Apr 17, 2018

"More fundamentally, however, Parker’s report—which is a classic example of Monday morning quarterbacking—is of restricted value in this setting"



Not everyone is a fan of retired FBI agent Tom Parker. Read what an apellate judge thinks of Parker starting at page 55. Link provided below.

There is a reference few pages before by the same Judge commenting on Parker's sanitized opinion.


"Here, the district court relied on an opinion, purported to be an expert opinion, offered after the fact by Thomas Parker. Parker says he did not believe Deputy Schmidt could see Mr. George and therefore Deputy Schmidt could not tell whether or not Mr. George had a gun. Again, Mr. George did have a gun, and second, it is news to me that a witness can testify as an expert that from point A, he doesn’t believe someone can be fully seen from point B. This isn’t “expert testimony.” And here, it is no more than rank andinadmissibleresult-orientedspeculation. Did Parker simply disregard Karla McDuff’s statements that she heard the deputies shouting “drop the gun!”?

Mr. Parker’s opinion on the key issue of whether Mr. George pointed his gun in Deputy Roger’s direction is no better. Parker’s report makes no mention of the violent struggle the Georges had over the gun before the deputies arrived. Parker incompletely describes Mr. George as handicapped with a right side and arm that were “extremely weak.”

Moreover, Parker claims a special ability to read body language and to divine who is “lying” and who is not. He claims by virtue of his education, training, knowledge, and experience that he is aware of a “truism of the law enforcement profession that law enforcement officers lie . . . [in an attempt] to justify inappropriate, unethical, and illegal actions taken by them.” Fortunately for all of us, we resolve cases and controversies with evidence, not self-aggrandizing “truisms.” His offerings as to whether a witness is telling the truth will not be admissible as expert— or even lay—opinion. His report is rife with rank guesswork.

Parker goes on to opine that Mr. George probably could not have coherently said what the deputies say he said because he had aphasia. Was not Mr. Parker aware of the pre 9-1-1conversationbetweenhusband and wife? Mr.George’s voice can be heard clearly on the 9-1-1 call recording, which Parker claims he listened to when preparing his declaration. Or of Mrs. George’s description of his responsesto her pleas? Now, Parker is a speech pathology expert in aphasia. Undaunted, he goes in to guess that Mr. George “had no idea whatsoever that the deputies were in his yard or issuing commands to him.” I assume this is part of the “evidence” the district court struck from the record when the court concluded that Parker was not a qualified “medical expert.”

More fundamentally, however, Parker’s report—which is a classic example of Monday morning quarterbacking—is of restricted value in this setting. His report suffers most of the problems identified by us in Reynolds v. County of San Diego, 84 F.3d 1162 (9th Cir. 1996), overruled in part on other grounds by Acri v. Varian Assoc., Inc., 114 F.3d 999 (9th Cir. 1997) (en banc). There, we said, “The fact that an expert disagrees with an officer’s actions does not render the officer’s actions unreasonable. The inquiry is not ‘whether another reasonable or more reasonable interpretation"

For the rest go to this link (read starting page 55)
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2013/07/30/11-55956.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjTxrqs-8LaAhUJG3wKHZ-yAJY4KBAWMAR6BAgEEAE&usg=AOvVaw2v2kj5mjDvl_F8rrM3NwZp



3 comments:

  1. Yeah, not impressed. If you look at the NCJ story, one of his suggestions was to get a warrant and seize and examine all the knives at the kitchen where Mr. Zoeller was employed to see if there was microscopic evidence that the knife found at the scene had marks from sharpening identical to knives from the kitchen. That is a ludicrous suggestion which has, as far as I can tell, no basis in science (or for that matter, how commercial kitchens work).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Instead of asking relevant questions, you have the rest of the PC, activist media fawning all over this attention seeking retired FBI agent whose entire career is pointing fingers at the police. Hired by the Lawson family. Then, you have Shelley Mack, who works with Peter Martin, who sues local cities. Add to that a bunch of people looking for 15 minutes of fame. How many grieving families (in the Bullock, Warren or Kitchen case) hired a lawyer and ran to the media 24 hours after the death of a loved one?

      APD did make mistakes. There was a lot of community pressure and drama after Kyle Zoellner's arrest and to blame the DA for rushing the preliminary hearing is convenient and ignorant.
      Many people are waiting for toxicology results and the only people playing the race card want money or fame. Easy to go after APD or the DA in PC California but the NAACP and left's silence on the local left and racist, sexist comments, on LOCO show that they don't care about tackling real prejudice.

      Delete
  2. Tar and feather Mr. Parker, its the only reasonable conclusion to this situation.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.