Psychologist testifies on behalf of Catholic Diocese of Green Bay in fraud case

by Jim Collar
Gannett Wisconsin Media
http://www.greenbaypressgazzette.com/
Originally published May 18, 2012

A psychologist hired by the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay said two brothers who were sexually assaulted by a priest in 1978 suffered only minor trauma as a result.

Attorneys for the church began calling their witnesses Thursday in the Outagamie County civil lawsuit alleging fraud against the diocese. Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield say the diocese knew former priest John Feeney sexually assaulted others before 1978 and fraudulently misrepresented his safety when assigning him to Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church.

In their 2008 civil lawsuit, the Merryfields cite “profound psychological damage” as a result of the assaults.

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Ken Pope for this lead.

Ohio Teacher Convicted of Sex with Students

Stacy Schuler

LEBANON, Ohio — A high school teacher was convicted Thursday of having sex with five students, some of them football players, after a judge rejected an insanity defense that argued the teens took advantage of her.

Stacy Schuler was sentenced to a total of four years in prison for the encounters with the Mason High School students at her home in Springboro in southwest Ohio in 2010. She can ask a judge to free her from prison after six months.

The 33-year-old Schuler, who could have faced decades in prison, cried as she was handcuffed and led out of the courtroom.

The five teens testified that Schuler, a health and gym teacher, had been drinking alcohol at the time of the encounters and was a willing participant who initiated much of the contact. The teens were about 17 at the time. The age of consent in Ohio is 16, but it's illegal for a teacher to have sex with a student.

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Testimony from a defense psychologist had suggested that Schuler's medical and physical ailments, combined with her vegan diet and use of alcohol and an antidepressant, helped impair her ability to tell right from wrong.

A psychologist for the prosecution rebutted that testimony, saying that the use of alcohol does not meet the state standard for an insanity defense and that willingly getting drunk is not a legal defense for a crime.

The entire story can be found here.

Texas Execution Stayed Based on Race Testimony

By Manny Fernandez
The New York Times
Published September 16, 2011

In May 1997, a psychologist took the stand in a courtroom here during the sentencing hearing of Duane E. Buck, a black man found guilty of killing his former girlfriend and her friend.

The psychologist, Walter Quijano, had been called by the defense, and he testified that he did not believe Mr. Buck would be dangerous in the future. But on cross-examination, the prosecutor asked Dr. Quijano more detailed questions about the factors used to determine whether Mr. Buck might be a danger later in life.

“You have determined that the sex factor, that a male is more violent than a female because that’s just the way it is, and that the race factor, black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons,” the prosecutor asked Dr. Quijano. “Is that correct?”

“Yes,” the psychologist replied.

That statement, and how it was handled by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, helped spare Mr. Buck from the death chamber on Thursday, and has become the center of a case that has raised questions about the role of race in the Texas criminal justice system at a time when Gov. Rick Perry’s support of the death penalty has become a factor in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

Mr. Buck, 48, had been scheduled to be executed on Thursday evening, but the Supreme Court intervened, granting a temporary stay of execution pending a decision about whether it will review an appeal of his case. Mr. Buck’s lawyers had argued that his death sentence was based, at least in part, on his race, and that in carrying out his execution, the state would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits discrimination by state governments.

At Mr. Buck’s sentencing hearing in 1997, the Harris County prosecutor told the jury in her closing argument to rely on the psychologist’s expert testimony, telling the jury: “You heard from Dr. Quijano, who had a lot of experience in the Texas Department of Corrections, who told you that there was a probability that the man would commit future acts of violence.”

In 2000, while the case was on appeal, the state attorney general at the time, John Cornyn, made an unusual announcement, conceding error in Mr. Buck’s case and six others in which the government had relied on race as a factor in sentencing. Mr. Cornyn, now a United States senator, stated that if the lawyers for the defendants in those cases challenged the government’s reliance on race at sentencing, he would not object. All of those cases centered on testimony from Dr. Quijano, a former chief psychologist for the state prison system.

“The people of Texas want and deserve a system that affords the same fairness to everyone,” Mr. Cornyn said then.

Of the defendants, all of whom were on death row, Mr. Buck was the only one who had not been granted a new sentencing hearing. The others were later re-sentenced to death.

The efforts to stop Mr. Buck’s execution drew widespread support. Linda Geffin, a former assistant district attorney in Harris County who helped prosecute Mr. Buck, wrote a letter to state officials, including Mr. Perry, asking them to halt the execution, writing that it was regrettable that “any race-based considerations were placed before Mr. Buck’s jury.” In addition, a survivor of Mr. Buck’s attack, Phyllis Taylor, had urged the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and the governor to halt the execution.

