Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

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Where else but in a court of law

Where else but in a court of law could logical fallacies rise to the level of evidence? Especially in capital cases? Last Friday, I ran across this Associated Press article in the Seattle Times.

Saami Shaibani often testified for the prosecution in big murder cases, taking the stand as an expert in what he called "injury mechanism analysis" - a combination of physics, trauma medicine and engineering that he used to determine whether, say, a woman fell down the stairs or was beaten.

But after years of helping lock up killers, Shaibani could be the one in trouble.

The physicist lied under oath about his credentials, and now some of the convictions he helped secure are in jeopardy. At least one has been overturned so far.

His testimony has come under attack in at least five cases from Washington, D.C., to South Dakota since Shaibani was caught lying when he claimed that he was a clinical associate professor at Temple University and that he taught doctors there about injuries.

"He's a fraud. Basically, he was trying to create himself as an expert so he could run around the country and testify in these cases," said Wisconsin lawyer Stephen Willett.

And of course, that's one of the big problems with the appeal to authority, a logical fallacy that all too often gets a pass in our courtrooms. After all, it's often on the testimony of "experts" that people are convicted of murder or other crimes. While it may be true that a person is actually guilty despite the credibility of the witnesses for or against them, it's dangerous to rely on fallacies when a person's life is on the line.

An appeal to authority is when you rely upon the assertion of a person you judge to be an authority to support your argument. While an authority may speak the truth about the matter, they may also assert a falsehood. Further, simply because a person is judged to be an authority doesn't make them one, and they may not be an authority on the subject matter at hand.

In this case, we have a clear example of someone being judged to be an authority based upon false credentials. The standard of proof for a conviction in a criminal case is meant to be "beyond a reasonable doubt." Further, the burden of proof is upon the prosecution.

In recent years, we've seen false claims of authority. We've seen "expert" witnesses testify to mutually exclusive sets of "facts". We've watched as forensics laboratories have been found to have falsified their test results. Considering these examples, and the falsified credentials of Saami Shaibani, how can we let stand convictions based solely upon "expert" testimony?

It seems to me that there's a lot of room for "reasonable doubt" whenever a conviction turns on such "evidence". If a so-called expert is willing to lie about his credentials, what else is he willing to lie about?

Saami Shaibani may have believed that his intentions were good. I think that they were evil regardless of his belief. How many innocent people were convicted of heinous crimes because of his foul deeds? And how many people's faith in our system of justice has forever been tarnished by a man whose main employment was "helping an older man write down orders for his plumbing business"?

Logical fallacies have no place as evidence in criminal cases. Saami Shaibani is proof enough of that. But while we're considering the appeal to authority, let's not fall prey to the fallacist's fallacy either. Just because this so-called expert without a moral center has tainted the cases he's been involved with doesn't exonerate his victims. Some were convicted on evidence other than his testimony. For the rest, they deserve new trials, complete with the presumption of innocence. And if there's sufficient real evidence to convict them then their convictions should stand.

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