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Thread: TKD Instructor as Expert Witness versus MMA Lawyer

  1. #31
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
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    Knoxville Tennessee
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    5,520
    I understand excatly what you're getting at. And, no I can mount a pretty good challenge against any so-called martial arts expert's opinions because there's always positives and negatives to anyone's training, experiences or biases. This forum is a perfect illustration of that point. I guess the point is based on the rules of evidence, anyone with a black belt (or the equivilent) is potentially competent to be admitted as an expert and allowed to express opinions in a case, but the weight of the expert and the testimony is what is key. Being considered an expert witness doesn't mean diddly if the judge or jury rejects your opinions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Oso View Post
    AND, yea, a good bit of it is about whether you can fight with what you know...kinda all of it is about that.

  2. #32
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    Jan 1970
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    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
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    47,946

    ttt42024

    Martial arts witness addressed at pretrial hearing in Sean Cassaro death case
    Oksana Kotkina
    Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum

    A jury pool of 110 people will be called for the trial of a Bucyrus man facing a murder charge in the death of Sean Cassaro.

    At a pretrial hearing Monday, Crawford County Common Pleas Judge Shane Leuthold said both the prosecution and defense agreed the number should be enough from which to seat the 12-person jury.

    On trial is Thomas Brown, formerly of South Sandusky Avenue, Bucyrus. He was indicted in February of last year on charges of murder and involuntary manslaughter, both felonies.

    Cassaro, 46, Bucyrus, died following a fight at 515 Tiffin St. in the early morning hours of Jan. 22, 2023, the Bucyrus Police Department reported. Cassaro was found lying face-down in the driveway, unresponsive, and was pronounced dead by Bucyrus Fire/EMS, according to police reports.

    Leuthold also made a ruling on a witnesses the prosecution intended to call who is someone trained in the martial arts.

    The judge said an expert opinion should be delivered by someone with specialized knowledge, skills, training or education and be based on scientific, technical or other specialized information.


    Defense attorney James Mayer, defendant Thomas Brown and defense attorney Sean Boone listen during a pre-trail hearing in the case of the death of Sean Cassaro.

    Ruling on martial artist as an expert witness

    “That's why the court has a problem with it,” Leuthold said about the proposed witness. “This is martial arts, artists and martial arts not martial sciences."

    The judge said an expert witness's purpose is to assist the jury in its decision-making, but the case is straightforward – it’s more about strangulation than about martial art techniques.

    “I don’t think that a jujutsu expert or any martial artist is going to be able to give a lot of opinions that’s going to make the jury understand,” Leuthold said.

    The judge also took issue with some of the content in the martial arts report provided by the prosecution, saying it appeared too generic to be considered scientific.

    “I just don’t think this is reliable scientific technical information,” Leuthold said.

    The prosecution argued the witness should be permitted to testify as an expert based on specialized knowledge and experience in methodology.

    The judge said he would review the report again, and then mentioned another problem he identified with the report was the expert was trying to testify about the defendant’s knowledge at the time of the strangulation.

    “I think it’s a non-scientific way of doing it,” Leuthold said. “At this point, I’m going to exclude that again.”

    He ruled the witness would be excluded from testifying, but said the prosecution could revisit the issue at a later date.

    The trial is scheduled to begin May 20.
    A decade-old bit of necromancy here...
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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