So in other words the same "expert" in Trial A for the Defense can be a "expert" in Trial B for the Prosecution/Plaintiff - as in civil or criminal. They can be both civil and criminal expert witnesses. It is a full time occupation.
So while Dr. Ben Carson was swilling some product and claiming its virtues he was also cashing the checks they gave him to do so. And of course Dr. Carson has no problem testifying as an expert when it comes to other civil matters. He is a Surgeon for hire.
What is tragic is his lack of acceptance and acknowledgement that it was the same governmental programs that he now eschews were partially responsible for his success. He took the ball and ran with it and now he refuses to accept that as a part of his legacy.
As my mother used to say, "he who accuses, excuses"
Before the Stump, Ben Carson Took the Stand as an Expert Witness
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Fifteen years before the Baltimore police were accused of causing the death of Freddie Gray,
the city was taken to court by another black man, one who had been
paralyzed from the waist down after being tackled by an officer.
“What
was done in this case is really quite laudatory in the sense that they
were able to get this man from the scene of the injury to the place
where the appropriate medications and protocols could be carried out
very rapidly,” Dr. Carson said in his testimony. “I was actually quite
impressed by how fast it happened.”
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Dr.
Carson’s testimony frustrated Mr. Muhammad’s lawyers, who felt that it
strayed from the topic it was supposed to be limited to. But Dr.
Carson’s testimony did its job, helping persuade the jury to deny Mr.
Muhammad’s claim against the paramedics for millions of dollars.
The political world has been surprised by the rise of Dr. Carson,
the soft-spoken neurosurgeon who, as a candidate for the Republican
presidential nomination, has surged into first place in Iowa polls. But
in that courtroom in 2000, his presence and ability to captivate an
audience was clear, so much so that even Mr. Muhammad acknowledged being
a little in awe.
The
judge in the case, Clifton J. Gordy Jr., said, “As a judge, it was rare
to see that kind of gravitas given to an expert witness.”
“When
Dr. Carson got off the stand, my impression was that the E.M.T.s had
absolutely nothing to worry about,” said Judge Gordy, who is now retired
after more than 20 years on the bench.
Dr.
Carson’s testimony seems intriguingly resonant now, as he campaigns for
president in a country shaken by a series of cases in which black men
have died after encounters with the police, including Mr. Gray, who died
in April of a spinal cord injury sustained in police custody. It also
provides a window into Dr. Carson’s stature in the community at the
time, his understated confidence, and the way he was viewed by
African-Americans whose lives were markedly less prosperous and
accomplished.
The
episode involving Mr. Muhammad, a stocky 48-year-old truck driver,
began when he showed up near dawn on March 18, 1997, at his fiancée’s
two-story rowhouse in a west Baltimore neighborhood. She called the
police and asked them to make him leave, which he grudgingly did.
But
when he did not move far enough from the house, an officer, who said
Mr. Muhammad had made threats, tackled him. Mr. Muhammad never got back
up.
Dr.
Carson was not a witness for the police, and in his testimony he said
Mr. Muhammad’s injuries had most likely resulted from being “forcibly
taken down” by a police officer, who, like Mr. Muhammad, was black. Dr.
Carson was hired by the city to counter Mr. Muhammad’s claims that the
paramedics had treated him callously and aggravated his condition.
While
the jury awarded Mr. Muhammad $2 million for the actions of the police
officer who tackled him, it did not find that the paramedics made Mr.
Muhammad’s injuries any worse.
“We
should have gotten a heck of a lot more,” said Allen Eaton, a lawyer
for Mr. Muhammad, recalling how Dr. Carson quickly connected with the
jury composed largely of black women. “I think he was determinative.”
Jurors
who heard the case agree
d that Dr. Carson’s presence in the trial had
made a lasting impression. One could not recall anything about Mr.
Muhammad, but remembered Dr. Carson’s appearance. Another said Dr.
Carson’s testimony had swayed the jury, saying, “They thought he was the
cat’s meow.”
