Talk:Michael Welner/Archive 5

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Inappropriately Undoing A Block of Edits

JCally, Do not simply undo all my edits as a block. It’s aggressive and rude. When you block edited an entire section to the article without any discussion in the talk page, you requested that I not simply undo it. I showed you that courtesy and worked changes from within the language you proposed. Every edit I made closely paralleled the statements made by verifiable sources. Every deletion I made was explained on the talk page for discussion on a point by point basis. When you requested that we work off the revisions you block added to the article, you indicated that you were open to criticism. Based on this last round, that doesn't seem to be the case. Please avoid doing this in the future or we are going to be here for a while. I don’t know if you noticed, but we all have the same magic undo button.

I have responded to your points above. If you have issue with any of the language I drafted for the BLP, respond to it on a point by point and/or sentence by sentence basis much like I have for you. Don’t undo an entire paragraph if you have an issue with one sentence. If you have issues with anything I cited, let me know specifically what your issue is with the source, so we can address it. Right now, you are just jamming thoughts together and attempting to delete ALL new concepts and language if you have issue with ANY new concepts or language; and this is inappropriate. Lawblogger18 (talk) 23:25, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Lawblogger18, I have been the victim of block "undo"s multiple times by the other editors on this page, but I should apologize for taking that out on you. I won't do it again. (You might want to direct that comment at Fladrif also, since last time around unilaterally removed 3/4th of my edits in Selected Cases. ) However, in this case I didn't simply undo your work, I used it as a starting point for further edits. I can't help but notice that the practice here is to Undo another editor's work and then justify it after the fact on the talk page. Again, I would prefer consensus on the talk page first, but I'm still frustrated by the fact that I get no responses to any of my proposals here.

That said, it looks like we're getting close to a version of the BLP that we can agree on.

To summarize the current issues:

1. Unless some independent references can be found describing The Forensic Panel or Dr. Welner's role in the McKinney case, it should be removed from Selected Cases. It's not appropriate to use Welner/Panel references as the only sources. I can find no other source. If you can, let me know.
2. I have no problem with your new version of the description of the Cheever case, though I may comment on it later after more research.
3. There are still a few things to work out on Baumhammers. I will comment above.--Jcally66 (talk) 15:25, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

So, what is the expected length of time one should wait to receive a reply to a comment or editing suggestion? I keep getting criticism for unilaterally editing, but those are the only times I get any responses.--Jcally66 (talk) 17:53, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Jcally -- My access to internet has been problematic for the past few days, but I should be ok hereon out. i will look at your comments tonight. Sorry for any holdup. Lawblogger18 (talk) 20:00, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I haven't found anything else on McKinney yet. Per your suggestion, i will delete it. If anyone finds anything else, we can talk about sticking it back in the BLP. Lawblogger18 (talk) 04:13, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Lawblogger18, thank you for your agreement regarding McKinney. I'm not sure what you are referring to when you call the current version of Selected Cases a "hodgepodge". Since we also removed Benoit and William, all the cases on the current list are high profile criminal cases where Dr. Welner's testimony played a central role. If you include Brian Richardson, we have 7 cases that are well-referenced with independent, balanced sources. As a side-effect of this, however, in every case on the current list, Dr. Welner is the key mental health expert witness for the state against the defendant. (Is this a possible reason for your discomfort with this list?) In Yates, Mitchell, and Free he is cited as a major factor for each juries' verdict. In Baumhammers, Khadr, Cheever and Richardson, he's at the center for grounds for appeal.--Jcally66 (talk) 22:36, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

On a side note, I found a transcript of Dr. Welner's entire testimony at the Gitmo tribunal for Omar Khadr. Is this an allowed source in the BLP? Very revealing either way.--Jcally66 (talk) 22:36, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for providing. I don't know if we can use transcripts. I was always under the impression that you can't, but I will check it out. In the interim I will read what you attached. Do you have any other transcripts from other trials you can share? Lawblogger18 (talk) 01:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I have all the transcripts for just the Mitchell trial. The Salt Lake Tribune has all their unofficial transcripts, but I have no idea how to attach the files for the official transcript Word files.--Jcally66 (talk) 19:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

New suggestion for Selected Cases subsection to balance Dr. Welner's roles in high profile cases:

State of Louisiana vs. Damon A. Thibodeaux

Role: Consulted by District Attorney Paul Connick in determining that the defendant's murder confession was false, releasing him from death row.

In 1997, Thibodeaux was convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of his step-cousin Crystal Champagne, in Westwego, LA. In 2007, the Innocence Project and Thibodeaux's defense team requested DNA testing that showed that the victim had not been raped and that Thibodeaux was not the murderer. Parish County District Attorney Paul Connick hired Dr. Welner to determine whether or not Thibodeaux's confession was false. Dr. Welner concluded that he had confessed falsely "under an unremarkable police interrogation." Thibodeaux was released from prison in Sept. 2012 after spending 15 years on death row.'

Clarification: I did not make this case up. I can provide 5 independent references and one from the Forensic Panel's own website. Dr. Welner once stated that false confession may occur in fewer than 1 in 10,000 cases, and yet he was still able to identify Thibodeaux's confession as false in this case. I'm frankly in awe of Dr. Welner's expertise and perceptiveness.--Jcally66 (talk) 01:52, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I am fine adding Thibodeaux, if you want to include it (and presuming Percival is ok with it). I am also ok taking the time to flush out what you are referencing above. However, you haven't provided us with any citations/references. Can you provide them so I can see what you are talking about? Also, in the same way that I am being flexibility with the addition of cases that may support your view of the world, I would expect the same level of flexibility if another editor suggests a verifiable case which opposes your view of the world. Let me know if you agree with this sentiment Lawblogger18 (talk) 20:29, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, I added it to the BLP with references for your review.--Jcally66 (talk) 22:53, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Revisiting New Edits

Jcally66, I think that this issue is becoming convoluted, when it is actually quite circumscribed. I have written on your talk page to respond to the above, as I find our discussion fascinating. However, because I was not in the courtroom for this case and I was not so closely attached to this outcome, my only point is that we keep the page free of biased reporting - keeping in mind that this page has a history of bad faith editing. To that end, I would like to reiterate:

1. In accordance with WP:ORIGINAL reliable, verified references must be included to support your statements about peer review being controversial. Concluding from your review of a source(s)(that are not available to the public via a citation) that peer review is controversial is not WP:NPOV but rather vested interest commentary. Wiki editors are cautioned to avoid such practices in biographies of living persons. The point is that contentious or conclusive content must referenced in such a way that the reader can find factual support for the statements.

2. In accordance with WP:NPOV introducing points of contention (either positive or negative) that are reliably sourced should be balanced. Be sure to remain neutral so that you don't introduce contentious content just for the sake of controversy.

3. I think the point of a BLP is to be factually informative - it is not the forum to argue forensic peer review or other opinions about practice. Just because an expert is question about peer review as Trestman, Marcopulos and others were does not make something controversial. Please remember that experts are questioned about their opinions all the time. This is the nature of being an expert.

4. Also, please don't forget to sign your responses with 4 ~ symbols. Wiki policy.

5. Lastly, I unfortunately don't know how to site judges opinions unless they are accessibly through a search engine like Google or yahoo.

With this said, I think it would be a good idea to discuss recommended changes to what you originally proposed here on the discussion page.Stewaj7 (talk) 18:15, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Stewaj7, I have revised my previous editting to the subject’s BLP page in response to your recommendations to follow this site’s rules. I have added new references and changed some of the language. I’ve been a Wiki editor for just a few days and doing my best to catch up. As to your other points, I believe I am being completely balanced and factual with regard to the definition of peer review, however, in response to my request for an independent example of “a priori peer review” you have sent ironically sent my talk page the link http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15228932.2011.588526#preview which is an article by Welner, M et al. 2012. In other words, you seem to be trying to justify Dr. Welner’s definition of peer review using an article about peer review written by Dr. Welner.--Jcally66 (talk) 22:06, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Rather than argue directly with Dr. Welner’s attempt to redefine terms, I just want to point out that my original intent here was to clarify the meaning of “peer review”, not to criticize the subject of this BLP. I witnessed first-hand one of Dr. Welner’s expert testimonies, and as it happens, those of us working the so-called hard sciences are very touchy when it comes to attempts redefine basic scientific principles. That said, looking back I can’t help notice how hard you have worked to remove any negative references about Dr. Welner in his BLP. I understand the need for neutrality and to avoid controversy, however a hagiography in place of a biography also represents a biased point-of-view. With further investigation, I also see that problems with Dr. Welner’s expert testimonies have negatively affected sentencing in two capital criminal trials in just the past year. http://m.cjonline.com/news/2012-08-24/court-reverses-capital-murder-conviction-scott-cheever-case http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/costs-questioned-in-failed-death-penalty-case-1/nRBbs/ I believe that’s about as controversial as a professional’s work can get, and I don’t see how a balanced BLP would fail to even mention these types of criticisms.--Jcally66 (talk) 22:06, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate the reply; however, I think making edits directly to the page while we are discussing them is a premature. Remember, we are operating in good faith here. I have reached out for third party input so that we other objective editors discuss the changes on this page. I ask that remove your edits, and recommend changes here in the discussion page to prevent an editing war.Stewaj7 (talk) 22:33, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• In the spirit of cooperation, I have removed my last edit and reposted it below. However, I had hoped that more than one editor responsible for the original BLP would have commented at this point. Particularly if editors pro and con were weighing in on detailing criticisms of the work of the subject.--Jcally66 (talk) 23:35, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

::However, The Forensic Panel’s theories regarding “peer-review” are considered controversial http://www.chron.com/news/casey/article/Second-Yates-expert-paid-242-966-74-1511591.php http://www.abc4.com/content/news/state/story/UPDATE-Jury-halts-deliberation-in-Mitchell-trial/hTQHgdrp4UOgEe3oPp3g7A.cspx?rss=1451 and not conforming to the accepted protocols of using independent experts as peer reviewers. For example, in April 2012 the US District Court for the Northern District Georgia ruled that the Forensic Panel’s psychiatric report prepared for the prosecution in the capital homicide case against Brian Richardson be thrown out due to testimony that neuropsychologist Joel Morgan had consulted other Panel experts before interviewing the defendant and writing his initial report. In his ruling, Judge Clarence Cooper found that The Forensic Panel’s practices amounted to co-authorship rather than “peer-review” and thereby violated the terms of the court’s rulings regarding expert witnesses. http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/costs-questioned-in-failed-death-penalty-case-1/nRBbs/ http://www.correctionsone.com/capital-punishment/articles/5919233-Ga-death-penalty-bid-falls-apart/

Pardon the delay Jcally, I am not a 9 to 5'ver Wikipedia editor and am catching up on what I have missed. The proposed paragraph above seems a lot like the original. Again, there is no support for the controversial plug. I think a more factual representation of the article would be that "The Forensic Panel’s “peer-review” has been the source of discussion in a number of cases. http://www.chron.com/news/casey/article/Second-Yates-expert-paid-242-966-74-1511591.php http://www.abc4.com/content/news/state/story/UPDATE-Jury-halts-deliberation-in-Mitchell-trial/hTQHgdrp4UOgEe3oPp3g7A.cspx?rss=1451, http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/costs-questioned-in-failed-death-penalty-case-1/nRBbs/ http://www.correctionsone.com/capital-punishment/articles/5919233-Ga-death-penalty-bid-falls-apart/." Like you mentioned below, this way the reader can review the article and come to a conclusion about how peer review has been received in the forensic community. Maybe we can also cite the journal article published on peer review. Fladrif and anybody else's input on this is appreciated as well.Stewaj7 (talk) 03:10, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

In Response to Jcally66

Jcally66, you stated that you believe you are “being completely balanced and factual with regard to the definition of peer review”.

