E-News: Favorite Expert Cases

Artwork by Sarah Sabri, Advanced Course Class #18

Dear Friends,

For this E-News, the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention highlights a few favorite and recent cases where professionals have testified as experts in strangulation cases. The Institute has been monitoring how courts are ruling on new strangulation laws that have passed across the United States since the early 2000s. The trends are clear:

Strangulation statutes are being upheld as constitutional;
Police officers are being permitted to testify about their observations and experience in handling strangulation cases;
Nurses and doctors are being qualified as experts in strangulation cases;
Judges are finding the testimony of experts helpful especially where there is no visible injury; prosecutors are winning their cases even when victims recant or present with limited visible injuries; and
Sufficient evidence of strangulation can be based on the victim’s subjective symptoms, officer observations, and/or expert testimony.

We salute police officers, prosecutors, medical professionals and judges for doing their job so well. Successful non-fatal strangulation case prosecutions will hold some of the most dangerous and violent men accountable for their violence and abuse and, in the long-run, save the lives of police officers, women, men, and children.

Here are 10 of our favorite recent

cases involving expert testimony:

Head of Shelter Program, Kathryn Jacob, permitted to testify as an expert during strangulation trial about DV Dynamics and Danger Assessment Tool. Victim was at High Risk. Kingsbury v. State, 625 S.W.3d 686 (2021, Fort Worth, Texas)

Attending the advanced course on strangulation prevention qualified Detective as an expert thereby requiring prosecutor to notify Defense Counsel. State v. Hampton, 2018 WL 4055659, Minnesota.

Prosecutor used patrol officer’s training on the use of chokehold as foundation for expert testimony. Maxwell v. State (2019, GA) 348 Ga. App. 870.

No objection to trooper testifying as an expert in the signs and symptoms of strangulation. Commonwealth v. Beech, 251 A.3d 1218 (2021, Pennsylvania).

Detective qualified to testify about domestic violence dynamics and strangulation. Evidence was Sufficient to show circumstances capable of causing death or serious physical injury. State v. Wagner, 319 Or.App.399 (2022, Oregon).

Forensic Nurse Keri Thompson and Det. Edward Mosier qualified as experts where defendant strangled his victim with a ligature causing petechiae to the scalp and her right eye. Expert testimony on strangulation not subject to Daubert Hearing. Detective had sufficient training and experience to testify about signs and symptoms of strangulation. Oliver vs. State of Oklahoma, 2022 WWL 3275072

Forensic Nurse Polly Campbell qualified to testify as a blind expert in strangulation case. Case involved loss of consciousness to the point of urination and defecation. State v. Perry, 159 A.3d 840 (2017, Maine)

Forensic Nurse Diana Emerson Qualified to Give Opinion that Victim’s injuries created risk of substantial bodily harm or risk of death. Meyer v. State, 134 Nev. 981 (2018).

Forensic Nurse Malinda Wheeler Qualified to State Loss of Consciousness amounts to GBI. People v. Taylor, 2018 WL 1061463 (California).

Forensic Nurse Tiffanie Duang Qualified to Testify on Strangulation Assault, Hands capable of being a Deadly Weapon. No showing of Ineffective Assistance of Counsel for not hiring medical expert to contradict FN’s Testimony. Hopper v. Davis, (2019, TX) U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60716

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This project is supported all or in part by Grant No. 2016-TA-AX-K067 awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.