Bringing over, condensed, from closed thread:
Katy: why put Brewer on the stand?
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Minor Attorney:
Just speculating here, but I think they put Brewer on as a test run for Dr Diamond's testimony.
They wanted to see how Boring was going to cross examine him so they can prepare Diamond accordingly. He is, after all, probably their most important witness.
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Adding, IMO:
One reason might be to preempt a line of argument by the State, while cross examining Diamond, that his expert opinion on FBS isn't widely accepted in the relevant scientific/medical fields, that's he's a professional defense witness, etc.
In another words, Brewer takes some bullets to clear the path for Diamond.
Who, when I think about it again, must be testifying. He had to have known the wicket he was getting into when he agreed to testify in this case, and imo, it would damage his credibility far more to back out of an ongoing trial than any dents on his reputation that might result from RH being found guilty. Jmo
BBM Warning, long post:
In awaiting Dr. Diamond’s testimony, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. In general, I don’t always put a lot of stock in testimony of experts. Most trials have experts for the defense and experts for the prosecution who have opposite or conflicting “expert” testimony. Sometimes the expert’s testimony is based on their perceptions or their beliefs and opinions. Sometimes there is concrete evidence as to what they are saying, sometimes not. As far as Dr. Diamond, is he the only hot car death expert? I haven’t seen any others, which makes me question his theories and “expert opinion”. The mind or brain is somewhat of an uncharted universe. Studies are done of brain activity. We know what parts of the brain control functions, memory, personality etc. When the brain is damaged through trauma, stroke, disease, we can see the damage on CT scan or MRI. I concur it alters brain function/activity depending on the damage. But what I’m hearing/reading about Dr. Diamond, these are his opinions about how the “wiring” of the brain has been interrupted or rerouted. We can’t see that. It’s not tangible evidence. It’s his opinion. This happens he says with things like changes in routine, lack of sleep, over work, stress, and the brain short circuits. Again, how does he know this? It’s a guess, albeit an educated guess, but his opinion from studying these cases.
But it got me to thinking about his “studies”. How many people/circumstances did he study? I can say I did a study by asking who the subjects thought would win the election, and 90% said Trump (or Hilary, pick your poison). But if I only asked 10 people, that’s not a very good study. So I looked at how many hot car deaths occur in the US in a year. I found 37, 39, but to keep the math easy, let’s say 40. I’m going to “assume” all those deaths had a “short-circuited brain” caregiver or FBS. I won’t think that any occurred because mom wanted to get a quickie from her supervisor, like that recent case, and just left the baby in the car, or one where mom or dad decided to stop at a crack house to get high. All are FBS in this scenario.
So I asked myself, what is the percentage of that happening? How many kids are strapped into a car seat and driven around and NOT forgotten. The best statistics I could find were 24.1 million children between the ages of 0-5 in the U.S. (
http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp) I could not specifically find a 0-2 age group. If the 40 deaths (and 1 death is too many I might add) were 10%, then that is only 400 kids. No, not enough kids. 1% would be 4000 kids. Still too small a number. 40,000, maybe, which would be 0.001%. So, based on these figures, which is only hypothetical, can be more or less and probably more in this age group, that is 99.999% of parents/caregivers who drove around with kids strapped in car seats who didn’t have their brains re-circuit and remembered their children. I’m sure many of them were tired, over worked, stressed or out of routine, yet they ALL remembered their children in car seats. Just an observation, but makes me go WOW in that perspective.