But you disregard an editor who not only provided you references to how your work is original research but also how it is negatively slanted rather than simply stating the facts of the article your cite. This is not balance or factual. Please read WP:ORIGINAL and WP:NPOV to better understand what I am explaining.Stewaj7 (talk) 23:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Stewaj7, my my, a whole new section devoted to rebutting just my points. Since you've now accused my of having an agenda, I have to wonder what your connection is to Dr. Welner to merit such a response. You may not like the tone of the references I have used, but I have only used them to cite facts, not opinion.--Jcally66 (talk) 00:25, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Jcally66, you stated that “in response to my request for an independent example of “a priori peer review” you have sent ironically sent my talk page the linkhttp://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15228932.2011.588526#preview which is an article by Welner, M et al. 2012. In other words, you seem to be trying to justify Dr. Welner’s definition of peer review using an article about peer review written by Dr. Welner.”

You seem to have a misconception about peer review and noted even below that you want to clarify the meaning of peer review. What better source to clarify peer review in forensic consultation, which “Welner pioneered a peer review process to safeguard the validity of his findings, using up to three mental health experts in a case instead of one.” than to review an article that was published in a peer reviewed journal and is accessible to the scientific community? The article would be at least informative, at best enlightening. Having found the full text myself, I reiterate my encouragement that you read the article and see the examples of retrospective and prospective peer review and the variants of peer review in the forensic and medical community to help with you misconception.Stewaj7 (talk) 23:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I have misconceptions about peer review? What better source than Dr. Welner to help me find clarification? Funny stuff. As it happens I had already read Welner's paper last Spring and found it to be what one would expect in an obscure specialty journal with a near-zero impact rating. It describes how hard it is for members of the legal system to evaluate expert witnesses (no argument there!). It lists various types of accepted peer review protocols, points that none are perfect often make mistakes. The rest of it can summed up as one long description of The Forensic Panel's practices where multiple doctors consult each other before, during and after a patient's evaluation and calls this Peer-Reviewed Forensic Consulting or PRFC. I guess the acronym makes it sound more "scientific". Missing in the paper is any discussion of the conflict of interest that may arise from a doctor using his own employees to "peer review" his own work.--Jcally66 (talk) 23:42, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Added: Oh, also, the paper contains gratutitous and baseless swipes directed toward the defense team in the Mitchell trial and some special pleading in an attempt to use Judge Kimball's rulings in the Mitchell trial to justify his redefinition of "peer review." Examples from the Welner paper:--Jcally66 (talk) 20:17, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Occasionally, an expert witness enables dishonest testimony by deliberately

hiding information from the court (United States of America v. Brian David

Mitchell, 2010).” (Page 6)

Willful avoidance of psychologically pertinent history is easy to conceal

from opposing attorneys but not from well-trained colleagues available to

the opposing counsel. Unfortunately, courts regularly tolerate mental

health experts’ not revealing their notes. Even when courts order the release of

notes, courts tolerate expert witnesses who keep illegible notes and do not

insist on closely accounting for the work they performed. Agenda-driven

witnesses readily exploit these loopholes and techniques (United States of

America v. Brian David Mitchell, 2010). (page 6)

The Forensic Panel’s use of the designation “peer review” itself was

challenged recently in a United States District Court in Utah in U.S.

v. Mitchell, the well-known case of the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart. The

defense disputed use of the term peer review because of its differences

from publication peer review. Presiding Judge Dale Kimball in Mitchell termed

this disagreement one of “semantics” and admitted testimony on peer review

while citing the work product as “best practices in forensic psychiatry and

psychology” (United States of America v. Brian David Mitchell, November 6,

2009 pp. 14–15).

At the later hearing, the judge again cited the oversight

of the highly qualified colleagues in an opinion on the matter that

distinguished the primary examiner’s testimony as “substantially more credible”

(United States of America v. Brian David Mitchell, March 1, 2010, p. 84).--Jcally66 (talk) 20:17, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Jcally66 stated, “Rather than argue directly with Dr. Welner’s attempt to redefine terms, I just want to point out that my original intent here was to clarify the meaning of “peer review”, not to criticize the subject of this BLP.”

But you have not clarified the meaning of peer review. You have only stated that you feel it is controversial, based on that fact that you have “witnessed first-hand one of Dr. Welner’s expert testimonies, and as it happens, those of us working the so-called hard sciences are very touchy when it comes to attempts redefine basic scientific principles.” I do not think that the BLP is the forum for your debate about peer review. This is why i engaged you on your talk page in adherence with wiki etiquette.Stewaj7 (talk) 23:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Jcally66 stated “With further investigation, I also see that problems with Dr. Welner’s expert testimonies have negatively affected sentencing in two capital criminal trials in just the past year. http://m.cjonline.com/news/2012-08-24/court-reverses-capital-murder-conviction-scott-cheever-case http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/costs-questioned-in-failed-death-penalty-case-1/nRBbs/ I believe that’s about as controversial as a professional’s work can get, and I don’t see how a balanced BLP would fail to even mention these types of criticisms.”

My concern with this statement is that it reveals you to be a bit more interested in the subject of this BLP’s back ground that you have stated. First, in no way does the Cheever source suggest that Welner’s testimony negatively affected the trial. Rather that in the article it is noted that there was a constitutional error in which he was permitted by the court to testify to such an extent that was “devastating". But here, the issue was not the quality or nature of his work. Again the issues raised in the Richardson case, as noted in the article you cite, was that the defense misrepresented peer review and gave unfair advantage to the prosecution. I think it is malicious to intentionally misrepresent both these articles and the subject of the BLP in an effort to assert your agenda or vendetta.Stewaj7 (talk) 23:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It is you who is misrepresenting the source. In point of fact, the Kansas Supreme Court reversed the case because it found that Welner had violated the doctor patient privilege in submitting his testimony, resulting in a violation of the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. That is a serious indictment of Welner's professional ethics and the prosecution's conduct in the case. Moreover, the Supreme Court was highly critical of the manner in which Welner testified, noting that it "virtually put words in Cheever's mouth", and found that his testimony that Cheever had an antisocial personality disorder and was a liar and was "highly prejudicial plain error". [1]Fladrif (talk) 20:07, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Stewaj7, you certainly got a different take then I thought possible from these stories about the Richardson and Cheever ruling. For Richardson, the judge clearly ruled against the prosecution, yet you stated that it was the defense attorneys cited. Anyone else can read these articles decide for themselves who has the better understanding of Dr. Welner's role.--Jcally66 (talk) 23:42, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Jcally66 stated " said, looking back I can’t help notice how hard you have worked to remove any negative references about Dr. Welner in his BLP. I understand the need for neutrality and to avoid controversy, however a hagiography in place of a biography also represents a biased point-of-view. "

It is true. I am committed, as a wiki editor, to factual accuracy and neutrality. I think controversy, as is this, for controversy sake undermines the spirit of Wikipedia. And makes the site and any BLP on it subject to the agendas and vandalism of others.Stewaj7 (talk) 23:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Removing well-sourced material, and accusing other editors of "bad faith" being "malicious" and having an "agenda or vendetta" is a grave violation of relevant Wikipedia policies, especially from a SPA who has a history of whitewashing this BLP of a highly controversial figure. And escalating this to dispute resolution without any serious attempt to talk through the sources and materials on the talk page is highly inappropriate. The only bad faith editing and agenda I see on these pages is coming from two single-purpose accounts who clearly have a personal or professional relationship to the subject with the object of promoting his career and business. Fladrif (talk) 18:16, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Fladrif, good to see you again. There have been no accusations made, simply discussion about motives. I have addressed directly the attempts to subvert this issue above. Nevertheless, the issues remains - if you read the sources Jcally66 sites, they do not support statements made in the BLP. Would you not not agree that this is not in line with Wikipedia policies? I ask that you please review the text that you readily reinstated, and the sources that supposedly support it. After all we have struggled to resolve in the past, I would be grateful for your objectivity.Stewaj7 (talk) 03:01, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your support Fladrif, I was beginning to the feel like the kid bullied on his first day of school. I see that you have re-instated my edit and added to it. Any advise on how best to precede from here?--Jcally66 (talk) 22:22, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Jcally66 that we should have reference to peer review, but I am not sure what was drafted can be supported by the sources used in the paragraph. Also, the tone of it makes me uncomfortable. It reads a bit like a hatchet job. I would consider removing it unless it can be rewritten. I will give it a crack once I get thoughts on the below.

Here are my immediate thoughts on what has been written:

"Welner's theories and practice regarding The Forensic Panel's “peer-review” are controversial, and have been criticized for Welner using employees rather than independent experts to conduct the review." Can you guide me as to where it say this in the sources you provided?

"The practice has also been criticized for the level of fees it generates, for making Welner's testimony and conclusions less credible, and for generating excessive fees. Prosecutors in two cases have said that they were misled by Welner as to the manner in which he marked up fees above those of the persons he hired as peer reviewers. [18][29]" I can not find anything in the articles which should lead such a broad statement. Can you guide me as to where it says this? I see a quote attributable to Yates in the Brian Richardson case, but neither the article nor Yates indicates or states that Welner misled them. It simply states that Yates was unaware of the charges -- something not surprising given that she was the U.S. Attorney and not one of the assistant U.S. Attorneys directly responsible for the trial.

"For example, in April 2012 the US District Court for the Northern District Georgia ruled that the Forensic Panel’s psychiatric report prepared for the prosecution in the capital homicide case against Brian Richardson be thrown out due to testimony that neuropsychologist Joel Morgan had consulted other Panel experts before interviewing the defendant and writing his initial report." This statement makes it sound as if the testifying neuropsychologist actively acted in an improper manner. However, both the Corrections.com article ("Ga. death penalty bid falls apart") and the Atlanta Journal Constitution article cited makes it clear that it is the prosecutors who were admonished by the Judge not the neuropsychologist. I don't think its balanced to imply otherwise.

"In his ruling, Judge Clarence Cooper found that The Forensic Panel’s practices amounted to co-authorship rather than “peer-review” and that the court was thereby misled, thereby violated the terms of the court’s rulings regarding expert witnesses". Same as above. This makes it sound as if the experts actively acted improperly, which does not seem to be the case based on the articles cited.

"The prosecutors stated that they were unaware until it was brought out in court that Welner was charging them a $200-$250 markup on his employee's witness fees". See note above. I don't believe this is accurate based on the articles cited. Lawblogger18 (talk) 10:07, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Read the sources more carefully. They are not that long, and fully support the text added to the article. I am astonished by these objections. They are utterly irrational, and contrary to the clear and unequivocal language of the sources. The objections are utterly frivolous. Fladrif (talk) 00:57, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

At your suggestion, I read the sources carefully. I disagree with the assessment that the sources noted support the text added to the article. The text added to the BLP overstates and takes significant liberties with the text of sources. For example:

• Proposed BLP Text states “Welner's theories and practice regarding The Forensic Panel's “peer-review” are controversial, and have been criticized for Welner using employees rather than independent experts to conduct the review. The practice has also been criticized for the level of fees it generates, for making Welner's testimony and conclusions less credible, and for generating excessive fees.” The sources cited only reference statements made by defense attorneys in the case. I think it is established that you cannot use statements made by an adversarial attorney as an appropriate and non-conflicted source, given that it is their job to dramatize one side of the argument and can take any degree of liberty (as opposed to a factual assertion). Trials are not scientific journals. Cases are argued well or poorly, evidence is kept out for reasons well beyond elements of truth, and the opinions of litigants and lawyers are intentionally one sided (and may not reflect their actual beliefs). Moreover, what evidentiary value does this type of source have? Are we willing to include other statements and sources from prosecutors and/or reference all of the cases where the jury found in favor of the expert testimony? If not – then this has got to go too.

