ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how to address the dangers during a trial. The court's point was that to not take even very basic and preliminary steps to prepare against the prosecution's case very clearly did not meet the reasonable assistance standard. Smith had testified during the initial trial in 1995 that the accused had deliberately asphyxiated her own son, when in fact it was likely that the boy had died of an epileptic seizure. The art of science obviously has a large role to play when the expert witness tries to ascertain the specifics during a preliminary investigation. The fundamental first step for a lawyer who is defending an accused on the receiving end of forensic science evidence is to seek out at least a second opinion from another expert. Common law legal systems have the full expectation that expert witnesses are there to be of objective assistance to the court, much more so after White Burgess.
