Sex Slave Case Judge Hits Value of Expert Witnesses

Do expert witnesses provide reliable testimony to help jurors decide a criminal case? Or are they paid advocates obligated to provide favorable testimony for the party footing the bill?

The question arose after San Mateo Superior Court Judge Clarence Knight blasted Stanford University psychiatrist Donald Lunde, who testified in the defense of Cameron Hooker. Hooker, a Red Bluff mill worker, was convicted of kidnaping a woman and keeping her as a sex slave for more than seven years.

Knight commended the jury for rejecting Lunde’s testimony. “Witnesses like that are a real menace to the criminal justice system,” Knight said. “They come in here posing as objective experts when they are nothing more than paid advocates.”

Verdicts to Be Appealed

Knight, noting that the verdicts will be appealed, declined comment on his remarks. But he said he will write Tehama County Superior Court Judge Noel Watkins, who approved Lunde’s fee.

“I plan to tell him that I would never have approved a fee that exorbitant,” Knight said. Lunde testified he was paid $3,000 a day in court and $100 an hour outside of court.

The case was moved to San Mateo County because of pretrial coverage.

Lunde, who declined to discuss the matter, was not the only highly paid witness in Hooker’s trial.

The prosecution employed Chris Hatcher, a psychologist at the Langley-Porter Institute in San Francisco, who received a flat fee of $5,000, according to Tehama County Dist. Atty. James Lang.

Hatcher said he spent more than 80 hours on the case, interviewing, analyzing evidence, visiting Hooker’s house and trailer and listening to tapes. He also interviewed people involved in similar cases.

In San Mateo County, court-appointed expert witnesses receive a standard fee of $175 a day or $100 a half day, according to Superior Court Administrator Ken Torrie.

The fees apply for both in-court testimony and out-of-court evaluations or consultations, and there rarely are exceptions.

Dist. Atty. Jim Fox was less critical of fees that exceed a schedule. His office has an annual budget of $155,000 approved by the Board of Supervisors to pay witness expenses, including experts.

“Some cases require the testimony of an expert,” Fox said. “Of course, they aren’t going to appear for free. These are people with special expertise in a marketable skill, and we have to pay them accordingly.”

Professional fees for testimony, according to Hatcher, who has testified in eight criminal cases, typically range from $750 to $3,000 a day.

Expert’s Qualifications

The expert’s qualifications to testify, Hatcher said, often involve establishing that he has previously testified in the same area. On the other hand, the expert with too many court appearances risks damaging his credibility.

Do jurors believe experts? Several of Hooker’s jurors said that while they relied heavily on Hatcher’s testimony, they discounted Lunde’s from the start.

“My personal opinion is that the vast majority of cases are decided on the basis of the jury’s attitudes toward the primary figures in the case--the defendant and the victim--and whether they believe what those people are saying,” Hatcher said. All the experts do, he said, is speed up deliberations by helping the jury evaluate the testimony of other unpaid witnesses.