• Proposed BLP Text states: “Prosecutors in two cases have said that they were misled as to the manner in which he marked up fees”. No source uses the term “misled” nor implies that they were misled. It states that one prosecutor in one case was unaware that there was difference in fees, and it is a US Attorney who was not even listed in this or any article as the person trying the case (and so would not be expected to be aware). There is a huge difference between someone intentionally being misled (which is criminal and/or fraudulent) and someone being unaware (which may be the product of unintentional error on either side, or a point that is of no material consequence to anyone than a news reporter). In the context of a BLP implying fraud or deceit when the source makes no such indication is incredibly inappropriate.

• Proposed BLP Text provides an example that is meant to support the above by stating “For example, in April 2012 the US District Court for the Northern District Georgia ruled that the Forensic Panel’s psychiatric report prepared for the prosecution in the capital homicide case against Brian Richardson be thrown out due to testimony that neuropsychologist Joel Morgan had consulted other Panel experts before interviewing the defendant and writing his initial report. In his ruling, Judge Clarence Cooper found that The Forensic Panel’s practices amounted to co-authorship rather than “peer-review” and that the court was thereby misled, thereby violated the terms of the court’s rulings regarding expert witnesses.” Is this example meant to support the assertion that in one case, one ruling found the peer review to be equivalent to co-authorship? If so, say that (and be willing to include other statements supporting alternative viewpoints suggested by others). But don’t use one finding from one court as a basis to make a universal claim.

• In addition, none of the sources cited makes the statement that (i) The Forensic panel misled the Court, or (ii) that peer review was not employed. Again, making these statements in the BLP by taking leaps of inference or coming to your own conclusions (as opposed to citing verifiable sources which state that conclusion) is inappropriate.

I think even more importantly, this BLP was once inflated with competing positive and negative information. It was Fladrif who expressed the following view:

I would suggest that the PR flackweasel fluff, sourced and unsourced, be trimmed before anyone starts talking about expanding this article. Compare this article to Henry Lee (forensic scientist), who is a far more prominent and notable person in what amounts to a very comparable field. Lee's article is roughly the size and tone this article should be. That also means that the various controversies should be cut down to size as well - not eliminated, but cut down to size. A meataxe rather than a scalpel may be the appropriate editing tool. Fladrif (talk) 17:59, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Here is my solution and what I think the paragraph should look like. From your own perspectives, this draft will not be what either of you want, but it is the right choice unless this BLP is intended to become choked with competing positive and negative tidbits from fifty different cases (again). The below draft is accurate, concise, neutral and avoids being either a puff paragraph or a hatchet job.

In US v. Brian Richardson, a US District Court judge ruled that the active input of peer reviewers into The Forensic Panel's lead examiner's report amounted to "co-authorship", giving the prosecution the advantage of three experts over one. The court excluded prosecutors from calling The Forensic Panel as testifying witnesses in this death penalty case based on its conclusion that this advantage would create an unlevel playing field. (Note: The second originally referenced source is simply a reprint of this source, so I have removed) Lawblogger18 (talk) 14:05, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

There was no objection to the proposed language above, so I made the referenced changes. Lawblogger18 (talk) 15:50, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Considering the amount of debate I have read and been involved in regarding the Richardson and Andrea Yates content, I am in agreement with the rewrites offered by Lawblogger. The paragraphs overall are informative. Maybe over inclusive, but not to a fault. I agree with the new wording on these sections.Stewaj7 (talk) 21:01, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I had no objection. Good to see you're still alive Stewaj.--Jcally66 (talk) 03:46, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind

Upon further review "no" - I'll object to every change and I'm undoing all edits form Dec 17-18. I had only seen the paragraph just above and hadn't seen the major revisions higher up that amount to vandalism as they were done without discussion just yesterday. Given the tremendous spike in traffic to this page yesterday (presumably due to Dr. Welner's 12/17/12 "The View" commentary on the Newtown shooting), I'm forced to assume these were bad faith edits designed to scrub all references to the controversial nature of the BLP's work in the scientific, legal and medical professions. I consider these edits to be vandalism given their one-sided nature and given no time was allowed to review them. This talk page is already filled with discussion presenting my points on the various topics so I will not be repeating them here. Stewaj7's sudden reappearance 3 months after filing then abandoning an official dispute with me combined with the timing of all these major edits, forces me to assume Lawblogger18 and Stewaj7 have some personal or professional link to the subject of the BLP.--Jcally66 (talk) 21:14, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

jcally66 the victim role suits you well, but again your conspiracy statements are better suited for b-rated novels. When you are able to compose yourself and resolve your non-content related issues, I again welcome you to discuss, under a separate heading, your issues with the added content which was properly sourced and accurate. Lawblogger and any other editors, I welcome your input on the changes made as well.Stewaj7 (talk) 01:43, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Lawblogger18, concerning the Jayson Williams case, do you have any references as to what Dr. Welner's testimony was? The one you used to restore the bullet point mentions that he was retained by the defense to explain why he covered up the events related to the shooting, but there's no elaboration. Since, the 4 counts of evidence tampering were the only charges Williams was actually convicted of, details of Dr. Welner's testimony and rationale seem necessary.--Jcally66 (talk) 23:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The bullet points were meant to be, and in my opinion should be limited to, a list of the high profile cases he worked on. The citation was used simply to verify that he did work on that case. The problem with providing our own analysis of a case is that it amounts to original research. Second, once you open the door to one point of view you are opening the door to a contrary point of view (i.e. you can't just show one side of the argument). When this was tried the last time around, the article looked more like a blog for competing points of view than a neutral BLP for a subject who probably gets 2 hits a month when editors aren't working. That's my two cents anyway.... Lawblogger18 (talk) 02:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Lawblogger18, well, thanks to my research, the bullet points have been expanded to give the reader a full appreciation to the far-reaching societal impact that Dr. Welner's cases have had, and give the reader a nice understanding of Dr. Welner's objective role in these cases. No need to thank me. (FYI, according to the traffic counter, this BLP gets about 30 hits a day as a baseline.)--Jcally66 (talk) 17:36, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I can't see how covering a high-profile media-covered trial would be "original research". Reporting on testimony, judges rulings, verdicts, sentences, and jury interviews is done all the time by the media and it's just reporting not "original research." Agreed that it's a high-profile case, but Dr. Welner's role in the Williams case seems peripheral, at best. Summarizing the case and explaining Dr. Welner's testmony's role in it shouldn't be "original research," but it's also true I can't even find a reference as to whether he actually testified in this trial - one which revolved around gun and ballistics expert testimony anyway. The reports say Welner testified about the psychological reasons that led Williams to conceal evidence related to the shooting. (I'd love to know what that consisted of.  ?"After shooting your chauffeur in your bedroom with your own gun, and, oh yeah, the Harlem Globetrotters (?!!?) happen to be visiting your home as your witnesses, this can result in a little-known condition called "Curly/Meadowlark Panic?") Whatever Welner said, it's interesting that the only charges that Williams was convicted of was the 4 counts of evidence and witness tampering.--Jcally66 (talk) 07:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

U.S. vs. Omar Khadr - changes

With respect to the new content that JCally66 placed on the page after reverting this editors changes. I am removing much of the content:Stewaj7 (talk) 02:21, 19 December 2012 (UTC) JCally66 wrote: "In March 2011 lawyers for the defense filed a motion for clemency that alleged that prosecutors had misled them into believing Khadr's plea bargain could be withdrawn.[30][31] Specifically, lawyer Army Col. Jon Jackson and Air Force Maj. Matthew Schwartz claimed that prosecutors had threatened to revoke Khadr’s plea deal if they challenged Welner’s credentials as an expert witness.[32] Further, the motion asserted that Dr. Michael Welner's testimony was “unscientific” and “designed solely to inflame and mislead the jury.” They also alleged that presiding Judge Colonel Patrick Parrish was quoted as stating, “Dr. Welner would have been as likely to be accurate if he used a Ouija board.”[33]

Why are we including statements from the opposing attorneys and what they allege the prosecution expert did. This is a part of the legal drama that goes on. It has no merit, is not verifiable beyond that it "allegedly" happened and therefore has no place in the BLP. Furthermore, it is not informative about the case - rather is just represents that drama that went on and takes away from the role of the subject of this blp.Stewaj7 (talk) 02:21, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Jcally66 wrote: "The motion also quoted forensic psychiatrist Dr. Marc Sageman extensively rebutting Welner’s expertise in the field of terrorism. In particular, he noted Welner reference to the clinical studies of Danish educational psychologist Nicolai Sennels, noted for his extreme views on Islam.[34][35]"

Inaccurate and even the references do not fully support the lanauge used. Furthermore, Sageman was ignored by the same court to whom he solicitously offered his comments. If you want to write about Sagmenas contribution to this case, feel free to make up a wiki page for him, but it does not belong here. It only serves to add contention, which is contrary to NPOV.Stewaj7 (talk) 02:21, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Jcally66 wrote: "Another of the defense’s expert’s was Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis a child and adolescent psychiatrist and retired Army brigadier general who had spent approximately 200 hours interviewing Khadr at Guantanamo. He later wrote that, if he had testified at the tribunal, that his prognosis was, “that he does not need deradicalization and does not show any proclivity toward committing terrorist acts. What he needs and deserves is physical and mental health treatment.” With regard to Dr. Welner’s testimony he stated, "radical jihadism is not a clinical condition, and diagnosing it is not within the domain of psychiatric experts. Radical jihadism is an ideology - and can be embraced by the psychiatrically sane and insane alike.”[37][38]

I will only say this once, adding the commentary of an expert who was not allowed to testify, who was dismissed by the defense who retained him, and whose testimony was not considered relevant enough to be presented before the court has not place in this BLP. Stop adding contention content for the sake of disparaging the subject of the BLP. It is against wiki police for WP:BLP and is in fact vandalism. It should be replaced with a well sourced, NPOV and accurate sectionStewaj7 (talk) 02:21, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Stewaj7, nearly everything you wrote here is wildly inaccurate. Sageman and Xenakis were not rejected as witnesses, they were prevented from testifying as part of Khadr's plea agreement. As for the role of Nicolai Sennels, I included a link the entire Gitmo testimony by Welner. Here, one can see directly how well Welner's testimony withstood credibility given his reliance on Dr. Sennels (spoiler: spectacularly poorly). I'm restoring the Khadr section to the original.--Jcally66 (talk) 19:13, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

