Connecticut Casework,
Admitted in the State Courts

The Connecticut file has been through a trial. In New London, Professor Gilbertson was retained by the defense in a homicide matter and delivered the opinion from the witness stand. The rest of the file is civil work in wrongful death and false arrest, small enough that the panel below describes it completely. Outcomes the practice has put on the public record are collected on the published results across the practice.

Homicide defense work is read from the investigative file: scene and follow-up reports, the statements taken from civilians and officers, what was collected and submitted and what was not, and the sequence in which investigators settled on an account. A wrongful death claim is read from the record of the encounter: camera footage where it exists, whether body-worn, dash or surveillance, the involved officers' own accounts, the policy in effect that day, and the training and disciplinary files behind the officers. A false arrest claim comes down to what the arresting officer knew when the seizure happened and how the report described it afterward.

One method covers all of it. The opinion is written from the whole record, not from a party's summary of it, and it measures the conduct in that record against the involved agency's own policy, the statutes and case law that govern, the research literature on policing, and the national model policies and training curricula that give generally accepted police practice its content, on the totality of the facts and circumstances. Medical, scientific and technical questions belong to qualified experts in those fields, and the opinion stops where theirs begins. Legal conclusions remain counsel's; the expert addresses police practices.

The civil work in the Connecticut file sits partly in federal court and partly in state court, while the criminal matter was tried in state court, which is why the state courts hold most of the file. The federal share is civil, and a federal civil rights claim naming an officer or a department is ordinarily brought under Section 1983, which puts the officer's conduct in the encounter at the center and can reach the agency's policy and training behind it. The structure of such a claim is set out in the Library under how a Section 1983 claim is put together, for counsel screening a new matter.

Under Section 1983 the constitutional question is decided by the court and the jury, and the expert's contribution sits underneath it: what the officer knew when he acted, what policy and training required of him, and what the agency's own policy and training contributed, all of it judged without hindsight. The criminal side of the Connecticut file is read for a different purpose: whether the police work behind the charge, the reports, the statements and the evidence handling, met generally accepted practice, an answer that a suppression hearing may call for long before a jury is seated. Whether either opinion is received stays with retaining counsel in Connecticut as anywhere, and the presiding court resolves it under its own evidentiary rules; nothing on this page is a promise about how.

Professor Gilbertson's testimony has been admitted in the state courts of Connecticut, and it has not been excluded at trial in any state or federal court. The courts where testimony has been admitted are listed on the Library page on how many matters and where.

Retaining from Connecticut runs on the same terms as every engagement. It opens with a conflict check, and counsel hears about a conflict immediately. A first inquiry holds the case type and posture, the jurisdiction and case number, the governing deadlines, what the record contains so far, and the parties for the conflict check. Nothing privileged travels with a first inquiry, and privileged material is never exchanged by email.

After retention the record travels on physical media, a computer flash drive or an external hard drive by mail or courier; online sharing services are not used. Depositions are taken by Zoom or a similar platform, so a Connecticut deposition does not wait on a travel calendar. Expert reports require sixty days of advance notice, and a bullet-point outline of the report is approved with retaining counsel before writing begins.

The practice is based in Naples, Florida, and trial testimony is offered in Connecticut on the published travel terms. The fee schedule and the travel terms are set out in full on the For Counsel page, and the Library note on what to send with a first inquiry covers the first step item by item.