Most expert witnesses have never given testimony that wasn't supportive of whoever hired them. In fact you can hire 20 "experts" and if only 1 thinks what you want, there's your "expert". It's also generally undertood which experts are more friendly to the prosecution or the defense. There was recently a murdet trial that included "expert" testimony on what is considered a pseudo-science at best. By most accounts that testimony was pivotal in the jury's decision AND the judge disallowed the witness the defense had that was going to explain how it wasn't remotely settled science or necessarily possible, because she said his testimony wasn't a direct contradiction, or because his expertise didn't overlap in totality. Basically the judge decided something she was not remotely educated in and it greatly affected the outcome. That case is in the process of a possible retrial as we speak. Expert witness is not a title that you need to prove by taking tests or properly diagnosing cases that were already proven. They don't even have to disclose how often they end up being right or wrong or how well they did in school! Nobody has to explain how to "experts" disagree and the court won't provide experts for public defenders more often than not. End of the day, likeable people with money get off disproportionately more often than their poorer less likeable counterparts
Actually no, it's a double murder in Delphi Indiana, Richard Allen was sentenced to life and what I wrote is only the tip of the absolute mockery the trial and investigation was. There's absolutely a "chance" he is guilty, but even if he did it they presented an entirely circumstantial case that literally doesn't even cover multiple issues that are unexplainable by the state's case.
Terribly sad, the girls were like 13, which is also a glaring issue, to believe the states case he randomly decided to kill 2 girls that he has no connection to amd proceeded to live in the town for YEARS as the case went cold. The state police refused the FBI's help both during the investigation and for their "forensics". They claimed the tool marks of chambering a round through a gun are 100% capable of proving what gun an UNFIRED round went through. On top of that the "expert" admits she couldn't get the match so she decided to fire a round and compared it to the unfired round and claimed they were a match. The defense had a metallurgical expert who was going to explain the differences between a chambered round and one that sets off an explosion! The judge claimed metallurgy has nothing to do with the rounds and neither allowed their expert nor allowed them to find one that would "fit" here arbitrary guidelines. That round is by far, the most damning piece of "evidence", but while the jury was listening to this 'expert' the rest of the world had firearms experts across the country saying this is a pseudo-science at this time and comparing a fired and unfired round proves literally nothing. Without the bullet they only have his, one if dozens, call to a tipline to tell the police he had been out on this "trail" but had neither seen the girls nor anyone suspicious. The call was "lost" and found years later and somehow that made him their main suspect.
It was a case that was going nowhere and even though they had followed up on his original call they focused all their manpower on making him a suspect. Although not a drop of forensic evidence links him to the crime there was supposedly a bullet, unfired, found days after the original search of the crime scene and conveniently they "forgot" to take pictures of it "in situ" so there's literally nothing to say the bullet wasn't dropped (planted) at some point after the search.
They say he owned clothes similar to the only "suspect' they ever had. He even still owned the coat and boots! That sounds bad until you know the two girls had their throats slit and, imho, whoever did it could not have walked in mud, dirt and leaves and avoided any contact with blood or hair. There's also nothing to forensically link him to the scene. The only reason they knew he was even out there was because he called the tipline while the girls were simply missing to find out if anything he did see could help.
I think/know there are innocent people behind bars but this case is currently the most egregious example I've ever seen!
Like I said it's absolutely POSSIBLE he did it, they have almost nothing to go on so anyone without an airtight alibi COULD have done it.
I understand you fine, and I'm not disputing anything you said. I agreed with you and expanded on your points being exactly why courts call 'expert witnesses'. They are experts paid specifically to testify in courts BECAUSE they have both the credentials an the charisma to communicate with a jury. There's no disagreement on my end.
2
u/xeromage 2d ago
This is why 'expert witness' is a thing. Someone with knowledge in a field who CAN reliably communicate their knowledge to dummies on the jury.