State of Kansas vs. Scott Cheever Section

I trimmed the section an removed a portion of the content that was inaccurate. The language as written suggests that the court reversed the ruling due to the method that Dr. Welner used. However, the court was very clear about why the decision was reversed (5th amendment) and in fact were complimentary of Dr. Welner testimony calling it "devastating". Let me be clear, that by piecing together a paragraphs and quotes that suggest that the decisions was reversed due to Dr. Welner's methodology is misleading and inaccurate. JCally66 knows better.WP:COAT is meant to prevent editors from taking things out of context or sewing together quotes that imply one thing very different from the source itself.Stewaj7 (talk) 02:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with what is currently in the Cheever section, but it is now incomplete. Yes, the Judge ruled that Welner should not have been allowed to testify as to conversations he had with Cheever due to the fact that the defense chose not to argue insanity. The court did however determine that his method of testifying required the sentence to be overturned. The court ruled that, “Because we are unable to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Welner’s testimony did not contribute to the capital murder and attempted capital murder verdicts obtained in this case, this constitutional error cannot be declared harmless,” the justices’ opinion said. “Consequently, Cheever’s convictions for capital murder and attempted capital murder must be reversed and remanded for a new trial.” So, while it is true that his testimony violated the 5th Amendment due to the fact that it should not have been allowed since mental state was not at issue, it was the manner of his testimony that was so prejudicial that the error could not be considered harmless and lead to a reversal. The Supreme Court said Welner’s testimony stood out because he was the last witness the jury heard during Cheever’s trial and his testimony was “extensive and devastating.” “He employed a method of testifying that virtually put words into Cheever’s mouth,” the justices wrote in their unsigned opinion. “He focused on the events surrounding the shootings, giving a moment-by-moment recounting of Cheever’s observations and actual thoughts to rebut the sole defense theory that he did not premeditate the crimes. This is simply stating the facts of the case. Had the testimony not been so prejudicial, the court may not have thrown out the conviction. Also, your point referring to the court's comment calling Welner testimony "devastating" as compliment made me laugh out loud. That wasn't a complement. It was an explanation as to why the testimony was so prejudicial that the verdict had to be thrown out. Aside from the constitutional issues, any mental health professional who claims to able to give a, "moment-by-moment recounting of Cheever’s observations and actual thoughts to rebut the sole defense theory that he did not premeditate the crimes,” is engaging in grossly unethical and unprofessional behavior. Unless one of Welner's items on his CV is "psychic powers" or "astral projection" there no way he could justify his testimony. These would seem to be examples of what Dr. Xenakis was referring to when he wrote that Welner uses his "professional status as a forensic psychiatrist to put a scientific sheen on what were essentially lay opinions." But none of this should be a surprise since Dr. Welner pops up on television every time there's a high profile crime and never fails to confidently identify a mental health diagnosis (no one's ever crazy) and to divine the perpetrators motivations solely based on media reports. I'm amazed that the psychiatric profession as a whole does so little to call out these wildly unethical antics.--Jcally66 (talk) 23:00, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Edits from Dec 17, 2012

Reprinted from talk section In Response to JCALLY66

-Repsonse to Lawblogger

Upon further review "no" - I'll object to every change and I'm undoing all edits form Dec 17-18. I had only seen the paragraph just above and hadn't seen the major revisions higher up that amount to vandalism as they were done without discussion just yesterday. Given the tremendous spike in traffic to this page yesterday (presumably due to Dr. Welner's 12/17/12 "The View" commentary on the Newtown shooting), I'm forced to assume these were bad faith edits designed to scrub all references to the controversial nature of the BLP's work in the scientific, legal and medical professions. I consider these edits to be vandalism given their one-sided nature and given no time was allowed to review them. This talk page is already filled with discussion presenting my points on the various topics so I will not be repeating them here. Stewaj7's sudden reappearance 3 months after filing then abandoning an official dispute with me combined with the timing of all these major edits, forces me to assume Lawblogger18 and Stewaj7 have some personal or professional link to the subject of the BLP.--Jcally66 (talk) 21:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

jcally66 oh how I have missed our little chats. While I appreciate your sentiments; particularly, how they are fueled and motivated by whatever agenda you have, no editor on Wikipedia in their right mind would agree to your accusations of vandalism. Well sourced and accurate content was added to the page and was done at a time when public and media interest reminded the editors of Dr. Welners BLP. You go ahead and assume bad faith, but the above sounds more like the rantings of a highly invested fanatic. You yourself agreed to earlier changes made by lawblogger and then you reverted those changes. Such borderline tempermentality makes you very difficult to work with. I welcome other editors to contribute to the discussion who might be able to help with this SPA. Oh and jcally I have been around, but this is not the only page that draws my interest unlike yourself. Now if you can point to specific content that you take issue with and why I would be more than happy to work this out.Stewaj7 (talk) 23:11, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

You missed our chats? Strange that you would file an official dispute against me with Wikipedia and then disappear for two months. I take it that was a ruse to scare me off but you had to abandon it immediately since you had no case. All this talk about my "agenda", and I'm a "fanatic". You certainly can dish it out but not take it. My only agenda is the truth. After all, what could I possibly gain by accurately describing the multi-million dollar media operation that is the Welner Panel. What's in it for me to go against the Forensic Panel's team of, what did Fladrif call them?, PR flak-weasels? You know, I had originally planned just to add a point that the Forensic Panel's use of the term "peer review" was inappropriate. But you immediately piled on a day later - throwing at me alleged violations of WP rules, not only without justification, but apparently including a bunch you just made up (court rulings aren't allowed - show me that one). So, I got so annoyed and I went back researched Dr. Welner's colorful career of expert testimony. It wasn't fanaticism, I just found it entertaining to discover the endless outrageous things he's managed to get away with. Just for starters, the fact that his claim to fame is his "Depravity Scale" says it all. What an amazing exercise in pseudoscientific sophistry! It sounds like some hypothetical talking point for a Philosophy 101 class. Even a bunch of 18-year-olds could rip that concept to shreds.

So you removed all my well-sourced and accurate content and replaced it with your own, thereby removing anything that might point out any problems with Dr. Welner's professional work. So much for WP:NPOV. I notice that when the page was started two years ago you were repeated criticized by other for wanting to produce a "100% puff piece". Strange. Maybe the problem is not MY "agenda".--Jcally66 (talk) 18:29, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Good try. While you have a gift for spin the narrative above is another example of your efforts to take events, content, issues out of context, embed them in your subjective viewpoint and pass them off to others as "the way things are". Man do I hope you are not an expert witness because your skill for misrepresentation is quite developed. See below. I am sorry Lawblogger that your efforts to arbitrate are lost for now. But, we will continue to go around in circles until jcally66 calls a spade a spade and stops trying to assert her viewpoints as superior to wiki policy. As an editor, I wont stand for someone coming into this forum and thinking they can operate outside guidelines that the rest of us adhere to.Stewaj7 (talk) 16:16, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Speaking of Wiki rules, I'm guessing we're officially throwing WP:PA out the window?

Funny, I actually have been an expert witness in criminal trials. As a chemist, though. Not much room for spin. Given my "gift", I guess I missed my calling.--Jcally66 (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Addendum: Just returned from a Christmas party. I told a number of friends and family that someone on-line described me of have a "gift for spin". Unanimously, this assertion resulted in uproarious laughter and mocking. FYI, people who really know me all reported that I'm actually known for extreme bluntness and honesty - to a fault. I was actually taking your take on me as a compliment, but alas, no one who knows me personally agrees with this assessment. Dang, I liked the idea of being some sort of "master of spin".--Jcally66 (talk) 08:46, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

JCalley -- I don’t care why you are seeing shadows in the dark, but you need to stop. I have worked hard on this BLP and for you to try to taint my contributions because you drew some sort of inference on a contribution being added at the same time a TV show was airing is more than just offensive – it’s just truly inappropriate behavior.

I have no connection to the subject or anyone else; and had no more idea that Welner was on The View today than you did. I have always explained my changes in detail. I have found compromise in my viewpoints on almost all the sections we have worked on together. I agreed to not undo your work when you rewrote and posted the entire Selected Cases section without discussing it on the talk page or seeking consensus first; and I did not rush out to do a block change on anything I disagreed with. I agreed to let you add any cases you wanted ---even when I disagreed. I have made revisions in a way that found consensus and compromise. Most importantly, I never attacked you personally. Show me the same courtesy.

When you posted the entire Selected Cases section without discussion on the Talk page, I noted to you that you could not expect to post an entire section unilaterally, and then hold any changes hostage to your consent. If you have objections that is fine, I am happy to talk them out, but do not undo my revisions when they are made to a section you unilaterally posted. Lawblogger18 (talk) 00:57, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Lawblogger17, I have no time now to address Stewaj's (amusingly hypocritical) comments now, but I can address yours (all of Stewaj"s appear to be made in bad faith - I'm not sure if they deserve a real response). Forgive my paranoia, but your sudden revisions happened to post literally 10 minutes before airing of Welner's appearance on The View, after a month of darkness. The traffic on this page has gone from 20-50/dy to about 5000 in just the past 2 days. It's quite a coincidence. I had noticed a couple weeks ago that I had missed some of your suggested revisions last month, as they hadn't been signed. As I stated before, I have no objection to your suggested revision to Richardson, but you're still whitewashing the problems with the Forensic Panel and peer review. "Controversial" is actually an understatment. It would be clear academic fraud if employed in an academic setting. Your inability to understand this point is why I suspect bad faith. I used Richardson not to prove this point, but to merely emphasize that a legal ruling had confirmed what was casually obvious for anyone knowing anything about the practice of peer review. I don't need to prove that employees can't be used for peer review, the burden of proof would be on you to find an independent researcher that agrees that they can be. The Panel's practice is analogous to allowing high school students to grade their own SAT or allowing bank depositors to walk into the vault to collect their own withdraws. It's not a legal debate, it's the academic and scientific definition of the peer review. Forget "controversial", the practice of employee peer review is a complete inversion of its intent, as I've tried to point out repeatedly here. There's no neutral way to discuss the Forensic Panel without mentioning this.

More to the point, you completely rewrote Yates without any discussion. You happened to remove all facts that might put Welner's testimony in a bad light. His definition and practice of peer review was attacked as baseless and unscientific. There was testimony that he had offered to work for the defense but switched sides when they would not agree to his extraordinary fees. There were interviews with the jury that made it clear that problems with Welner's credibility steered the jury to a not guilty verdict. This is not "gratuitous controversy" , the verdict swung based on the credibility of Dr. Welner's practices and testimony. Forgive me if I'm not entirely impressed with your playing the victim here.

Oh the lines concerning fees are Fladrif's. Y'all need to take that item up with him.--Jcally66 (talk) 06:23, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I do not know what to say to alleviate your suspicions other than what I have already stated above. Its hard enough for me to find time to work on this BLP as it is; and it’s frustrating to be in the middle of this kind of crossfire. I am not discounting your comments and edits on Yates; and I should have included my viewpoints on the talk page. I will have time this evening to carefully review your viewpoints, share my thoughts, and propose language. If you have any other sources you can share, please attach them to the talk page so I can review and/or include. If we tackle the open items on the BLP one at a time, I am hoping we can reach consensus fairly quickly. Lets all please reserve our judgments until we at least give it a shot. Lawblogger18 (talk) 23:03, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Jcally66 understandably you do not have time to respond to my comments. It can be challenging to actually discuss content that adheres to Wiki policy. Even the above is a philosophical debate about peer review. I urge you to keep in mind this is a Wikipedia Biography of a Living Person, and as such your edits and content should adhere to the forum in which they appear. If you have issues with the forensic application of peer review then take it up in the appropriate forum (not here). I think you should stop trying to insert criticism and contention about the BLP's body of work. Just because you cannot understand or appreciate a process of oversight that has been appreciated by the court, encouraged by forensic sciences and adapted from the medical field, does not make it controversial. My earlier challenge still stands. Point to where and how any of the content that I added was inaccurate, puffery/NPOV or unsourced so we can move on. As you can see in the section below, I have clearly articulated the inaccuracies and Wiki policy violations of the content you suggested.Stewaj7 (talk) 16:30, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

