Jonathan Leach
speaker
38 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Jonathan Leach’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
because of the questions they're asking. This seems to me to be a very engaged, thoughtful, serious jury. For example, can we see the shelter order? Can we see a copy of the shelter order? That is, this is a jury that wants to know what were the rules of the game? What's the governing standard? What's the protocol here? So my prediction is that with this particular jury,
They're going to do their best to give both sides a fair shake and really work diligently to arrive at the right decision.
There is always a danger that they get overwhelmed. I think the lesson really is a lesson to the trial team, whether it's plaintiff or attorney. I think everybody on both trial teams has to recognize, look, this is a lot of work we're asking these jurors to do. How can we make this process, the next whatever it is, six weeks, make it as easy as possible for them?
Dr. Chopra, interestingly, has demonstrated that he understands that very well. He faces the jury. He addresses them directly. He makes jokes. He's sort of lighthearted about the number of medical records he's looked through. He's connected very well with them.
I think what we know is that there are MDs out there who are of that camp and who are I won't say we'll issue a made-to-order opinion, but are very amenable to moms, typically moms, who make this sort of complaint of some exotic illness.
I think in this case, the specific wheel that was turning very slowly was the search for an independent expert. Where is the independent expert who can come in here and weigh in on this case and evaluate for the benefit of the court what's really going on with this child? I think in the shelter hearing, what comes through is almost the... the desperation of the judge.
The judge is practically begging for somebody to come rescue them, someone with independent expertise to come in and evaluate the case. And no one can find one. They're hard to find. These people are very specialized. They're few and far between. They are rare experts. And in this case, in October late 2016, the court just cannot find one.
During the shelter here, the very initial shelter here, the two possibilities that were raised were someone with expertise in pediatric psychiatry, someone with expertise in pediatric neurology. So those would be just two examples. Now, as soon as someone with those qualifications understands what they're being asked to do, many of them run the other way. That is, oh, this is a potential lawsuit.
This is a disputed matter. This has all the indications of going into the legal system. I'm going to have to review thousands of pages of medical records. I want no part of this. Now, I don't know to what extent that attributes to the 85 or 87-day stay in the hospital, but I think, based on what I've read, it is a very significant reason for that long time period.
We start all over. I mean, both sides have to retool and ramp up. I've been involved in those. And essentially what happens is this, whatever, how many weeks we've been doing this becomes a kind of very elaborate mock trial for the real one that comes later. It's hard to imagine, but it all would cure up at some future day.
The visuals that I have seen, I'm not sure are that helpful to the plaintiff. That is, my sort of windshield take on a lot of these photos, video, even seeing this young lady in the courtroom, I think as a juror, I'm a little puzzled by how serious was this? How ill was she?
And I'm thinking, for example, maybe of photos or videos that took place in Dr. Kirkpatrick's office where she seems to be almost bubbly and engaging with him in a very light and seemingly happy way at a time when I think we're told that she is in terrible pain.
So the fact that the jury has been exposed to things like that makes me maybe a little, if I'm the plaintiff, maybe a little concerned about what the takeaway is from all that.
Her treatment at Tampa General, which is basically the month of July and August in 2015, as I understand it, she is prescribed drugs. physical therapy and psychological counseling coming out of Tampa General.
As far as I can tell, the really next significant event after that visit to Tampa General, that month there of therapy is that Beata takes her to Dr. Kirkpatrick for what begins this ketamine infusion treatment. I mean, it just, in terms of a visual, that just seems to be a significant turn that would be important for the jury to know about.
In essence, it says that the specialized knowledge that the expert has is
is admissible if it is based on reliable principles and methods that are generally accepted in the community of experts, typically the scientific community, and that it's based upon facts and data, and that in the judge's opinion, the expert has reasonably, rationally applied their principles and methods to the facts and the data.
And what the plaintiffs in this case are asserting is that because these terms, Munchausen's and falsification, medical child abuse, are so fuzzy in their opinion, and the science, they characterize it in their motion as junk science, that Judge Carroll should not allow any of this testimony in.
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