A detailed pretrial conference with your calling attorney, usually the prosecutor, is the best way to ensure a good presentation of your evidence in court. However, we are frequently called to court without a pretrial conference. The next best strategy is to have a comprehensive set of questions prepared to hand the attorney on the way up to the bench to be sworn in.
Your questions for direct should cover five areas in a logical sequence.
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You need to explain who you are and why you are qualified to testify. In addition to your name and employment, you need to summarize your training, length of experience, and testing to prove your competence.
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Discuss the science to which you are going to testify without reference to the evidence in the case at trial. You should become a teacher to tell the jury why the science is reliable. In fingerprints, we explain uniqueness and persistency through biologic sciences. Then we discuss ACE-V as the methodology we follow.
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Explain the origin and chain of custody of the evidence, but only insofar as you are personally involved.
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Detail the examination you conducted in the case at trial. Here is where it is helpful to used charted enlargements as visual aids in helping the court understand what you did.
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The final point of your testimony is the conclusion you reached.
Then comes cross examination. The defense can explore any of the above five areas in more detail. In the first place, unqualified witnesses do occasionally testify (see the case of Lana Canen). The second area of testimony, the science itself, may be the focus of a Daubert hearing. Or an opposing attorney may also question “how many points does it take” or whether a probabilistic approach would be more scientifically valid than ACE-V.
The provenance of the evidence must be proven and flaws must be probed. If there is only a lift, was a photograph taken before the lift?
An attack on the fourth area of testimony may challenge the number of points you found in the latent, or it may question specific points on a chart.
Finally, there is a sixth area of attack for cross examination, and that is the meaning of the evidence. In latent prints, such an attack usually starts with a question about determining the age of the latent print, then asking whether it could have been left on the surface earlier in a manner unrelated to the crime on trial.
The very best presentation of forensic evidence happens when both the prosecutor and the defense attorney hold pretrial conferences with the witness, and when the defense attorney retains a qualified expert to help understand the evidence to know the best areas to question.
For direct testimony in the absence of pretrial conferences, a detailed, comprehensive set of questions for the calling attorney is the second-best way for an expert to try and ensure the court understands the evidence.