For the last time, "peer review" via employee is not a philosophical debate - it's a violation of a fundamental part of the scientific method. And your right, it's not "controversial", it's flat out rejected everywhere. It's not up for debate any more than the Theory of Evolution or Quantum Mechanics. Oversight is not "peer review". Review by the author's own employees never has been and never will be considered "peer review". No credible journal has ever accepted it and no court has ever accepted it. When the judge in Richardson found out what the Forensic Panel really meant by "peer review" he threw out their report. I understand perfectly - it's straight up a conflict of interest, and a contrary to the entire concept of peer review. The only sources needed to confirm can be found in any definition of peer review in Wikipedia. In interview's, Welner has repeatedly tried to claim that Judge Kimball's ruling in the BD Mitchell competency hearing validated his use of "peer review" as best practices, but in fact he ruled its use as "semantics" since peer review wasn't a requirement for his expert testimony. That bit of double talk speaks volumes in itself.--Jcally66 (talk) 18:58, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Stewaj7 - I have not yet reviewed your changes and comments, but will tonight. Please refrain from making any more changes until we have the time to digest what is already up. In line with my request to Jcally, I am also requesting that you refrain from judgement until we have a shot to talk out our different viewpoints. If we can do this part by part, leaving the general distrust aside, we have a chance of putting together something everyone is pleased with. Lawblogger18 (talk) 23:16, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Folks -- sorry for the delay in putting up my suggestions. Real life got in the way. I am working on it now, but per my suggestion above if anyone has additional quality sources on Yates they can or want to share, please let me know. The pool of information for that case is not as diversified as I would have thought. Lawblogger18 (talk) 01:03, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Lawblogger - too bad I've been too preoccupied with life to respond to all this in more timely manner. If you want to show good faith, I'll give you an opportunity to add to the Yates entry and to acknowledge Dr. Welner role in the not guilty verdict. Here's a review (again) of the jurors thoughts leading to their verdict: http://www.chron.com/news/casey/article/Second-Yates-expert-paid-242-966-74-1511591.php

excerpt...

Phony 'peer review'

Chism said Welner's testimony was based on an interview with Yates five years after she killed her children.

"Earlier expert testimony confirmed the defense's contention that after a person has been treated for psychosis they have a problem remembering what happened during their psychosis, and it gets harder over time to remember the details," Chism said.

He and juror Michael Olson also brought up Welner's self-described "peer review" system. His Web site describes his firm as pioneering a "peer review" process that makes it "America's foremost forensic consulting institution."

But defense attorney Wendell Odom brought out during the trial that Welner's idea of "peer review" differs considerably from that of academic journals.

When a scientist submits a paper to a first-rate journal, the editors send the paper to experts in the same field to critique. The author has no say in the selection of the reviewers. The result is that many papers don't get published.

But, as Odom brought out, Welner himself hires his "peer reviewers."

Simply put, employees and employers are not "peers."

This arrangement, said juror Olson, "really compromised his integrity."

"Most of us really felt that he did more harm than good to the prosecution's case," Olson said, adding, "Several of us concluded that his analysis of 'the ultimate opinion' was built backwards: He started with the answer and then built his conclusion going back."

So "phony peer review" swung the jury's verdict. The Forensic Panel's self-invented term for peer review was revealed for what it was and thereby discredited their report for the prosecution. Amazing, Welner continues to use and justify this fraudulent practice to this day. Richardson was just the latest case that crashed and burned due to this deception by misapplication of the term "peer review".

So, Lawblogger, WP:NOV means neutral point of view, not "exclude anything that puts the BLP subject in a bad light." This was not peripheral to the trial, it was central to the verdict. Either balance the Yates entry or I'm reverting it back the original. The concluding paragraph you added sounds exactly like self-justifying blurb lifted from the Forensic Panel's website and Welner's interviews after the trial. --Jcally66 (talk) 17:44, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the difficulty many new editors have, including myself when I first began editing, is drawing a balance between WP:NPOV, which means that content is written objectively and without bias, merely presenting the facts and notable viewpoints of others, and WP:OR, which means that articles may not contain previously unpublished arguments, concepts, data, opinions, or theories. This includes any new analysis or synthesis of these facts. Basically, Wikipedia is a record of human knowledge, viewpoints and summaries that already exist and are expressed elsewhere. Jcally66 entire synthesis about Peer review is misleading. Taking a single opinion piece that interviewed two of 12 jurors (which is third party opinion and none of which was the foreman) and creating an entire paragraph or section around it is against wiki policy. Jcally66 actions of reverting content based on a single unreliable source, particularly when the content is so contentious, and continually laying out his/her opinions on the matter as truth is indefensible and reveals the editor to be a disseminator of propaganda. This is not appropriate behavior, and what is gained except for disparaging the subject of the BLP. Encyclopedias are inherently written based on “fact” and “notable viewpoints” as the truth is often subjective, and it would make no sense to have an article that favored a particular viewpoint. This also helps prevent articles becoming mere advertisements or propaganda by vested parties. We also do not include third party opinion because it introduces a he-said-she-said scenario, which no visitor to the page would benefit from. For instance, in this article written for CNN[[I think the difficulty many new editors, including myself when I first began editing, is to draw a balance between WP:NPOV, which means that content is written objectively and without bias, merely presenting the facts and notable viewpoints of others, and WP:OR, which means that articles may not contain previously unpublished arguments, concepts, data, opinions, or theories. This includes any new analysis or synthesis of these facts. Basically, Wikipedia is a record of human knowledge, viewpoints and summaries that already exist and are expressed elsewhere. Jcally66 entire synthesis about Peer review is misleading. Taking a single opinion piece that interviewed two of 12 jurors (which is third party opinion and none of which was the forman) and creating an entire paragraph or section around it is against wiki policy. Jcally66 action of reverting content based on a single unreliable source, particularly when the content is so contentious and continually laying out opinions on the matter as truth, while all the while being a disseminator of propaganda is not appropriate behavior. Encyclopedias are inherently written based on “fact” and “notable viewpoints” as the truth is often subjective, and it would make no sense to have an article that favored a particular viewpoint. This also helps prevent articles becoming mere advertisements or propaganda by vested parties. We also do not include third party opinion because it introduced a he said she said scenario – and no visitor to the page would benefit from that. For instance, in this article written for CNN[[2]], the jury foreman was noted to have said, “During the current deliberations, jurors asked to see evidence related to Park, Dietz and Resnick's evaluations. The foreman told reporters they did not base their decision solely on the testimony of any one expert.” It is not informative to the reader to create confusion by including the third party commentary at odds with each other.Stewaj7 (talk) 16:07, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Stewaj7, thank you for another long response that again completely misses the point, or I should say, avoids the point by going off on some meaningless tangent. Always appreciate the condescension too. And another treatise on the Idea of Wikipedia is always good to read. Once again, you asked for examples and I gave you more examples to illustrate the real-world implications of getting peer review wrong. So, in case someone is reading this and doesn't know all the history - going back to my original post describing legitimate peer review, I largely just relied on Wikipedia sources. (Those are ok, right?) The concept is very basic and goes back over 100 years, So again...there are several types of applications of peer review and I linked to all of them months ago on my original edit and on the talk page. So start here for a general explanation of what peer review does. Note in particular the section on "Avoiding Conflict of Interest". Besides scholarly peer review, various specific types include: technical, clinical, software and others for different technical professions. If you want to debate different types of legitimate peer review, we can have a nice debate on the pros and cons of open vs. blind peer review.

OK, Stewaj7, find the section in any of these pages that states that can use your own employees and avoid conflict-of-interest in peer review. Ball's in your court. I will completely concede to everything you've said if you just produce that link and you win! Go Stewaj7!--Jcally66 (talk) 09:29, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

(Sidenote, Stewaj7: half your post above is duplicated.)--Jcally66 (talk) 21:34, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

The Forensic Panel Section

We have had way too many discussion over this. JCally66 wrote: "Welner's theories and practice regarding The Forensic Panel's “peer-review” are controversial, and have been criticized for Welner using employees rather than independent experts to conduct the review."

This is not cited and the reader has to rely on your interpretation of the practice as controversial. Unless Jcally66 has a reliable sources that says this, it needs to be removed.

Well, let's see there's...

http://court.laws.com/michael-welner

http://www.chron.com/news/casey/article/Second-Yates-expert-paid-242-966-74-1511591.php

But specifically for clinical peer review: http://www.psqh.com/sepoct07/peer.html

from the 2007 medical staff standards of The Joint Commission for Hospitals

Recognize conflicts of interest.

With the expanded role of peer review in hospitals, internal peer review committees must always consider conflict of interest situations among their peer reviewers. Otherwise, cases may be inadvertently sent to ineligible reviewers. Conflicts that may exist can range from a reviewer who is in partnership or competition with another practitioner, to social and personal relationships. In general, committee members should be educated about all potential conflicts of interest. If one exists, the committee chair should be alerted so that another reviewer can be assigned. When one is not available, the committee should choose an external peer reviewer.

How many times do I need to pound on this blindingly obvious fact. Do you really not understand this basic concept of quality control and conflict of interest???

Jcally66 please sign your posts particularly when responding to a list of content issues. This ease other editor review/tracking of what is going on. Re: The two cites you listed above, what kind of site is http://court.laws.com/ I am not familiar with it and the blog entry does not have an author or a single source for the content to measure its veracity. Is this your standard for a reliable source? I just want to confirm that you think this type of blog posting is something you feel is reliable. I have already addressed the second article which is an opinion piece with third party viewpoints of non-notable others. So to answer your questions, until you can support your claim about peer review with sources that are supported by wiki as reliable, then you will have to "pound on it till your blue in the face"Stewaj7 (talk) 16:37, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Yup, Wikipedia has had no problem with this source in the past.--Jcally66 (talk) 09:12, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Jcally 66 wrote: "The practice has also been criticized for the level of fees it generates, for making Welner's testimony and conclusions less credible, and for generating excessive fees."

No it hasn't. This is an unsupported contentious statement. In the court of law, experts are questioned about their fees. In the media, fees are discussed, this paragraph is without merit and disparaging.Stewaj7 (talk) 02:40, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Again, Fladrif wrote that not me. Although I agree with it.--Jcally66 (talk) 19:54, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

If you don't want to be attached to the content, stop reinstating it.Stewaj7 (talk) 16:40, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Why? It appears to well sourced and justified. I just don't consider myself well-informed on the topic. I do know that during the Mitchell trial Welner's extraordinary fee (>$750,000!) was a huge source of controversy in the local media. Best cartoon after the verdict- http://www.politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/95b7775d-a57a-427a-b025-4df23f66d155.html

Jcally66 wrote: "Prosecutors in two cases have said that they were misled by Welner as to the manner in which he marked up fees above those of the persons he hired as peer reviewers.[68] For example, in April 2012 the US District Court for the Northern District Georgia ruled that the Forensic Panel’s psychiatric report prepared for the prosecution in the capital homicide case against Brian Richardson be thrown out due to testimony that neuropsychologist Joel Morgan had consulted other Panel experts before interviewing the defendant and writing his initial report. In his ruling, Judge Clarence Cooper found that The Forensic Panel’s practices amounted to co-authorship rather than “peer-review” and that the court was thereby misled, thereby violated the terms of the court’s rulings regarding expert witnesses. The prosecutors stated that they were unaware until it was brought out in court that Welner was charging them a $200–$250 markup on his employee's witness fees.[69][70]"

Why is this case represented here. There is a selected case section. Should be moved. Also, the sources do not support that comments made. This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous.Stewaj7 (talk) 02:40, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I've suggested repeatedly that Richardson should be given a separate Selected Cases section and never got a response. This reference should still be kept in here to underline the inappropriate manner that the Forensic Panel's uses the term "peer review." Also, this is about the 50th time that you've referred to something as "poorly sourced" for statements that have multiple sources.--Jcally66 (talk) 19:54, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Getting Back on Track

I may be an old timer compared to you two, but I have been somewhat disgusted at how you two have been interacting with each other over the past few days. When I participate in Wikipedia, it’s because I want to participate in a reasonable debate between reasonable people and produce something that is useful and accurate. I don’t come to hear catcalls, insults, disparagement and accusations between editors. It is shameful that people interact with each other under a veil of anonymity in ways they wouldn't dream of it’s their normal personal life; and its ugly. It’s probably my fault that this round of aggressiveness has started when I posted my rewrite of Yates without also discussing it on the talk page, but I have extended my apologies and it is time to fix this mess.

