Dog, training book years calls albany i have seen character is called Obecalp how do you think a curious, trusting kid is going to respond when he or she inevitably figures out what Obecalp spells, and what that do to his or her relationship with Mom and Dad? Say it ain't Joe. Courts Really Do Need Expert Witnesses A vignette elsewhere on this website explains why courts sometimes need expert testimony. Critics of expert testimony occasionally allege biased or dishonest expert opinions, but it's clear that no judge or jury can know enough to find the truth when cases involve special knowledge about medicine, psychology or some other field. I wish expert witnesses were always honest and objective. I know they're not, but most of us are striving for that goal. A recent State Supreme Court ruling, reported Volume 27, Issue e2 of found that a lawyer's merely citing scholarly articles or books is not enough to create expert testimony. The main reason that the Court gave was a legal one: expert opinion must be available for cross-examination by the opposing lawyer, and cited articles professional journals can't be cross-examined. Good for them, though I can come up with some other good reasons to have -person expert: Articles the professional literature are very often misunderstood or misconstrued by readers, especially those without professional training or research experience. A qualified expert should be able to help the court understand the article, assess its validity and reliability, and view it the special context of the case at hand. Competence to be Executed: 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that order for the State to execute a prisoner he must, among other things, understand that he was to be put to death and understand the reason the State was doing 2007, the USSC moved closer to setting rational understanding of one's impending execution, not merely rote knowledge, as a requirement for carrying out the death penalty. Panetti, a who had been hospitalized several times for severe and chronic mental illness, killed his wife's parents and held his wife and daughter hostage before surrendering to police. Although clearly psychotic while awaiting trial, he was allowed to represent himself and was found guilty of capital murder 1992. The death sentence was imposed. spite of appeals based largely on incompetence of trial counsel, he remained on death row. A few weeks before he was to be executed 2004, his attorney again appealed, this time on the basis of alleged incompetence to be executed. Panetti understood that he was to be executed, and understood that the reason was his murder of his inlaws. However, the evidence showed that he had a continuous delusion that his death was part of spiritual warfare between the forces of darkness and God and the Angels and the forces of light. He believed the State was going to execute him order to keep him from preaching the Gospel. The Court ruled 5 that those delusions rendered Panetti incompetent for execution, saying that prisoner's awareness of the State's rationale for execution is not the same as a rational understanding of it Return to Current Table of Contents. Standard of Care for Releasing Jail Inmates and Arrestees from ER From time to time, I review cases which someone police or jail inmate has been taken to emergency room for evaluation, often to assess psychiatric symptoms or suicide risk. By the time I the records, the scenario is often one which the patient was cleared for transport return to jail and sometime later committed suicide. other evaluation situations, the patient have experienced complications of heart disease, diabetes, or some other condition after return to custody. A. director of accreditation for the National Commission on Correctional Care summarized the principles of fit for confinement examinations a recent column the NCCHC quarterly newspaper, She referred to the NCCHC particularly its sections on Access to Care, Screening, and Hospital and Specialty Care. Jail inmates are entitled to access to care for significant health problems. That care require transport or transfer to a community hospital or other facility, where the evaluating physician must consider the level of health or mental health services follow-up that is necessary and whether or not those services are available at the jail. ER physicians should have some