Defense retentions.
Same expert, same standards.

The question usually comes from defense counsel who has read a curriculum vitae listing civil rights retentions and wants to know whether the witness is available to the other side of the caption. The answer is yes. Retentions come from plaintiff’s counsel in civil rights matters, from the criminal defense bar, and from counsel defending officers and agencies accused of excessive force and misconduct.

Sameness here is specific, not a slogan. The record is measured against national police standards and practices, controlling agency policy, state and federal statutes and case law, on the totality of the facts and circumstances. Use-of-force questions run through Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), which asks what the officer knew at the moment force was used and rules hindsight out of the assessment.

That anchor is frequently the defense’s strongest ground. An incident that looks indefensible in a still frame or a summary often reads differently once the sequence, the information available to the officer, the training the officer received and the policy in force are laid out in order. Graham requires exactly that view of the moment, and a plaintiff’s narrative built on the outcome rather than on what was known has to answer it.

Where the record shows an officer acted within accepted police practices, the report says so and documents why. Where it does not, the report says that instead, and defense counsel finds out before disclosure rather than during a deposition.

Every engagement, defense or plaintiff, begins with a conflict check against parties, counsel and prior matters, run before anything substantive is discussed. If the matter presents a conflict, counsel hears it immediately.

A police expert who has only ever worked one side of the aisle can be impeached with that fact alone, and plaintiff’s counsel will do it in the first ten minutes. The retention history becomes the cross-examination: how many times retained, by whom, and whether the witness has ever reached a conclusion the retaining party did not want.

A defense report from an expert who has also testified against officers when the record required it does not have that exposure. The opinions arrive as analysis rather than as advocacy purchased for the occasion, and a finding that an officer acted within accepted practices carries weight precisely because the same standards have produced the opposite finding in other matters. Working both sides of the aisle sets out that posture in full.

The practical consequence is that a defense retention here is not a search for a favorable conclusion. It is a search for the conclusion the record supports, which is the only kind that survives a competent cross-examination. Counsel who needs a predetermined answer is better served elsewhere, and hearing that early is cheaper than hearing it at trial.

Everything else runs on the published terms. The conflict check comes first, the scope is confirmed in writing, the record travels on physical media, and depositions and trial testimony follow the same schedule regardless of which side retains. Scientific, medical and technical questions are deferred to qualified experts in those disciplines, on the record. Legal conclusions remain counsel’s, and criminal defense support covers the officer-defendant posture in more detail.