Testifying in Court: Guidelines and Maxims for the Expert Witness

Preface

Introduction

• The Admit–Deny
• Advocacy: 1. The "Bought Expert" Accusation
• Advocacy: 2. The Pull of Affiliate

• Becoming Current
• Burden of Proof and Degree of Certainty

• Challenges to Experience: 1. Insufficient Experience
• Challenges to Experience: 2. Irrelevant Experience
• Challenges to Experience: 3. The Case Against Experience
• Changing Your Mind
• Child Sexual Abuse: 1. Lying and Fantasy
• Child Sexual Abuse: 2. Anatomically Detailed Dolls
• Client Dissimulation: 1. Clinical Considerations
• Client Dissimulation: 2. Research Considerations
• Collaborative Criticism
• Concepts and Definitions
• Courtroom as Place Identity
• Credentialing: 1. Facts
• Credentialing: 2. Challenges
• Culturally Different Clients

• The Direct Examination
• Disaster Relief
• DSM Cautions

• Elder Abuse and Neglect
• Employment Discrimination
• Examiner Effects

• Fishing Expeditions
• Fraternization During the Trial
• Freud as an Expert Witness

• The Historic Hysteric Gambit
• How You Know What You Know
• Humor

• The Idealism Hazard
• Intimidation

• Just Before the Court Appearance

• The Language of Testimony: 1. General Principles
• The Language of Testimony: 2. Fluent Testimony
• The Learned Treatise Gambit
• The Limits of Expertise
• Listening Well

• Negative Assertions

• Orientation to the Courtroom

• Power and Control on the Witness Stand: 1. The Process
• Power and Control: 2. Time and the Art of Testifying
• Power and Control: 3. Gaze and Eye Contact
• Power and Control: 4. Personal Space
• The Primary Source Gambit
• Probes for Guilt and Shame
• The Professional Witness
• Psychotherapists as Expert Witnesses
• The Push–Pull

• Quiet Moments on the Stand

• The Rumpelstiltskin Principle

• Saying "I Don't Know"
• Scientist Challenges
• The Star-Witness Fantasy

• Termination of Parental Rights
• Transformative Moments

• The Well-Dressed Witness
• When It Is Over
• When Your Attorney Is Indifferent or Incompetent
• While Lawyers Fuss

• Ziskin & Faust Are Sitting on the Table

References

—Dr. Thomas Grisso
Professor of Psychiatry (Clinical Psychology) University of Massachusetts Medical Center and Past President, American Psychology and Law Society