Expert Witness Work

RMA is often called upon to provide expert witness work. Today, most lawsuits against police involve allegations that the agency has been negligent in some aspect of leadership and/or administration. Your hiring practices and decisions are questioned, training programs and systems challenged, and disciplinary practices attacked. To defend you against these claims, someone credible needs to be able to testify persuasively as to contemporary professional standards and whether you met them. We do this!

Our work includes:

• Use of Force Cases.
• Vehicle Pursuits and Emergency Driving.
• Fourth Amendment claims involving detention and arrest, search and seizure.
• Personnel practices – Lawsuits by Your Own Employees.

Another frequent need for expert witness services arises when we try to get individual defendants, officers and their supervisors at all levels, out of the lawsuit (without need for trial) through a legal concept called “qualified immunity.” An individual defendant may “qualify” for immunity from trial and liability if it can be proved that, even if he or she made a mistake, the mistake was a “reasonable” one that a “reasonably well-trained” officer could have made. This is often called a “good faith” defense though it usually does not depend on ‘faith’, good or bad. Someone credible needs to be able to testify as to what mistakes are “reasonable” and what “reasonable well-trained officers” would and might not know. Randy Means, JD does almost all of this work personally, but the senior consultant team also includes experts in virtually every area of law enforcement.

Please contact us if you would like to discuss any case. We can be reached info@randymeans.com or 302-757-5002. We will discuss how we might be able to help you.