With a few more expert witnesses due for a roasting over the Post Office scandal, it is a wonder how some ‘experts’ have ever been allowed to give evidence.
Take the Florida dog-handler who persuaded judges and juries that his dogs could detect a scent for months, if not years. The more convictions racked up based on his evidence, the more of an expert he became. He was unmasked when a judge devised a simple trial of his own which the dogs failed.
It is good to get yourself in a position where the defence will retain you so you cannot appear for the prosecution and, if possible, the prosecution will do the same. Texan Dr James Grigson, known as Dr Death, did just that, claiming 100% accuracy in his predictions. His specialty was giving evidence in the death penalty phase of trials, usually labelling the defendants as psychopaths who would not hesitate to kill again – a requirement in Texas for the death penalty.
Over 18 years Dr Death gave evidence in 111 capital cases. In all but eight the defendant was sentenced to death. Grigson saw the accused for only a few minutes and on one occasion not at all. At the end of his career one Texas Court of Appeal judge wrote: ‘When Dr Grigson speaks to a lay jury about a person who he characterises as a “severe” sociopath the defendant should stop what he is doing and commence writing out his last will and testament.’
Meanwhile, Louise Robbins, professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina, did not need to analyse footprints made at crime scenes. She claimed that no two people walked the same way and that after looking at a crime scene she could identify the wearer of the shoes that had made the mark without the trouble of matching the print with the shoe.
Before she died in 1987, Robbins’ conclusions had been reviewed by a panel of 135 anthropologists, lawyers and forensic scientists, one of whom described her theories as ‘pure hogwash’. Unfortunately for defendants, she had over 12 years appeared in courtrooms all over the US and Canada.
James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor
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