Understanding Experts in Child Abuse Trials
Child abuse trials are difficult for many reasons.The emotions involved can be sky high. In the heat of these trials prosecutors will often recognize that the child witness is either confused or is lying about certain events.In order to bolster their case, they will call an expert to bolster their case and try to increase their chances of convictions. Juries are very willing to listen to witnesses in order to help them understand the case.
The first are you should explore is whether the expert actually examined the child witness whether its a physical or mental examination. In many cases we have handled, the expert witness will not have even spoken to the child witness and will only speak generally about what children do. This is very problematic, since children, like adults, cannot be all expected to act the same. These experts must be cross-examined relentlessly. Simply put, they have no place in the courtroom and every objection should be made to the judge that they should not be able to testify.
Another type of expert is the medical expert. This is an area that you should have an expert of your own at the ready for the simple reason that most attorneys do not have medical training. In this are a lot of damage can be done. If an expert comes in and testifies to a medical fact that you know is not true, you need to have the medical information to challenge him. That usually means another expert to contradict him.
The are of DNA experts in sexual assault and rape case is also fraught with danger. This is where a criminal defense attorney can get themselves into trouble if they don't prepare for it. If the alleged victim claims to have been assault by a stranger, then if the defendant's DNA is found on the victim, this is powerful evidence. However, if the parties are known to each other and the claim is forced rape versus consentual sex, DNA evidence will not be a big help to the jury to determine guilt or innocence.
As a New York City Sexual Assault criminal defense lawyer, I have seen many cases where experts have been used to convict people that were clearly innocent. The most effective tool against these types of cases is a thoroughly prepared defense.
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