Pennsylvania Casework,
Philadelphia on the Record

The Pennsylvania casework can be taken in at a glance, and it is described here at its actual size. It runs to wrongful death, homicide defense and police practices: on one side, a wrongful death claim brought on behalf of an estate against Philadelphia police; on the other, homicide defense work in the state courts. That is the whole of it, and the rest of this page is about what those records required.

A wrongful death claim of that kind turns on paper the agency generated before anyone filed suit. The incident and supplemental reports, the use of force documentation, dispatch and radio traffic, the internal affairs file, the involved officers' training and discipline records, and the policy the agency had on its books that day are the spine of it. Where body-worn, dash or surveillance video exists, it is watched against those documents rather than in place of them, because a camera shows one angle of what a report claims happened.

Homicide defense asks a different question of a similar stack of paper. There the file is examined for how the case against the accused was assembled: what investigators collected and what they passed over, how witness statements were taken and recorded, how evidence was handled and logged, and whether the reports say what the underlying material actually supports. Where a question in either lane is medical or scientific, it is handed off on the record: a qualified expert in that discipline answers it, and the police practices opinion does not.

Both lanes get the same measure, on the totality of the facts and circumstances: written agency policy, the training its officers received, and national standards and practices. Legal conclusions remain counsel's; what the opinion supplies is a police practices reading of the conduct. The published Pennsylvania matter sits alongside the practice's other public results on the case history page.

Pennsylvania matters have come from federal court and from the state courts, and the state side holds civil and criminal work alike: the published Philadelphia recovery was a state court matter. Where a claim is pleaded under Section 1983, the questions run in the federal frame: what was known to the officer at the moment, judged without hindsight, and what the agency's training, supervision and policy contributed to the encounter. A civil claim filed in state court asks about much the same conduct under a different caption, and a criminal charge turns the record toward the investigation instead, toward the statements taken and the procedures that produced them.

What the analysis never decides is whether an opinion comes in. In federal court that question runs through Fed. R. Evid. 702; in a Pennsylvania courtroom it runs through the rule that court applies. Carrying it is counsel's work in either forum. The opinion is written so that every statement in it can be traced to the file rather than to the argument counsel intends to build from it, and that traceability is the part of the question an expert can control.

Professor Gilbertson's testimony has not been excluded at trial in any state or federal court. Admissibility in any particular matter remains retaining counsel's responsibility. The courts where testimony has been admitted are listed on the Library page on how many matters and where.

Retaining from Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania 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.