Crime
Discredited witness under perjury investigation
By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
November 23, 2008
The discredited expert witness whose testimony has jeopardized the conviction of a District woman for killing her 2-year-old goddaughter is under investigation for perjury in a Wisconsin case, prosecutors said.
The perjury investigation comes as the D.C. Court of Appeals is considering whether to grant a new trial to Angela O’Brien, who was sent to prison in 2001 for the high-profile case of Brianna Blackmond in part because of the testimony of the expert witness, Saami Shaibani, of Lynchburg, Va.
In July, the court ordered prosecutors and defense attorneys to compare O’Brien’s case with a conviction that was overturned in Wisconsin. In that case, the Wisconsin Supreme Court said Shaibani lied on the stand about his credentials and his testimony was not credible.
O’Brien’s attorney Joanne Slaight said prosecutors in D.C. should follow the lead of the Wisconsin Department of Justice and consider perjury charges against Shaibani.
“Saami Shaibani committed the same perjury here that he committed in Wisconsin,” Slaight said. “Instead of covering up for him, they should be prosecuting him.”
U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said Friday it could not respond to requests for comment on the matter because the O’Brien’s appeal was still pending. But in the prosecution’s written response to the appeals court, government attorneys said that the Wisconsin case had no bearing on the O’Brien case and that the jurors would have still found O’Brien guilty even without Shaibani’s testimony. But a juror told The Examiner in July that the jury would have likely acquitted O’Brien without Shaibani’s testimony.
Slaight is credited as being one of the first defense attorneys in the nation to challenge Shaibani’s credentials. But the judge refused to let jurors hear evidence questioning Shaibani’s resume, Slaight said.
Since then, Shaibani has come under criticism in homicide cases around the nation. Courts from North Carolina to South Dakota have tossed out his testimony after evidence showed that Shaibani lied about his academic background and affiliations, claiming he was a clinical associate professor at Temple University when he was not.
Shaibani has testified in dozen cases that he is an expert in “injury mechanism analysis” — a field in which he has claimed unrivaled expertise. He has explained it as the science of using physics, trauma and engineering to tell the cause of injuries. Critics, like Slaight, say he invented the field and dismiss it as junk science.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this story.
The perjury investigation comes as the D.C. Court of Appeals is considering whether to grant a new trial to Angela O’Brien, who was sent to prison in 2001 for the high-profile case of Brianna Blackmond in part because of the testimony of the expert witness, Saami Shaibani, of Lynchburg, Va.
In July, the court ordered prosecutors and defense attorneys to compare O’Brien’s case with a conviction that was overturned in Wisconsin. In that case, the Wisconsin Supreme Court said Shaibani lied on the stand about his credentials and his testimony was not credible.
O’Brien’s attorney Joanne Slaight said prosecutors in D.C. should follow the lead of the Wisconsin Department of Justice and consider perjury charges against Shaibani.
“Saami Shaibani committed the same perjury here that he committed in Wisconsin,” Slaight said. “Instead of covering up for him, they should be prosecuting him.”
U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said Friday it could not respond to requests for comment on the matter because the O’Brien’s appeal was still pending. But in the prosecution’s written response to the appeals court, government attorneys said that the Wisconsin case had no bearing on the O’Brien case and that the jurors would have still found O’Brien guilty even without Shaibani’s testimony. But a juror told The Examiner in July that the jury would have likely acquitted O’Brien without Shaibani’s testimony.
Slaight is credited as being one of the first defense attorneys in the nation to challenge Shaibani’s credentials. But the judge refused to let jurors hear evidence questioning Shaibani’s resume, Slaight said.
Since then, Shaibani has come under criticism in homicide cases around the nation. Courts from North Carolina to South Dakota have tossed out his testimony after evidence showed that Shaibani lied about his academic background and affiliations, claiming he was a clinical associate professor at Temple University when he was not.
Shaibani has testified in dozen cases that he is an expert in “injury mechanism analysis” — a field in which he has claimed unrivaled expertise. He has explained it as the science of using physics, trauma and engineering to tell the cause of injuries. Critics, like Slaight, say he invented the field and dismiss it as junk science.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this story.
