General Discussion

Omaha Steve

(99,490 posts) Thu Sep 4, 2014, 09:49 PM Sep 2014

Judge blasts 'expert witnesses' called to defend Texas anti-abortion law

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/03/1326895/-Judge-blasts-expert-witnesses-called-to-defend-Texas-anti-abortion-law?detail=email#

And Attorney General Greg Abbott got spanked again for his incompetent appeal.

Hunter

An interesting tidbit about the Texas anti-abortion law that got struck down in part last week: The judge's disgust with how the state's "expert witnesses" conducted themselves. Specifically, that longtime anti-abortion crank and/or "consultant" and/or "expert witness" Vincent Rue had a large hand in how the other "expert witnesses" presented their cases:

US District Judge Lee Yeake ultimately discarded the testimony of four expert witnesses because of Rue's "considerable editorial and discretionary control" over their written reports and testimony: James C. Anderson, the chair of Virginia Physicians for Life; Deborah Kitz, a health care consultant from Pennsylvania; Peter Uhlenberg, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; and Dr. Mayra Jimenez Thompson, an OB-GYN and University of Texas-Southwestern professor.

Emails showed that that Rue sent Uhlenberg sources, "ideas," and "fact changes." In one message, Uhlenberg wrote, "I need your critical suggestions." Kitz wrote Rue an email that said, "Tried to use as much of your material as I could, but time ran out." Anderson testified that Rue was responsible for "wordsmithing" his report to the court. Rue has tapped Anderson as an expert witness in four other states that paid Anderson more than $110,000.

So a judge is calling shenanigans on the whole cottage industry of faux-experts going to different states en masse in an organized effort to bend the law according to whatever a half-dozen people are willing to say in court in exchange for money. Well, at least this collection of people. This one time.

FULL story at link.