I am going to revert the page to where we were prior to the hostilities. Each of you will stop the rambling, shrill soliloquies and personal attacks. We will then go through any open/disputed items one by one. We will each provide our thoughts in an organized, bullet point manner. If there is disagreement, you two will avoid the personal attacks, assume good faith and generally talk through the disagreement and seek consensus. Seeking consensus means that compromises by everyone will be required. It does not mean your way or the highway. It does not mean that you will get what you want every time. It means that each of us will compromise sometimes.

To the extent that we can’t reach consensus on an entire section, after good faith discussions, we will post what we agree on and a middle ground version of what we do not agree on. We will then highlight the section we do not agree on to return to once we have gone through the entire BLP. To the extent we still cannot agree on those outstanding issues, we can invite further mediation from the Wiki community.

JCally: You promised me that you would not get into an edit war. I am going to hold you to that promise. We have worked well and reasonably together on the sections that I have gone through to date; and found consensus without rudeness or nastiness. I would like both of us to get back on track with that approach.

Stewaj: I want you to make me the same promise. I think we can all work considerately and efficiently together. Like my request of JCally, I would like you to debate your thoughts considerately in an organized bullet point fashion.

Either of you are of course free to undo my revert, but I will take that as a strong indication that you are not looking to find consensus, but rather just jam through whatever individual viewpoints you have. If that is the case, I promise to troll your edits with the fundamental predisposition that you are a bad faith editor. If we give this a good faith effort and it fails, you are each free to launch your edit wars knowing that it will result in a junk BLP, which will change on a daily basis for as long as each of you have patience to monitor your screens.

I am posting my thoughts on the Yates section below. I invite you to respond with your thoughts using the manner and organization I requested above. Lawblogger18 (talk) 19:53, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Yates

If you have not read the Section above, please read that before reading this.

Here is what I suggested as a re-write for Yates. My explanation is below. I invite you to disagree with me, but in a polite and succinct manner.

On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children individually, then called police and showed them the bodies. The subsequent 2002 trial and 2006 retrial each centered on the use of the insanity defense by Yates. Both the prosecution and defense acknowledged that Yates was mentally ill, however, Texas applies an extremely narrow test for legal insanity. Section 8.01 of the Texas Penal Code provides that “it is an affirmative defense to prosecution that, at the time of the conduct charged, the actor, as a result of severe mental disease or defect, did not know that his conduct was wrong”. The legal test for insanity in Texas is therefore different from and much narrower than a medical diagnosis of a serious mental illness coupled with conduct stemming from delusional beliefs. Moreover, the Texas statute is vague regarding the meaning of “wrong”; and in the Yates trials, the juries were not provided with either judicial guidance or constraint as to whether knowledge that conduct was wrong meant knowledge of moral wrong or legal wrong. As such, the trials each turned on how the jury would apply such concepts within a broad spectrum of interpretations.

In 2002, the jury dismissed Ms. Yates’ claim of legal insanity, convicted her of murdering three of her children, and sentenced her to life imprisonment. However, Yates’ 2002 trial included testimony from Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist testifying on behalf of the prosecution, that before Andrea Yates drowned her children, NBC ran a “Law & Order” episode about a woman who was acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children. When it was later established that no such episode existed, the 1st District Court of Appeals overturned Ms. Yates’ conviction in 2005.

Dr. Welner was asked by prosecutors to examine Ms. Yates for the 2006 retrial. Dr. Welner diagnosed Ms. Yates with psychotic depression, but concluded that Yates appreciated the wrong of her actions and was therefore legally sane by Texas legal standards. Dr. Welner testified that Ms. Yates killed the youngsters because she felt overwhelmed and inadequate as a mother, not to save their souls. He further testified that Yates showed that she knew her actions were wrong by waiting until her husband left for work to kill them, covering the bodies with a sheet and calling 911 soon after the crime. However, the jury was not allowed to read Dr. Welner’s 125 page report, because the judge ruled that providing jurors with some of the testimony in that format would be tantamount to hearsay. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

The first paragraph is necessary to give an understanding of what the expert witnesses had to evaluate and what the Jurors needed to determine. Texas law clearly sets out a standard which would allow a defendant to be found both mentally ill and guilty. Texas law is unique in the sense that it is both narrow but unguided. Jurors are not given any indication or judicial instruction as to what it means to “know that an action was wrong”. This is my mind not only creates a difficult standard to meet but also allows for two juries agreeing on the same facts, to come to completely different conclusions when applying different precepts or predispositions.

The second paragraph came from JCalley, I just clarified some legal facts and cleaned up the references / language a bit.

The original write up’s description of Welner’s testimony was limited to the sentence “His report concluded that Yates was legally sane at the time of the murder” The suggested rewrite’s third paragraph provided more detail to the testimony and report. However, it did not include a majority of the sixty reasons he detailed to outline why Yates “knew her actions were wrong”. I did not add more, because I did not want to selectively choose the elements to include on the page nor characterize the paragraph as original research. Instead, I took the language almost verbatim from the referenced news sources.

I removed the following language from the re-write: “In interviews after the case, the jurors were quoted to have largely disregarded Welner’s testimony when it was pointed out that his definitions of “peer review in his psychiatric report ‘differed considerably from academic journals’. Explaining their ‘not guilty’ verdict, jurors in the case also cited testimony that revealed Dr. Welner had first offered to testify for the defense before he was hired to work for the prosecution." The reasons are as follows:

• The statement “in interviews after the case, the jurors were quoted to have largely discredited Welner’s testimony when it was pointed out that his definitions of “peer review in his psychiatric report ‘differed considerably from academic journals’” seemed inaccurate. This sentence implies that all the jurors completely disregarded the entirety of the Welner testimony based on the defense’s assertion regarding peer review. The source does not indicate that. Only one juror, Michael Olsen, is quoted a commenting on the peer review. That does not equate to the conclusions or perceptions of an entire jury.
• The statement that “Explaining their not guilty verdict, jurors in the case also cited testimony that revealed Dr. Welner had first offered to testify for the defense before he was hired to work for the prosecution” This statement makes it seem like: (i) all the jurors based their verdict on this assertion, as opposed to spending three days trying to find the right conclusion based on a plethora of facts and testimony, and (ii) that the defense’s assertion is an absolute fact, as opposed to a contested allegation by a defense witness. The source, however, does not say that. It only references one juror who had an opinion on a defense assertion that is noted as contested.

• The source is an opinion column, not a news column. The objective of the column is not to provide a balanced review of the subject matter but rather to further the opinion of the writer. As such, rather than approaching a subject neutrally, an opinion columnist simply picks and chooses which facts to assert; and there is journalistic acceptance that an opinion columnist may frame issues in a biased manner, selectively include or exclude facts and generally ignore opposing facts or viewpoints (see this for a good summation of the differences between news and opinion: ). As such, an opinion columnist has greater flexibility to frame questions in an unbalanced manner, ignore responses he doesn't like,and generally edit his column in a manner which seemingly supports whatever message he is trying to convey.

• Likewise, opinion columns are not subject to the same editorial scrutiny or fact checking as real news articles are. The fact that Rick Casey has been noted for plagerism and fact checking issues in the past (see: ) seems to confirm that the Houston Chronicle does not check the factual accuracy of an opinion column in the same way that it does a news piece; and that factual accuracy does not rise to the level of reliability prerequisite to the Wikipedia standards.

• However, I am fine reinserting a paragraph that indicates that the jurors rejected the arguments that Yates knew that her actions were wrong. We just need to find something that is both from a better source and more comprehensive. I will try to find these and post them for consideration. As I have requested previously, if you have any please post them. Once I hear the viewpoints of others and gather more sources, I will suggest language.

Sorry for the unusual length - I just wanted to get off to a good start. I will be more succinct in future postings. As noted above, I invite you to disagree with me and/or share your own thoughts. However, please do it in the manner detailed in the section above. We are so close to Christmas, that I don't know I will get many responses in the next few days. If that is the case, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and good visit from Santa. Lawblogger18 (talk) 22:05, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

No, the suggested language is wildly inappropriate and overblown for this article. This article is about Mr. Welner; it is not about Andrea Yates or the trial. The deletion of reliable sources critical of Welner relative to his role in this case is likewise inappropriate, and the rationales offered in support of those deletions is specious. This article is still far too unbalanced and presented as a PR puff piece, being pushed by editors who have self-identified as employees and colleagues of Welner. The core of Wikipedia's COI policy is that if an editor, because of his or her personal connection to the subject matter, are unable to put their biases aside and serve the policies, interests and purposes of Wikipedia instead of and ahead of those of their employer, they are not to edit within the scope of the conflict. This has gone on far too long on this article and has to come to a stop.Fladrif (talk) 01:11, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Welcome back, Fladrif. Can you point out for me where the other editors self-identify as colleagues of Dr. Welner? I'm only aware of them being accused of being associates of him and not denying it. (me being one of those accusers).--Jcally66 (talk) 05:24, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

I think that Lawblogger18 has raised a number of issues with the previously proposed content pertaining to the Yates section that have merit. Sifting through some of this, I agree that sources that are opinion pieces or that are comprised of the opinions and view points of non-notable individuals should not be included. I agree with you Fladrif that we can not delete reliable sources that are critical of Welner, but my concern is that a number of sources including the single source that Jcally66 used to support her text are not reliable. Lawblogger18 has explained this at length above. Regarding your comments about overblown language, this page has heavily worked on to achieve WP:NPOV and balance. Your were a part of those efforts Fladrif, and I think we are a lot closer to balance than you have represented. Let us keep in mind that Welner is well regarded and referred to as leading forensic psychiatrist[3]; renowned [4]; one of America's Top forensic psychiatrists [5] - there are plenty more of these type of sources, but many of these sources are not included in this page for balance. The fact that Yates, in which the Jury found her insane contrary to Welner's testimony, and Richardson, in which the experts were excluded, shows that this page has both the positive and negative points from his professional career. But Fladrif, I agree with you in that this has gone on long enough and the longer the page is the more we have to disagree about. Can we get to a point where the page serves its purpose as being informative like the Park Dietz or Michael Baden page? All of this other stuff that we are fighting over should be dumped and cases should be included in bullet points with links to the Wiki pages of those cases and left at that. I think we had accomplished this until Jcally66 included separate sections for each case. Thoughts?Stewaj7 (talk) 18:42, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, ha ha ha. I hadn't realized that ABC News was considered an expert evaluator on who the country's best forensic psychiatrists were. Since Welner is a paid commenter for ABC I would've thought that their promos for their own reports might represent some kind of conflict of interest? And what is ABC's standard for ranking psychiatrists? - the ability to say things that cause George Stephanopolis to have a confused look on his face? He is the master in that regard.

Considering his prominent role as a "expert" on a technical discipline and as a controversial media figure, I would think his BLP would resemble ones for people like Nancy Grace, Paul Krugman, or Anthony Watts. Opinions vary. And you're right, the BLP for Park Deitz is awfully short and uninformative for someone with such and long and controversial career. Maybe we should work on that one when we're finished here.