The entire article can be read here.

Expert Witnesses on Trial

State legislators, physician organizations and courts are taking steps to ensure that the experts provide ethical and appropriate testimony.

By Alicia Gallegos, amednews staff.

The ideal goal of an expert witness during testimony is to be "an indifferent advocate for the truth," said neurosurgeon Jeffrey Segal, MD.

Too often, though, physicians make careers as such experts and use unethical tactics to sway jurors, said Dr. Segal, founder and CEO of Medical Justice, a company that sells medical liability insurance and provides legal resources to combat frivolous claims.

"Expert witnesses are the weak or strong link in any medical liability case," he said.

Lawmakers, physician organizations and courts are taking steps to combat unethical testimony by these so-called hired guns.

In recent years, several states have enacted tighter restrictions on expert witness testimony in medical negligence cases. At the same time, more medical associations and state medical boards have created standards for proper expert witness testimony and acted against experts who violate those rules.

Courts also are taking stronger stances against questionable experts. For example, high courts in Arizona and Maryland in 2009 upheld as constitutional state restrictions against expert witnesses.

"There is a growing awareness on the part of expert witnesses -- for both sides -- that what they are doing is not necessarily going to be kept behind closed doors, which definitely was not the case 10 years ago," said Louise B. Andrew, MD, an attorney and independent consultant for physicians on litigation and expert witness issues. "They can't just go and say whatever they are paid to say and expect that peers will never know."

Florida is the latest state to pass restrictions on the use of expert witnesses in medical liability cases. Under a law signed July 1 by the governor, out-of-state physicians offering expert testimony must apply for a certificate to testify. The state medical board can discipline them if they provide deceptive testimony.

"Before, there was absolutely no accountability for what [expert witnesses] did in Florida," said Jeff Scott, general counsel for the Florida Medical Assn. With the new law, "you can't come into Florida and testify falsely and hope to get away with it."

At least 30 states have similar expert witness laws. Some statutes, such as Arizona's, require witnesses to practice in the same specialty as the physician defendant. Others, like Maryland's, mandate that doctors spend a certain amount of time actively practicing medicine.

The whole story can be found here.

Twisted ethics of an expert witness

By Ken Armstrong and Maureen O'Hagan

Seattle Times staff reporters

Stuart Greenberg was at the top of his profession: a renowned forensic psychologist who in court could determine which parent got custody of a child, or whether a jury believed a claim of sexual assault. Trouble is, he built his career on hypocrisy and lies, and as a result, he destroyed lives, including his own.

To uncover the secrets Stuart Greenberg had buried, The Seattle Times got court files unsealed in the superior courts of King and Thurston counties. Through a motion filed by the state Attorney General's Office, the newspaper also got an order lifted that barred public inspection of Greenberg's disciplinary history. Reporters obtained other documents — for example, Greenberg's emails at the University of Washington — through public-records requests, and interviewed colleagues of Greenberg, as well as parents he had evaluated.

Earlier this year, a four-page document with a bland title, "Stipulation for Dismissal with Prejudice," was filed in a civil matter percolating on the King County Courthouse's ninth floor. Hardly anyone took notice. Most everyone had moved on.

But that document — filed by lawyers tangled up in the estate of Stuart Greenberg, a nationally renowned psychologist whose life ended in scandal — signaled the end of a tortuous undertaking.

Greenberg had proved such a toxic force — a poison coursing through the state's court system — that it took more than three years for lawyers and judges to sift through his victims and account for the damage done.

For a quarter century Greenberg testified as an expert in forensic psychology, an inscrutable field with immense power. Purporting to offer insight into the human condition, he evaluated more than 2,000 children, teenagers and adults. His word could determine which parent received custody of a child, or whether a jury believed a claim of sexual assault, or what damages might be awarded for emotional distress.

At conferences and in classrooms, in Washington and beyond, he taught others to do what he did. He became his profession's gatekeeper, quizzing aspirants, judging others' work, writing the national-certification exam. His peers elected him their national president.

But his formidable career was built upon a foundation of hypocrisy and lies. In the years since Greenberg's death, while court officials wrestled over his estate, The Seattle Times worked to unearth Greenberg's secrets, getting court records unsealed and disciplinary records opened.

Those records are a testament to Greenberg's cunning. They show how he played the courts for a fool. He played state regulators for a fool. He played his fellow psychologists for a fool. And were it not for a hidden camera, he might have gotten away with it.

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The entire story can be found here.

Special thanks to Ken Pope for this story.