily and routinely corrupted.