Stewaj7, you haven't finished your homework assignment on peer review' regarding conflict of interest yet. Please, report back on that before commenting on anything else.--Jcally66 (talk) 05:12, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Lawblogger,thank you for your civil reply. It’s nice to read arguments without personal and ad hominem attacks.

A general comment first, your suggested version for the Yates section is very long. When I first edited the Selected Cases section, my idea was to pick high profile cases in which Dr. Welner had a critical role, and summarize his role as succinctly as possible. Most of what you put in the first paragraph seems unnecessary. If readers want to understand all the nuances of the Yates case and Texas law they can always follow the Wiki link. Ironically, the impression this information more closely resembles what Stewaj7 was referring to about coatracking. (I’ll wager he won’t be shooting his WP:COAT link at you though.) The Khadr section is very long also, but that seemed unavoidable considering how complicated the case was. But thank you for not listing all 68 reasons, “Yates knew right from wrong.”

You stated that, “Only one juror, Michael Olsen, is quoted a commenting on the peer review”, yet the interview cited reads, "Although Dr. Welner's qualifications were impressive, his presentation in court was not good," said juror Bobby Chism. "He came across as very aloof and self-serving." “He and juror Michael Olson also brought up Welner's self-described "peer review" system. “ How did you miss the reference to juror Bobby Chism in the same paragraph? It then goes on, “Juror Gina Dickinson joined Olson in citing another issue. "There was testimony by a defense witness, Joe Porto, who is an assistant U.S. attorney, that showed that Dr. Welner had contacted the defense team in 2001 wanting to work for them, not the prosecution," she said. "That put a shadow over his testimony, in my opinion."” These jurors are all being interviewed at the same time and are agreeing with each other. Your point that each criticism can only be demonstrated for only one juror doesn’t hold water. The three being interviewed are all agreeing with each other and are explaining the thinking that led to the unanimous verdict by all 12 jurors. By the same parsing of words I could claim 100% of jurors interviewed said that “bad peer review” and side switching undermined the prosecution’s entire psychiatric defense.

For Mitchell, I also wrote, “Several members of the jury interviewed after the trial singled out Dr. Welner’s psychiatric testimony as very persuasive and pivotal in reaching their verdict.” Yet, in the sources I used, only one juror singled out a specific thing that Welner said that persuaded him to rule “guilty”. In: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50852600-76/juror-question-think-decision.html.csp Question: All of the expert witnesses had solid resumes. What stood out when you were trying to weight that? … Juror No. 12: Dr. Welner, to me. We had heard all these terms that were technical, but Dr. Welner would reply with three words and in terms a layman could understand. 'He's a pedophile.' This is nearly the exact same situation for sourcing, yet, strangely, I didn’t get the same complaint that I had “assumed” that all the jurors were impressed by Welner’s testimony. Should this be removed also, or is it ok as long as it reflects positively on Welner?

You went to the trouble of digging up the biography of the Houston Chronicle’s Rick Casey? Yes, he appears to be a columnist but his column appears in the News section, not the Opinion section. Confusing. Unfortunately I can only find two interviews with the jurors and the other one is an ABC13 video that is no longer available. This story was the biggest one that year in Texas - if the jurors had felt Casey had misrepresented what they said, obviously that would have been a news story in itself. BTW, if you don’t like information obtained by interviews with opinion columnists and commentators, you probably shouldn’t be relying on Nancy Grace transcripts. But, perhaps we can agree it’s ok to rely on quotes from the interviewees while avoiding the commentator’s opinions?

In your last paragraph you seem to be making the case that jury should have found Yates guilty and sane, and would’ve made the “correct” verdict if only they had been allowed to read Welner’s “125 page report.” But if Welner’s 68 “Reasons Yates Knew Right from Wrong” is any indication of what’s in the report, you would be wrong. Welner was trying to make the case that Yates “killed the youngsters because she felt overwhelmed and inadequate as a mother, not to save their souls.” Amazingly, all 68 points that Welner made are more consistent with the latter not the former. In general the 68 points show that Yates: 1) carefully planned the crime, 2) hid her intentions from her husband and doctor, 3) felt remorse and took steps to prevent herself from killing her children, 4) knew what she was doing was illegal and assumed she would go to jail and 5) called 911 herself and did nothing to hide her crime once complete. Was Welner trying to make the defense’s case for them or does he not understand what it means to have a psychotic delusion? All this is consistent with a woman who is trying to “prevent her children from going to Hell.” She planned the crime to make sure should would be successful. She clearly still understood the difference between “legal” and “illegal” and the consequences of her actions. Does Welner not know there's a difference between knowing “right and wrong” and “legal and illegal” if a psychotic is acting under a delusion?--Jcally66 (talk) 02:05, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

My suggestion for a re-write (references to be added to final version):

:State of Texas vs. Andrea Yates :

Case: The 2006 retrial of Andrea Yates for the drowning of her five children in Texas in 2001.

Yates’ 2002 murder convictions were overturned in 2005 after it was revealed that Dr. Park Dietz, also a forensic psychiatrist, told the jury that before the drownings, NBC ran a “Law & Order” episode about a woman who was acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children. It was later learned that no such episode existed.

Dr. Welner testified as the main psychiatric expert witness for the prosecution in the second trial in 2006. Dr. Welner diagnosed Ms. Yates with psychotic depression, but concluded that Yates appreciated the wrongness of her actions and was therefore legally sane by Texas legal standards. Dr. Welner’s 125-page psychiatric report on Yates was not provided to the jury due to the court’s ruling that it contained hearsay.

The jury disagreed with the prosecution’s claims, finding Yates not guilty by reason of insanity. In interviews after the case, the jurors were quoted to have largely disregarded Dr. Welner's testimony when the defense’s attorneys pointed out that his definition of “peer review” in his psychiatric report "differed considerably from academic journals". Explaining their verdict, jurors in the case also cited testimony that revealed Dr. Welner had first offered to testify for the defense before he was hired to work for the prosecution.

After the verdict Dr. Welner notably predicted in interviews that Yates would be released quickly because her disorder was being well managed. "I expect she will be home soon," In Jan 2007, Yates was moved to a low security state mental hospital in Kerrville, Texas where she is being held to this day.--Jcally66 (talk) 22:46, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Five days and no responses on Yates or Cheever. Does that mean everyone is ok with my edits?--Jcally66 (talk) 00:52, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. I will look at your suggestions by tomorrow. Lawblogger18 (talk) 21:27, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Jcally, thanks for your patience while I was away. Likewise, thanks for your civil reply as well. Its a little more interesting to actually talk through the issues than otherwise.

I took a look at your comments, and it is one thing to have a summary of a case which is succinct, formulaic and neutral, but that is not what you are advocating or doing. Your drafts try to suspend in isolation a quote, event, diagnosis or assertion, out of context in hopes that it will conjure up a negative image that would be false or unsubstantiated to assert directly. I get that you have a strong opinion, but to try to get at criticisms by asserting that a case description should be succinct and then selectively choosing elements to include and/or exclude is not the way to do it.

More importantly, this debate is not novel to this page. On the first go around, the inclusion of both nakedly positive and negative comments on the selected cases gave way to a consensus that the cases would either need to be expanded in size or reduced to a truncated format. I warned you about this difficultly when you wanted to revert back to a descriptive format – and here we are again.

In fairness you have indicated that you think that I have inserted the language regarding the jury not seeing Welner’s report to imply that they would have reached a different conclusion if they had. This may or may not be the case and I do not have an opinion; I only know that what the jury saw or heard informed their opinions, including arguments and strategy that has nothing to do with facts. I believe that the Texas statute is a horrible, narrow statute which unreasonably raises the bar on defendants; and I believe the jury came to the conclusion that Yates might have been legally sane under Texas law, but that it was morally unconscionable to abide by it.

As I mentioned above, the evidence in the sources does not support that conclusion at all.

• Every source quoting the press conference with the entire jury panel quotes the basis of their decision to be that she had “psychosis, before, during and after”.

• Yates’ lawyers are quoted as stating the jury made their determination based on the psychosis of Yates, calling it a watershed moment for how mental illness is treated by the courts.

• The jury foreman in an interview with the entire panel told reporters that the jury “did not base their decision solely on the testimony of any one expert”. He also told reporters that “ “Many of the jurors had personal experiences with family members who suffer from mental illness.”

• The jury foreman is working on changing Texas law because he found it unusable in Yates.

• Perhaps most compelling, Dr. Resnick (the Expert used by the Defense) gave a lecture regarding the Yates verdict where he argues that “jurors rely on their own conceptions of insanity” and the jury in Yates disregarded Texas statute in order to achieve what they believed was the right outcome. Resnick indicates that the jury’s conclusions were difficult and notes that they (i) were not death qualified, (ii) deliberated for 12 hours, and that the original vote was only 8 to 4 in favor of NGRI (with the others wanting to find her Guilty but Insane). In describing the jury’s mindset, Resnick quotes Todd Frank from the interview with all the Jurors, when he states: “We understand that she knew it was legally wrong. But in her delusional mind…we believe that she though what she did was right”

• There is no verifiable source that indicates the jury as a whole disregarded Welner’s testimony based on the two items you quote. Indeed sources indicate that one of the first exhibit jurors asked for were Welner’s slides.

• There are verifiable sources which state that the defense team used jury consultants and software to find jurors who would be more prone to take a softer approach on Texas law.

Every analysis I can pull up on why the jury voted the way it did focuses on (i) the fact that this was not a death qualified jury, and (ii) that they wanted to advocate and take a stand for the mentally ill.

There is no source that I can find that indicates that the jury made their decisions based on the two factors you outlined, and I have already indicated my objections to the source you provided. With respect to the number of Jurors to which the source attributes comments, I agree the number may be two as opposed to one, but that is still a far cry from claiming that the entire or even a majority of the jury disregarded his testimony based on those assertions.

Nor do I think you can “parse words” to conclude that all three jurors agreed with these points – the columnist’s piece only references two, which again is a far cry from claiming that the jury as a whole disregarded Welner’s testimony based on these two defense assertions. That conclusion is also completely contradictory to what Todd Frank (Foreman) said in a press conference which included the entire jury: that the jury “did not base their decision solely on the testimony of any one expert” ; and that “some jurors wanted to find Yates both guilty and insane. The jury deliberated over two days before reaching a verdict. There were certain of us that would rather it had said, 'guilty, but insane.' We had discussed that at length as being an affirmative defense, but it still didn't sit well with everyone." Again, this relates to the points that (i) the jury foreman himself said that did not base their decision on the testimony of any one expert, and (ii)a good portion of the jury thought she was guilty under Texas law, but disregarded the harsh law to do what they thought was morally right with respect to Andrea Yates.

It is my preference that this case summary properly account for the complexity of the expert testimony and conclusions of this case or avoid the verbal gerrymandering (by anyone). It should read as follows:

State of Texas vs. Andrea Yates

Andrea Yates was prosecuted by the State of Texas for the murder of her five children. The subsequent 2002 trial and 2006 retrial each centered on the use of the insanity defense by Yates. Both the prosecution and defense acknowledged that Yates was mentally ill, however, Texas statute only allows for use of the insanity defense when as a result of such mental illness, a defendant does not know his conduct is wrong. Texas statute does not define whether knowledge that conduct was wrong means knowledge of moral wrong or legal wrong.

