New York Times, By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: August 12, 2008
Unlike in American courts, in most of the rest of the world expert witnesses are selected by judges and are meant to be neutral.
"In most of the rest of the world, expert witnesses are selected by judges and are meant to be neutral and independent. Many foreign lawyers have long questioned the American practice of allowing the parties to present testimony from experts they have chosen and paid.
The European judge who visits the United States experiences “something bordering on disbelief when he discovers that we extend the sphere of partisan control to the selection and preparation of experts,” John H. Langbein, a law professor at Yale, wrote in a classic article in The University of Chicago Law Review more than 20 years ago. "
"Dr. Frank Gersh, the defense expert in the case, did not respond to a request for comment. But Dr. Leonard Welsh, the psychologist who testified for the state, said he sometimes found his work compromising."
“After you come out of court,” Dr. Welsh said, “you feel like you need a shower. They’re asking you to be certain of things you can’t be certain of.”
"He might have preferred a new way of hearing expert testimony that Australian lawyers call hot tubbing."
"In that procedure, also called concurrent evidence, experts are still chosen by the parties, but they testify together at trial — discussing the case, asking each other questions, responding to inquiries from the judge and the lawyers, finding common ground and sharpening the open issues. In the Wilkins case, by contrast, the two experts “did not exchange information,” the Court of Appeals for Iowa noted in its decision last year."
