Your Honor, I Object: Court Testimony and the Expert Witness

If you want to know how an expert should testify, there are countless books written on the subject. If you want to know the truth about expert testimony that you will never see on TV, here it is: IT IS SO BORING!

98% of court time is waiting. Prosecutors want you there in plenty of time, so they don’t have to go looking for you, so they don’t have to ask the judge for a recess or to change the order of their witnesses, so they don’t appear to be disorganized in front of the jury. You, the expert witness, don’t exactly relish the thought of a contempt of court charge, so you don’t want to be late, either. But some prosecutors are more reasonable than others. Some want you there at 8 am even though they haven’t picked a jury yet (and they always think they’re going to pick a jury in a morning, though sometimes it’s more like a day and a half). Some will graciously give you until 9. Some, though I don’t know any, will page you with a certain amount of lead time. In Cleveland we were a half hour drive from the courthouse, not including trying to find a parking space in the underground garage. In Indianapolis, the crime lab was across the street, which I thought sounded terrific until they said it means prosecutors are comfortable with giving them about five minutes notice that they’re needed to testify. Prosecutors have spent weeks (okay, maybe days) working with this case. They don’t realize that you haven’t given it a thought in the past eleven months, have to print out a report and track down the evidence. After, of course, you drop what you’re doing and find your “court clothes”, a set of attire we all keep at the lab for just such emergencies.

I’m not criticizing prosecutors, by the way. They’re public servants too, making much less money than they could in the private sector, and as soon as they’re done with one case, another is dropped on their desk. I’m sure they feel just as crime lab personnel do, that you never, ever, have enough time to do your job as thoroughly as you’d like. But the scenes on TV, with attorneys spending endless hours consulting with the forensic specialists, even over lunch (hah! I wish!) is the exception rather than the rule. I actually had a juvenile court prosecutor call me up the day before a homicide trial and—I swear I am not making this up—say, “Now what evidence did you get again, and what did you find on it?” It was all I could do not to respond: “The trial starts tomorrow—don’t you KNOW?”

So after you arrive at the court building at or near the prescribed time, you get to have a seat in the waiting room, which in the Cleveland Justice Center is a dimly lit pit of an area next to the elevators with sickening 70’s style color and modular seats crowded with defendants and victims alike. Not to mention their mothers, wives, boyfriends and children. Luckily the waiting area serves four courtrooms, so no one knows what trial you’re there for, in case they’re less than happy with your potential testimony. Prosecution witnesses are not permitted in the courtroom when other witnesses are testifying, so if there are any Perry Mason-type theatrics going on in there, you don’t get to see it. So you balance a book on your knees and avoid eye contact. There is nothing glamorous, nothing whatever, about court testimony.

At the other end of the hallway is large windows giving a panoramic, 22-story high view of the city, but no one is allowed to go down there because that is the entrances to the judges chambers. The bailiffs let me, though—because I’m one of “them”. Unfair, yes, but still I avail myself of it, even while I’m cursing the architect.

On top of this, for a building dedicated to security, there’s an unattended parking garage, a stairwell where some doors are locked and some aren’t, and any number of empty hallways, corners and passages in a building populated largely by people who have no reason to be happy with other human beings right at this point in their lives. A lone, small woman armed only with a briefcase, I curse the architect again.

For these reasons I am happy to testify in out-of-county cases, where smaller counties have large, brightly-lit marble hallways. The unpadded wooden benches are a small price to pay for the cheery surroundings and visions of Clarence Darrow strolling along.

Back in the pit, the time you spend waiting can vary anywhere from ten minutes to two days. If you have to wait for jury selection, it will be at least 4 or 5 hours. Sometimes witnesses are jumped because they’re from out of town, or they’re such skitterish personalities that the prosecutor tells you, “If I let her go home I’ll never find her again.” Unless a recess is declared, you cannot go anywhere other than the restroom (briefly) because you might be called. You are well and truly stuck.

What I have learned the hard way is: take something to read; take your car keys, your bus pass, or whatever else you need to go straight home in case the day gets too late; take money for lunch, coffee or snacks. At least you won’t starve while sitting in the hallway pondering the fact that your boss will not care that you’ve been in court, only that your work hasn’t gotten done.

Finally, the prosecutor or their assistant comes out and calls your name. It’s time to go in.

NEXT MONTH: MY WORST TRIAL EXPERIENCE EVER