In 2002, the jury dismissed Ms. Yates’ claim of legal insanity, convicted her of murdering three of her children, and sentenced her to life imprisonment. However, Yates’ 2002 trial included testimony from Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist testifying on behalf of the prosecution, that before Andrea Yates drowned her children, NBC ran a “Law & Order” episode about a woman who was acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children. When it was later established that no such episode existed, the 1st District Court of Appeals overturned Ms. Yates’ conviction in 2005.

Dr. Welner was asked by prosecutors to examine Ms. Yates for the 2006 retrial. Dr. Welner diagnosed Ms. Yates with psychotic depression, but concluded that Yates appreciated the wrong of her actions and was therefore legally sane by Texas legal standards. Dr. Welner testified that he diagnosed Ms. Yates with psychotic depression, but that Ms. Yates killed her five children because she felt overwhelmed and inadequate as a mother, not for a psychotic reason. He further testified that Yates showed that she knew her actions were wrong by waiting until her husband left for work to kill them,, removing the bath mat so that the youngsters would have no traction to try and escape, covering the bodies with a sheet and calling police right after the event so they would arrive before her mother in law, and being too ashamed to speak to her husband when he later confronted her about what she had done, among over points. The jury rejected this finding, concluded that Yates did not know the wrong of her action, and returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Lawblogger18 (talk) 22:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Lawblogger, we appear to be at an impass. May I suggest we find an original editor from the first version of this page or some other third party that we can agree is impartial to mediiate here?.--Jcally66 (talk) 20:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

You've again produced an edit that specifically excludes anything critical of Dr. Welner's expert testimony. You've again included too much detail about Texas law, and then generically described one of Welner's "60 or 68 Reason Yates was Knew Right from Wrong". No mention of the defense's cross examination of Welner's and his report. The jury finds her "not guilty" and no reason is mentioned for the reader to understand why that happened. No mention the defense's questioning: describing Welner first offering to work for the defense. and no mention of the Forensic Panel's "controversial" definition of "peer review". Calling it "controversial" is a compromise term - it's more appropriately called "fraudulent", "bizarre" or "deceptive". I keep harping on Peer Review because Welner himself appears to be strangely fixated on the term and for some reason refuses to call "medical consultation" by its proper term. If think I'm imaging things, just look at Welner "editiorial" in the Houston Chronicle waving away all criticism. You may not see the reason to mention peer review, but in his own rather hysterical defense of his work in the Yates case, Welner himself used the term 17 times(!). http://www.chron.com/default/article/What-the-Yates-jury-never-knew-1847217.php Perhaps someone knows a psychological reason for Welner's insistence on mis-using this term?

What the Yates jury never knew

A TRAGEDY OF SECRETS

Panel never allowed to see important pieces of expert's research

DR. MICHAEL WELNER | December 3, 2006

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Press articles revisiting the Andrea Yates case have focused on prosecution expenses, rather than the amazing circumstance of a defendant being acquitted despite demonstrating more than 60 instances of her awareness of wrong.

The Houston Chronicle most recently demonstrated that Yates jurors were never informed about the complexity and substance of The Forensic Panel's peer review, arranged to maximize integrity in the Yates evaluation. Many mysteries of the Yates case, and now its trial, remain. What else were Yates jurors not aware of?

The Harris County District Attorney's office engaged me in 2005 to be lead examiner of Andrea Yates in her retrial, and in doing so, assumed a risk that I might not ultimately support its position. I reminded prosecutors in 2005 that consulting to the prosecution on such a case thus meant potentially offering an opinion that a mental health cause celebre was actually a killer, and alienating the professional community responsible for promoting the very reputation that drew both prosecutors and defense attorneys to me. Peer review through The Forensic Panel gave me a sense of peace about proceeding fairly in the Yates examination and accounting for any scientific blind spots.

The Forensic Panel, a consultation practice developed to promote a higher, evidence-based standard of science in the courts, has consulted on psychiatry, toxicology, medicine and pathology questions in more than 15 states. The practice consults to both prosecution and defense, in criminal and civil courts.

Most of the cases referred to The Forensic Panel are highly complex and require greater scrutiny or sensitivity to emerging scientific issues. The Forensic Panel, of which I am chairman, developed peer review to bring the medical model to forensic consultation, in which colleagues' expertise and oversight enhance the substance of findings in much the way one does in our finest academic hospitals. Peer review ensures that examinations minimize bias, maximize diligence and investigative follow-through, and that conclusions adhere to the most updated understandings of psychiatry.

Peer review exists in clinical settings, grant reviews, government regulations and professional journals, for example. In professional journals, the demands of peer reviewers are far more modest by comparison. Journal peer reviewers never have to lend their name to the professional article or answer for its ultimate strengths, or its flaws. The scientific community never knows to what degree the peer review adds critical benefit, or merely rubber-stamps. Within The Forensic Panel, peer reviewers are challenged by each other to critically show their know-ledge, know their name is going on the report and have to answer to their professional community for the contents therein. It is a significant advance that has benefited many cases and courts before the Yates case came along.

I reached out to two individuals who are not part of The Forensic Panel to be my peer reviewers in Yates: Robert Cancro, M.D., chairman emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine; and Louis Schlesinger, Ph.D., professor of forensic psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. My overall examination and conclusions were accountable to Cancro's and Schlesinger's input and peer review.

As I am not a neuropsychologist and do not claim expertise in personality testing, I invited two eminent colleagues, psychologist William Foote from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and Elkhonon Goldberg, Ph.D., a clinical professor of neurology at NYU School of Medicine, to review raw data compiled for the defense by Dr. George Ringholz.

Foote and Goldberg had total freedom to invite any two peer reviewers they felt exceptionally qualified to provide oversight to their analysis of Dr. Ringholz's raw data. Foote, former ethics committee chair of the American Board of Forensic Psychology, chose Schlesinger and Dr. Reid Meloy, a nationally renowned forensic psychologist. Goldberg enlisted peer review from the pre-eminent Dr. Edith Kaplan of Boston University, and Dr. Allan Mirsky, chief of neuro-psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health. Neither of those indivi-duals was previously known to me.

None of those scientist heavyweights involved is employed by The Forensic Panel. Neither were they forced or directed, nor could be, by virtue of their stature, character and independence. Each of those who participated in the Yates matter did so at compensation noticeably lower than his or her usual fees, because of their respect for the quality of the academic exercise of The Forensic Panel. The eight members of The Forensic Panel's effort on the Yates case, including myself, waived a number of specific charges to the Harris County prosecutors.

Forensic psychiatry is a quest to unearth buried facts, to corroborate or to refute information laden with tantalizing clues, dead ends and the responsibility to be accurate. Yates prosecutors' challenge to me to revisit this case and provide a "last word" was not the first time I have been given such a mandate by attorneys or judges, and was no superfluous measure. To that end, I interviewed far more witnesses than any of the other examiners, forensic and clinical combined.

Even after five years of Andrea Yates having been examined by many, and two investigative books written about her, numerous significant points emerged, for the first time, directly as a result of my evaluation. The findings of Dr. Foote and Dr. Goldberg's analyses were also incorporated into my 124-page report of conclusions.

Based upon my peer-reviewed findings, prosecutors called me as a witness to testify on areas of their choosing and the judge's discretion. It was up to prosecutors to decide what aspects of my findings they wanted a jury to hear, and the judge to decide what she would allow the jury to hear, and how I would be allowed to respond to questioning.

No information that I learned from interviews and correspondence with 23 informants such as Russell Yates ever came before the jury; Judge Belinda Hill denied me the opportunity to testify about these interviews. The judge's discretion reflected that she felt that information was prejudicial against Andrea Yates, and so the jury never learned of the substance of these interviews.

I created 92 slides to introduce with my testimony, full of many points I felt relevant. Prosecutors elected to show 56 of the 92 slides to the jury, skipping through a number of those shown. Later, those 56 slides were one of the only exhibits the jury requested to see during their deliberation — but the jury would never learn of the contents of the 36 slides left out.

It was my strong recommendation to prosecutors that the jury see my entire 14-hour interview to absorb the unedited aura of Andrea Yates in order to fully inform their impressions, rather than to rely upon snippets totaling about 10 minutes. But jurors did not see Andrea Yates unedited. The jury did not read the 124-page report of my conclusions, or see the notes I disclosed.

It was the defense's own 2001 and 2002 psychological and personality testing which — scored and interpreted by Foote and peer reviewed under conditions completely separated from me — demonstrated how emotionally intact Yates was when she tested as far back as early 2002. More troublesome, however, was the clear indication from the data of a lack of depth to her remorse at the time of 2001-2002 testing. Foote's findings were not presented to the jury either.

At trial, defense attorneys manufactured an assault on my character because the reports The Forensic Panel provided, the notes of my work, and the 14 hours of interview they saw, were quite damaging to Andrea Yates — and more importantly, solid on the facts and the objectivity of the examination. Shrill but quite misleading attacks on a witness' integrity to impressionable jurors is a common strategy by some otherwise cornered attorneys. Did Yates prosecutors sit back and leave those disingenuous attacks unanswered, presuming them to be frivolous distractions that jurors could see through? Did such silence enable the jury's poisoning? If jurors had a factual misunderstanding of the law, The Forensic Panel's peer review, or my efforts, or were uninformed about certain facts, what if the jury really knew the truth?

Defense attorneys and prosecutors deserve credit when they prevail, for they are running their own cases well over and above the contributions of a single witness. Attorneys make decisions about what points to reinforce before the jury, without benefit of hindsight. They also try their cases in the face of judges' rulings, however significant they may be (no individual voir dire was permitted in the Yates case despite its years of highly sympathetic press exposure).

More than 700 hours of work later, The Forensic Panel's actual work product — from three peer-reviewed reports to the complete interviews of Andrea Yates, to my notes — remain an informative legacy which we stand behind.

Anyone seeking to learn the truth should be petitioning the court to view all that The Forensic Panel learned about Andrea Yates. Until then, the Yates tragedy remains a secret. Even beyond The Forensic Panel's role, the most relevant questions of those who facilitated a jury's runaway acquittal have not yet been asked. Because of this, the Yates acquittal remains a tragedy of secrets.

Welner is an associate professor of psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine and an adjunct professor of law at Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh. He can be e-mailed at drwelner@forensicpanel.com.--Jcally66 (talk) 20:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

JCally - you say that your intent in putting the case summaries together was to create a short synopsis of the facts, but as I pointed out above this is simply not what you do. You string together lopsided assertions to draw conclusions which are not supported in any of the sources (i.e. that the jury found Yates not guilty based entirely on two assertions made by the defense). I provide extensive detail above as to why this is not the case; and you have ignored those sources, references and conclusions. You want to include your interpretation as to why the Jury found Yates not guilty (again, which is not supported or referenced by the sources), but conversely want to omit reference to (i) the narrow parameters of the Texas law which formed the basis of their deliberations and conclusions, and (ii) all contrary well sourced references to the true basis of their finding Yates not guilty. You make a point above of referencing your viewpoints on peer-review, but again, conversely fail to include or reference Welner's own discussion of peer review. I don’t mind exploring peer review further in the peer review section, but it needs to include Welner’s views and cite appropriate sources. You also include reference to Welner’s statement regarding Yates responding to treatment well and his expectation that she would be released soon; and then note that she is still being held in a state mental health facility, but gratuitously omit the fact that her own attorney has been paralleling Welner’s conclusion for years (arguing for her release); and indeed that the Courts are now considering giving her a weekly release as a trial run for her full release. It is this kind of editing that I find so objectionable – the desire to include partial facts and statements in order to imply some sort of conclusion that is otherwise unsupportable. Lawblogger18 (talk) 09:48, 26 January 2013 (UTC)