Expert Witness Requests
Although sexual assault trials often come down to the credibility of an
accuser against the accused and are often referred to as “he said,
she said” cases for this reason, such a term minimized the opportunity
and necessity of supporting witnesses and even expert witnesses for each
side of the trial.
It is not uncommon for sexual assault cases to require expert testimony
from a sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE), a toxicologist to examine
the influence of alcohol or drugs on an accuser or accused, a medical
doctor, an expert investigator, a false confession expert, or a forensic
psychologist familiar with sexual-assault victim behavior during or after
an alleged sexual assault. With the increasing use of technology, there
is often a need to work with a computer forensics expert to retrieve and
examine records of e-mail correspondence, social networking archives,
text message records, or digital photographs that may help to support
the defense or prosecution because of prior statements about the accusation
by the alleged victim or suspect.