Dr. Carson, 49 at the time, was already a best-selling author
internationally known for separating twins conjoined at the head. He
had been an expert witness in 20 to 30 cases, according to his
testimony. Dr. Carson earned $750 an hour for reviewing records,
although he testified that he had reduced his rate to $500 to
accommodate Baltimore “because this is a city,” adding, “I try to be
very reasonable in that situation.” For his testimony, he received
$2,500 for half a day, he said.
In
an interview last month, Dr. Carson said that the money was “incredibly
minor” to him and that he vaguely recalled the case. In general, he
said, “I had a very good relationship with anybody who is trying to
serve the public,” such as the police and paramedics.
“By
the same token,” he said, “I have good relationships with patients and
people who have been injured. I have advocated on behalf of whoever is
right.”
Baltimore
prosecutors charged Mr. Muhammad with assaulting his fiancée and a
police officer, as well as resisting arrest. At the criminal trial, the
prosecutor, according to transcripts, portrayed Mr. Muhammad as a crack
cocaine user who was belligerent with officers, elbowing one.
A
jury acquitted him. His lawyers contended that the allegations had been
concocted as a cover-up for the brutality that left Mr. Muhammad
paralyzed and without full use of his hands.
In
the civil case, the paramedics said that contrary to Mr. Muhammad’s
claims, they had properly assessed his condition, responded
appropriately to his complaints that he could not feel his legs, and
transported him safely to the hospital. Judge Gordy said in the recent
interview that the claims against the paramedics were always weaker than
the case against the police, but that Dr. Carson “put a nail in the
plaintiffs’ case against the E.M.T.s.”
“When
he walked into the courtroom, all eyes were on him,” Judge Gordy
recalled. “And it remained that way throughout his testimony. The jury
paid rapt attention to everything he said.”
Mr.
Muhammad and his lawyers knew it, too. “They hired him to do just what
he did,” recalled Mr. Muhammad, who now lives in North Carolina. Lawyers
who represented the city declined to comment on the case.
During
the case, even Mr. Muhammad’s lawyers treated Dr. Carson carefully. For
the pretrial deposition, Mr. Eaton met Dr. Carson where he worked,
questioning him for just 20 minutes in a Johns Hopkins Hospital suite
one evening. “I’ll endeavor to be brief and get you out of here,” Mr.
Eaton said, according to a transcript. “Then you can cut out half of
somebody’s brain tomorrow.”
During
the brisk deposition, Dr. Carson offered a drop of sarcasm in answering
a question about what could worsen a patient’s spinal injury.
“You could take that patient, twist their head and break them in two,” Dr. Carson said. “You could throw them off the Empire State Building. Or you could give them the same kind of jolt that he had in the first place.”
Three
months later, Dr. Carson took the stand in Judge Gordy’s Baltimore City
Circuit courtroom, smoothly opining on the performance of the
paramedics and offering clear answers to technical medical questions —
including explaining the function of a “spinal dura.” (Short for dura
mater, which is Latin, Dr. Carson said, it is a “leatherlike covering
over the brain and spinal cord.”)
In
discussing the spinal cord, Dr. Carson, a Christian who has strong
support among evangelicals, mentioned a higher power. “You know, God
created that space nice and capacious so that there would be plenty of
fluid surrounding the cord so that when you bend your head, turn your
head, twist your head, etc.,” he said.
Mr.
Eaton objected when Dr. Carson strayed from his medical expertise,
saying that “having dealt with police and paramedics for a very long
time” he considered them unlikely to throw or drop someone in a way that
could make the initial injury worse. The judge struck that comment from
the record.
Occasionally,
Dr. Carson sounded smug. Asked about whether he had read a particular
emergency medical technicians’ book, Dr. Carson responded: “I don’t read
technician books. I’m a little bit beyond that.”
Mr.
Muhammad, whose lawyers unsuccessfully appealed the verdict for the
paramedics, believes that the famous doctor had cost him “a lot of
money.” But in the courtroom, even he was impressed.
Afterward in the hall, Mr. Muhammad, in a wheelchair, approached Dr. Carson to thank him for coming.
“I just shook his hand,” Mr. Muhammad recalled, “and told him it was an honor to meet him.”
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