http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/8449927/Court-use-of-hired-gun-experts-concerns
It's always difficult to evaluate this kind of media article, but this one is alarming:
New Zealand courts are turning more to "hired gun" expert witnesses, and it could lead to more miscarriages of justice, a leading forensic scientist says.
An Auckland University study released this week looked into the treatment of expert witnesses in New Zealand.
It said criminal courts and the Family Court were becoming more reliant on them, but experts mistrusted the courts so much they were refusing to give evidence.
Head researcher and former Whangarei Crown prosecutor Emily Henderson and Auckland University's Fred Seymour interviewed five district court judges, 27 experts and seven lawyers on the issue.
The experts complained of "grossly unfair treatment by cross-examiners and deeply flawed and inadequate processes for evaluating their evidence", they found.
The lawyers saw "real issues" with the way expert evidence was handled and welcomed the idea of changing the system.
The two main problems lawyers found with experts were bias and reluctance to attend, the researchers said.
"One, for example, was critical of New Zealand experts' reluctance to criticise each other, while two - one a prosecutor, one with extensive prosecutorial experience - raised concerns about bias amongst a small but prominent group of defence experts," they said.
Another said there were some highly opinionated "super-charismatic" experts who could influence juries by their presentation and who were "incredibly difficult to deal with" in cross-examination.
One lawyer said the experts were "scared about their own liability, scared of being made a fool of, scared of participating in a system that doesn't strike them as rational".
"Our interviewees also identified a small number of 'hired guns' or activist expert witnesses, some local but several from overseas, who appear regularly in the courts (especially for the defence) and whom they believe are seriously unethical in the way they represent the scientific issues to the court," the study said.
Extensive demands on their time, challenges to their competence and fear of making a mistake were cited as reasons for their reluctance.
I'd love some comments from New Zealand about this.
It's always difficult to evaluate this kind of media article, but this one is alarming:
New Zealand courts are turning more to "hired gun" expert witnesses, and it could lead to more miscarriages of justice, a leading forensic scientist says.
An Auckland University study released this week looked into the treatment of expert witnesses in New Zealand.
It said criminal courts and the Family Court were becoming more reliant on them, but experts mistrusted the courts so much they were refusing to give evidence.
Head researcher and former Whangarei Crown prosecutor Emily Henderson and Auckland University's Fred Seymour interviewed five district court judges, 27 experts and seven lawyers on the issue.
The experts complained of "grossly unfair treatment by cross-examiners and deeply flawed and inadequate processes for evaluating their evidence", they found.
The lawyers saw "real issues" with the way expert evidence was handled and welcomed the idea of changing the system.
The two main problems lawyers found with experts were bias and reluctance to attend, the researchers said.
"One, for example, was critical of New Zealand experts' reluctance to criticise each other, while two - one a prosecutor, one with extensive prosecutorial experience - raised concerns about bias amongst a small but prominent group of defence experts," they said.
Another said there were some highly opinionated "super-charismatic" experts who could influence juries by their presentation and who were "incredibly difficult to deal with" in cross-examination.
One lawyer said the experts were "scared about their own liability, scared of being made a fool of, scared of participating in a system that doesn't strike them as rational".
"Our interviewees also identified a small number of 'hired guns' or activist expert witnesses, some local but several from overseas, who appear regularly in the courts (especially for the defence) and whom they believe are seriously unethical in the way they represent the scientific issues to the court," the study said.
Extensive demands on their time, challenges to their competence and fear of making a mistake were cited as reasons for their reluctance.
I'd love some comments from New Zealand about this.
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