Прочитайте диалог между судьей и экспертом, выступающим в качестве свидетеля по делу.

 

Q: What is your name?

A: Lionel Thompson, Your Honour.

Q: Your occupation?

A: I am a doctor, and have been all my life.

Q: Did you examine Deborah Ann Kaye and review her file?

A: The young woman who suffered massive brain damage while in Dr. Towler’s care? Yes.

Q: What is your educational background?

A: I went to Howard University as an undergraduate and majored in chemistry. I went to medical school at N.Y.U. and got my M.D. in 1958.

Q: What did you do after that?

A: I stayed on the staff at Bellevue for five years, and then joined their Emergency Medicine group. I practiced there for almost twenty years, but the pace of the Emergency room became too much for me, so I joined the surgical staff of the Hempstead Hospital on Long Island. I am still on staff there.

Q: Do you hold any state licenses?

A: Yes. I am licensed to practice medicine by the state of New York.

Q: Are you a member of any medical societies?

A: Yes. The A.M.A., the New York State Medical Society, the Nassau County Medical Society, and Concerned Physicians for Peace in the Middle East.

Q: Do you have experience with anaesthesiology?

A: Yes. When I was at Bellevue, most of my practice was anaesthesiology. At Hempstead I did mostly general surgery, but of course, the surgeon must work closely with the anaesthesiologist.

Q: Have you ever testified as an expert witness before?

A: Yes, several times.

Q: Do you have any experience reviewing other doctors’ work?

A: Yes. I was on the peer review committee of Hempstead Hospital from 1987 to 1995, that was in charge of reviewing complaints against staff doctors.

Q: What kinds of cases did you review?

A: All kinds, but mostly they were cases where a patient had suffered serious complications following surgery.

Q: Counting both your experience on the peer review committee and your consulting work, about how many cases of suspected medical malpractice have you investigated?

A: Around two hundred.

Ответьте на вопросы.

1. What branch of science is Lionel Thompson specialized in?

2. What have you learned about his educational level?

3. What was his major in the undergraduate course?

4. Where did he get his Doctor Degree?

5. What did he do after graduating from New York University?

6. Did he have enough experience as an expert witness?

7. How many cases did he review?

8. Do you think that the judge was satisfied with his qualifications as an expert?

Прочитайте текст и ответьте на вопросы.

1. Who can be an expert witness?

2. What are the requirements for an expert witness?

3. How can an expert witness reach his/her goals?

4. What is the right of an expert witness?

5. What should an expert witness remember when testifying?

 

 

TEXT

Regardless of one's role in an investigation, no one can accurately claim to be an expert wit­ness by profession. Expert witnesses, by law, can only be declared such by a judge. There are experts who are not scientists; for exam­ple, experts in office design, river rafting, school bus driving, fashion design, art history, or scuba diving. Of course, there are also ex­perts in the natural sciences and medicine, as well as those with forensic practices. But only the court creates expert witnesses. Forensic scientists first and foremost must remain scientists. Those practicing forensic medicine remain, first and foremost, medical profes­sionals. Forensic scientists and forensic pathologists may or may not be declared ex­pert witnesses by the court.

Expert witnesses are perceived very differently from lay witnesses, both by the law and by the public. It gives you some rights and advantages but imparts added responsibilities. Juries will forgive fear, nervousness, and some confusion in a lay witness, but experts don’t impress much if they show those conditions.

There are three requirements for an expert witness:

a) The witness must qualify as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education greater than the average layperson in the area of his or her testimony.

b) The expert must testify to scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge. The reliability of the testimony is based on valid reasoning and a reliable methodology, as opposed to subjective observations or speculative conclusions.

c) The expert’s testimony must assist the trier of fact, i.e., be relevant to the task of the judge or the jury to understand the evidence or determine disputed facts.

The goal of the expert witness is to communicate to the judge and jury. The single most important way to do this is to use plain language, thereby avoiding what appears to be the hypertechnical language of science.

The expert has a right to state an opinion and give the supporting data and reasons for it, testify in narrative form rather than question and answer (though some judges won’t allow narrative), demand to see and examine any published texts being used to cross-examine you, and refuse to state your opinion until you have been compensated.

Testifying is a chance to teach some receptive folks about our very interesting work. Remember this: 1. you know more about the subject than the lawyer does, 2. juries like scientists more than they like lawyers.