[Sue Bob]

In a case like this, do you know if it is usual practice for criminal defense lawyers to have their own experts do ballistics?

[Iwo Jima]

I can only go by what I read and hear. But it appears to me that more often than not the defense does not hire their own experts to check the prosecution's experts.

This was made painfully apparent in our crime lab scandal in Houston, where DNA tests were never run but the expert just made up results that fit the prosecution's case, and similar outrages. It only came to light when they were ordered to retest things in bulk. Any of these problems would have been known if a defense attorney had done anything to question the tests. But when asked about it, they seemed puzzled by the question, like, "Why would I question the prosecution's expert?"