Thursday, July 11, 2002 More heavy duty experts on the way By William F. Nimmo, Esq. Edited By Jay Nault Unnamed news sources today stated that David Westerfield’s defense team plans to call Cyril Wecht, a very well-respected expert in situations such as this one. It is believed that Dr. Wecht will testify that Danielle van Dam died close to the time that her body became available to insects as a host. Dr. Wecht is the coroner for Allegheny County, which included Pittsburgh, and his area of expertise includes the ability to determine the time, cause, and manner of death of victims in homicides. Dr. Wecht is available as an expert in cases not involving his home county. I used Dr. Wecht in one of my own cases where a woman was accused of intentionally stabbing her boyfriend during an argument. Dr. Wecht’s testimony was a central factor in the jury correctly concluding that my client did in fact accidentally stab her boyfriend due the angle and trajectory of the stab wound, as opposed to stabbing him intentionally, which is how she was charged. The potential effect of Dr. Wecht’s testimony, when coupled with the testimony of David Faulkner, will certainly leave the prosecution with a major repair job. Although the prosecution’s cross examination of David Faulkner was very effective, common sense may still dictate that the insects did in fact infest Danielle van Dam’s body quickly. As I said earlier, one potential strategy to counteract this testimony would be for the prosecution to call experts of their own, but they will have more than a week to decide. There is still a lot to be decided in this case, and we shall see what happens.
P.S. Don't know what I'm doing wrong with the links.
Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D., is Coroner of Allegheny County, as well as one of the country's leading forensic pathologists. Dr. Wecht was elected to a four-year term in 1977 by the citizens of Allegheny County. Previously, he served as chief forensic pathologist from 1966 to 1970 and as Coroner of Allegheny County from 1970 to 1980. In addition to receiving his medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and his law degree from the University of Maryland, Dr. Wecht is certified by the American Board of Pathology, in anatomic, clinical, and forensic Pathology, and is also a Fellow of the College of American Pathologists and the American Society of Clinical Pathologists. Formerly the Chairman of the Department of Pathology at Saint Francis Central Hospital in Pittsburgh, Dr. Wecht is now the President of its medical staff and is actively involved as a medical-legal and forensic science consultant, author, and lecturer. Academically, Cyril H. Wecht is a Clinical Professor at the University of Pittsburgh Schools of Medicine, Dental Medicine, and Graduate School of Public Health, and holds positions as an Adjunct Professor at Duquesne University Schools of Law, Pharmacy, and Health Sciences. He has served as President of the American College of Legal Medicine, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Board of Legal Medicine and the American College of Legal Medicine Foundation. The author of more than 400 professional publications, Dr. Wecht is also an editorial board member of more than 20 national and international medical-legal and forensic scientific publications; editor of the five-volume set, Forensic Sciences (Matthew Bender); co-editor of the two and three-volume sets, Handling Soft Tissue Injury Cases and Preparing and Winning, Medical Negligence Cases (both published by Michie). Dr. Wecht has organized and conducted Postgraduate Medical-Legal Seminars in more than fifty countries throughout the world in his capacity as Director of the Pittsburgh Institute of Legal Medicine. He has performed approximately 14,000 autopsies and has supervised, reviewed or has been consulted on approximately 30,000 additional postmortem examinations. Being an expert in Forensic Medicine, Dr. Wecht has frequently appeared on several nationally syndicated programs discussing various medicolegal and forensic scientific issues, including medical malpractice, drug abuse, the assassinations of both President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the death of Elvis Presley, the O.J. Simpson case, and the JonBenet Ramsey cases. His expertise has also been utilized in high profile cases involving Mary Jo Kopechne, Sunny von Bulow, Jean Harris, Dr. Jeffrey McDonald, the Waco Branch Davidian fire, and Vincent Foster. A comprehensive study of these cases are discussed from the perspective of Dr. Wecht's own professional involvement in his books, Cause of Death, Grave Secrets, and Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey? (All published by Dutton/Penguin).
http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/coroner/about.asp
I am wondering, tho...and I may have missed it, but does the jury know that Dr. Faulkner was originally hired by the Prosecution?
sw