Thursday, December 08, 2011

Witness case argued in supreme court

One of the corrupt practices of the family court is the way they use experts to sneak in inadmissible evidence. The court may ask a psychologist to give an opinion, and give him wide leeway in his testimony because he is an expert. But his opinion is based on a lot of hearsay and dubious allegations, and he does not necessarily apply any psychological expertise at all. It is just a crooked way for the court to turn gossip into legally-accepted facts.

The US Bill of Rights was written to forbid this sort of thing, as explained below, where a pending Supreme Court case is discussed. The NY Times reports on the oral argument:
Justice Antonin Scalia, who has led a movement to breathe new life into the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause, said that expert testimony may not be used to smuggle evidence into a criminal trial without testimony from those who created it. The clause gives a criminal defendant the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” ...

The controversy in the case concerns the material recovered from the assault. It was analyzed by Cellmark Diagnostic Laboratory in Maryland, but the lab’s report was not entered into evidence at trial and no one from that lab appeared to testify about it. But an expert witness for the prosecution was allowed to offer her opinion that the two profiles matched. ...

“We have a confrontation clause, which requires that the witnesses against the defendant appear and testify personally, and the crucial evidence here is the testing of the semen found on the swab,” he said. “That’s the crux of this evidence, and you’re telling me that this confrontation clause allows you to simply say, Well, we’re not going to bring in the person who did the test; we are simply going to say, ‘This is a reliable lab.’ ” Mr. Dreeben replied, “The confrontation clause, Justice Scalia, does not obligate the state to present a strong case.”
This seems analogous to the family court saying, "This is a reliable psychologist; do what he says." It should be obvious that only a kangaroo court would let experts testify with conclusions about inadmissible evidence.

I was amused by this paragraph:
“In Bullcoming, at least you had an expert say how the laboratory works,” Justice Kennedy said, in a tone approaching exasperation. “Here, you don’t even have that. You have less here with reference to Cellmark than you did in Bullcoming.”
Kennedy is saying that the sperm testimony did not meet the Bullcoming standard. That happened to be the name of the defendant in the previous supreme court case. I don't know how the lawyers will keep a straight face if that becomes the rulel. The briefs for the current case are here.

Power corrupts, and the psychologists are not reliable. I got a Palo Alto psychologist named Ken Perlmutter and he gave testimony that would never be admissible in a real court. He did not apply any psychological expertise at all, and just gave an incompetent opinion. I have detailed his incompetence and bias on this blog. Maybe someday the legal system will recognize that a crook like Perlmutter should never testify in court.

Update: Canada has a related issue:
The Supreme Court of Canada will attempt to balance Islamic beliefs against the bedrock elements of a fair trial on Thursday in major clash of constitutional rights.

At the centre of the case is a sexual assault complainant known as N.S., who does not want to testify against two men accused of raping her unless her face is obscured by a religious veil, or niqab.

The defendants assert that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees them the right to confront their accuser and observe her facial nuances as she testifies.
Witness have to show their faces in American courts, with rare exceptions involving children.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find a lot of what I'm seeing here w/lack of due process, unfounded accusations, blind loyalty yet obfuscation of the term "BIOTCh" and the destruction of individuals (not to mention families) very similar to McCarthyism from the 50s. God help you if you question the intent of these good people in family law because they're experts and they're doing it all for the children.

What eventually stopped McCarthyism and his Senate committee as well as the House committee on Un-American Activities was broadcasting some of the later hearings as well as sound investigative journalism by the likes of Ed Murrow.

Anonymous said...

There is loss of fear among government personnel. They know system tuned over time to get away from corruption. This represents how weak US citizen rights are. I have read many sections of the code, some make sense, but mostly hijacked to make money or designed to benefit to milk money.

Most countries if the mess with family, they shit in their pants or do not go to sleep in the night properly due to wrong doing.

Continued destruction of children and families.

This should be #1 priority (protecting children and families) for all of us in this country. Jobs should come next priority. We should start shutting down family courts, cps, and entire corrupt affiliates OR start putting them in jail with financial damages.

George said...

I do not accept the McCarthyism analogy. There is a lot of misinformation about that period. But that would get us off topic.

Anonymous said...

there was no data he presented to the accused at the hearings to support his allegations, therefore the analogy is valid.

Anonymous said...

have a look and you'll see what I mean:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mc_Carthyism

George said...

McCarthy hardly ever accused anyone of being a commie. And when he did, the accused really was a commie. McCarthy was more often blamed for refusing to name names of commies.

Yes, I've read some of those articles about McCarthy. They always say that he was censured, but not what he was censured for. McCarthy was hated for a lot of reasons, but I do not agree with most of them.

Anonymous said...

no George, that's revisionistic history. He never presented data/evidence and the only ones who complained he didn't name names were the other knuckle-dragging mouth-breather neaderthals like him. There was no due process and thousands of innocent lives were ruined. Furthermore, it is widely accepted that those who were involved in teh US Communist Party were doing so as a stance against Fascism.

Please don't go on about communism in this blog, you know nothing about it. I do. Personally. Family members who lived in communist countries. Friends who did. Some still do. I know what it means. I don't think you do.

I stand by my assertion McCarthyism is a valid parallel to what's going on in family law and their duty to BIOTCh, which they themselves can't really quite pin down. But like pornography, they know it when they see it.

George said...

McCarthy ruined thousands of innocent lives? Name one. I have never been able to find an example. McCarthy was fighting Communism in the 1950s. Fascism was dead by 1945. The commies of the 1950s were anti-American, not anti-Fascist.

Anonymous said...

Right. George, I admire your struggle in trying to get your daughters back. You seem to have done all the right things with them and for them, no two ways about it. But your view of Americanism is naive and jingo-istic.

I have indeed met those negatively affected by McCarthyism but most/all are dead now.

Please get out of the computer lab or wherever it is you work and travel the world and live somewhere else for awhile. You'll find people are people everywhere and the so-called ideologies are just local masks for very basic human behaviors of fear, greed, lust of power, and yes, evil.

I will continue to check in with your blog from time to time, but at this point I've read enough of your rather simplistic views of types of people. People are not simple algorithms or computer control code. To use a term I know you'll understand they're highly non-linear. And even that's a tough fit but it'll have to do.

Best to you and your struggle.

Anonymous said...

Right. George, I admire your struggle in trying to get your daughters back. You seem to have done all the right things with them and for them, no two ways about it. But your view of Americanism is naive and jingo-istic.

I have indeed met those negatively affected by McCarthyism but most/all are dead now.

Please get out of the computer lab or wherever it is you work and travel the world and live somewhere else for awhile. You'll find people are people everywhere and the so-called ideologies are just local masks for very basic human behaviors of fear, greed, lust of power, and yes, evil.

I will continue to check in with your blog from time to time, but at this point I've read enough of your rather simplistic views of types of people. People are not simple algorithms or computer control code. To use a term I know you'll understand they're highly non-linear. And even that's a tough fit but it'll have to do.

Best to you and your struggle.

Anonymous said...

George is right aout McCarthy and misinformation about him. It's been said that McCarthy was a...

"major liability to the cause of anti-communism"

And George is also right about...

But that would get us off topic.

Anonymous said...

off topic? Hardly. Selective use of due process and confronting witnesses and questioning evidence. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, don't be selective for what suits your personal viewpoint of politics and ideology. Anne Coulter's revisionist views of McCarthy would hardly qualify as intelligent research in the subject, she's just another pundit, which means employing the otherwise unemployable.

George said...

So McCarthy called witnesses selectively? I am just not seeing the analogy.

Anonymous said...

I feel like I'm watching a car or train crash here.