| Park Dietz |
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He has interviewed, and testified at the trials of, Jeffrey Dahmer , John Hinckley , Andrea Yates , and many more murderers of the last 30 years. On January 6, 2005, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the convictions of Andrea Yates because prosecution witness Dr. Dietz made a mistake in his testimony. He stated that shortly before the killings, an episode of Law & Order had aired featuring a woman who drowned her children being acquitted of murder by reason of insanity. When he learned of his error a week later, he immediately took steps to correct it and admit the error. In a documentary called ''Conversations With Killers'', Dietz recalls his encounters with criminals. Park Dietz also contributed to the Attorney General's Commission On Pornography as a commissioner recommended by the White House and appointed by the Attorney General of the United States. His personal statement in the Commission's report was widely circulated for years, and the report appendixed a study Dietz had published on detective magazines with Bondage Covers . TESTIMONY FOR HIRE Park Dietz & Associates is a group of "forensic consultants" paid to give Expert Testimony in both criminal cases and civil lawsuits. Fairly or not, experts who testify for money are often referred to as "''whores of the court''." In the fall of 2003, Park Dietz spoke to an audience of criminal Prosecutors at an annual meeting of the Texas District & County Attorneys Association in Corpus Christi, Texas. Although the speech was billed as an update in the field of forensic psychology, it was actually little more than a sales pitch to encourage the use of paid testimony from forensic consultants. At one point during the speech, Dietz drifted " Off Script " into an entertaining side-story regarding some particular case. An audible gasp rose, followed by an awkward silence, when Dietz compared a peculiar element of the case to an episode of Law & Order. These prosecutors were already keenly aware that Dietz's false testimony put the Yates conviction at risk, and were stunned by this careless Gaffe . EXTERNAL LINKS |
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