Fitzgerald Shows Libby's Memory Expert to be Forgetful - Sliced and Diced!

I hope Scooter is trembling now. Cheney too. If not for not being allowed to use the memory "expert", for seeing Fitz in "Ginsu-like" action. Next witness please...


In the Libby Case, A Grilling to Remember

Friday, October 27, 2006; Page A21

With withering and methodical dispatch, White House nemesis and prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald yesterday sliced up the first person called to the stand on behalf of the vice president's former chief of staff.

If I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was not afraid of the special counsel before, the former Cheney aide, who will face Fitzgerald in a trial beginning Jan. 11, had ample reason to start quaking after yesterday's Ginsu-like legal performance.

<snip>

Fitzgerald's target in the witness box was Elizabeth F. Loftus, a professor of criminology and psychology at the University of California at Irvine. For more than an hour of the pretrial hearing, Loftus calmly explained to Judge Reggie B. Walton her three decades of expertise in human memory and witness testimony.

<snip>
But when Fitzgerald got his chance to cross-examine Loftus about her findings, he had her stuttering to explain her own writings and backpedaling from her earlier assertions. Citing several of her publications, footnotes and the work of her peers, Fitzgerald got Loftus to acknowledge that the methodology she had used at times in her long academic career was not that scientific, that her conclusions about memory were conflicting, and that she had exaggerated a figure and a statement from her survey of D.C. jurors that favored the defense.

<snip>

There were several moments when Loftus was completely caught off guard by Fitzgerald, creating some very awkward silences in the courtroom.

One of those moments came when Loftus insisted that she had never met Fitzgerald. He then reminded her that he had cross-examined her before, when she was an expert defense witness and he was a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in New York.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601612.html

A memory 'expert' who can't remember. That is too much!

Maybe she was trying to prove her fallibility???

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Her theme is that people don't remember what they think they remember.

Although, that incident doesn't remotely prove her thesis.

It just struck me as funny.

Well, except that one other time when he cross-examined her. Sounds like Fitzgerald really did his homework, which is what effective cross-examination is all about.\

I worked for an attorney who was doing a cross of a doctor. For many years, the doctor had been a pretty fair-minded guy, calling a claimant a malingerer when he thought somebody was faking it, but also reliable if there was medical evidence backing up a claimant's condition.

But as the years went by, the doctor found it more lucrative to testify on behalf of insurance companies: Bulging disks didn't cause back pain, repetitive job motions didn't strain tendons or muscles. The attorney read through about 10 years' worth of the doctor's testimony in cases, and put together a catalogue of prior statements by the doctor on matters related to the client's condition. The first time the doctor strayed from his past testimony, the attorney pulled out a deposition transcript and quoted him page and line of what he had said before.

After this happened a couple of times, the attorney said that all he had to do was start reaching for the box of transcripts when the doctor started to fudge another answer, and suddenly he'd snap back to a reasonable medically sustainable answer instead of an insurance company nostrum. The doctor was pretty much finished in the local legal community as a reliable expert to deny any injured party really had anything wrong with him.

Ms. Loftus may find herself in the same boat.

So her forgetting him proves her point, in a way.

Citing several of her publications, footnotes and the work of her peers, Fitzgerald got Loftus to acknowledge that the methodology she had used at times in her long academic career was not that scientific, that her conclusions about memory were conflicting, and that she had exaggerated a figure and a statement from her survey of D.C. jurors that favored the defense.

So her expertise in question. And if that's the case then even if she's proving her own point it doesn't matter since her points have been shown to be less than stellar.

She's a little too full of herself, imo.

So her forgetting something doesn't really conflict with that message.

I remember where i was on 9/11. I remember my first day of boot camp. I remember the first time I got laid. I remember Bobby and JFK being shot.

common memories may be fragile, but if someone is doing something unusual, or if something unusual happens, they remember it.

I think she says that emotional moments are OFTEN much harder to remember than you'd think. The emotion interferes with the memory.

the elections in Nov? Haven't heard much progress lately. Some have speculated that Rove made a deal to talk after the Nov elections.
Any ideas.

I don't think Fitzgerald can be blamed for that.

a headline just before the election.

And in the WP!

WOOT!!