Only in the bizarro “science” world of forensic science: I only consider the data the DA tells me to

Remember this scene from Seinfeld?

I had a brush of this of similar type today. Science versus science fiction…

The Bizarro World (also known as Htrae) is a fictional planet in the DC comics universe. Introduced in the early 1960s, Htrae is a cube-shaped planet, home to Bizarro and his companions, all of whom were initially Bizarro versions of Superman, Lois Lane and their children. Later, other Bizarros were created to add to the population including Wonderzarro, Bizarro Flash, “the Yellow Lantern”, Bizarro-Kltpzyxm and Batzarro, the World’s Worst Detective.

Yesterday, I was chatting with a state’s expert on a case. This state’s expert witness will be testifying in a Driving Under the Influence of Drugs (DUID) case. I told this person that as he is opining as to impairment, that I wanted to give him the pharmacologically releavant data as to my client’s valid Aprazolam (Xanax) prescription and all accompanying dosage history records, prescription fill records from her PPO, all therapeutic monitoring blood draws, as well as a statement from the prescribing psychiatrist in order to show true and designed and monitored steady state for this citizen accused had been made and maintained not withstanding the analytical chemsitry result.

I wanted this expert to consider all of the information. You know, do science, right?

He said that he would note that I made these things available, but would only consider it if the Deputy District Attorney wanted him to consider it.

I was a little shocked.

I thanked him and told him that those documents were utterly available and that I did not want to spring it on her in trial. I said that I wanted to be transparent and fair. He thanked me but declined the data.

Real science here.

I guess we can add this “scientist” to the cast of Htrae, couldn’t we?

One response to “Only in the bizarro “science” world of forensic science: I only consider the data the DA tells me to”

  • I think that inexperienced expert witnesses in particular feel that they themselves are somehow on trial (for their knowledge level) , and fail to realize that their function is to give the jury all of the scientific facts to assist them.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *