Vetting a Police Practices Expert Witness, Document by Document

A police practices expert's qualifications, history and methods are all on paper somewhere, and vetting means asking for the paper. A CV states credentials. A complete case list shows what the expert has actually done. A testimony history shows where the opinions have been examined, rulings on motions to exclude show how courts received them, and a report the expert has already served shows how the expert writes. None of it requires counsel to trust a description.

The questions below can be put to any expert in this field, and each is followed by how this practice addresses it. The short form of the list is one answer in the FAQ on the For Counsel page; this page takes the questions one at a time.

In federal civil litigation, unless otherwise stipulated or ordered by the court, a retained testifying expert's written report must include a list of all other cases in which the witness testified as an expert at trial or by deposition during the previous four years, and a list of all publications the witness authored in the previous ten years, under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(B). Counsel can ask for both before retention rather than meeting them for the first time in the disclosure, and the rest of what the rule requires is covered in Rule 26 disclosures.

Testimony history also shows the expert under examination. Transcripts of earlier depositions and trial testimony, where counsel can obtain them, show how the expert holds a position under cross-examination and whether the opinions stay inside the discipline. Here, the state and federal courts that have admitted the testimony are named in the same Library note on the practice's footprint.

Police practices opinions rest on knowledge of police work, and courts weigh where that knowledge came from. Counsel should know whether the expert served as a sworn officer, for how long and in what assignments, whether the expert trained or supervised officers, and whether the expert's knowledge of standards comes from teaching and study, from command, from investigation or from all of them. Each is a legitimate foundation, and a jury hears each one differently.

Here, the answer is thirty-eight years of criminal justice experience, as a police officer in Georgia, a tenured criminal justice professor, a licensed private investigator in Washington State from 2002 to 2022, and an international police trainer and advisor in Iraq and Afghanistan, set out in full on the page for Professor Gilbertson. Where a matter calls for a second discipline, Sheriff Robert Snaza and FBI Special Agent Christopher Holland (Ret.) are retained case by case, each reviewing the record independently within his own discipline.

An expert who has only ever been retained by one side can be cross-examined on that fact before a single opinion is reached, and the complete case list answers the question. Here, retention comes from plaintiff's counsel in civil rights matters, from the criminal defense bar and from counsel defending officers and agencies, on the same standards either way. Why that history carries weight with a jury is set out in retained by both sides.

An expert's method can be stated before any record is reviewed, and counsel should hear it. Whether the analysis reads the complete record or a summary, and what the expert defers to other disciplines, are questions with plain answers.

Here, opinions rest on the complete record: video, reports, statements, depositions, training files and agency policy, measured against state and federal statutes, case law, reputable academic research and national police standards and practices, on the totality of the facts and circumstances. Use-of-force questions are analyzed under Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), anchored to what was known at the time, and where scientific, medical, technical or human factors evidence is involved, qualified experts in those disciplines are deferred to on the record. Where those standards come from is set out in the guide to generally accepted police practices.

The first contact with an expert should be short and should protect the case. A careful expert runs a conflict check before any substantive discussion and asks that nothing privileged be sent with a first inquiry. What a conversation before retention can and cannot cover is set out in talking to an expert before retention, and what a conflict check screens is covered in what happens in a conflict check.

Here, inquiries are accepted from attorneys, law firms and their staff only. Professor Gilbertson is not an attorney and gives no legal advice and no attorney referrals to individuals, and every engagement opens with a conflict check.