Judge Refuses to Hear Expert Testimony Showing the Innocence of the Accused in Seal-Hunt Trial

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Clay Ruby, Lawyer for the accused, (who include Respect for Animals’ campaigns director Mark Glover) said “The judge has rejected expert scientific evidence that shows we are innocent saying that scientific analysis of the video would not be useful him, no matter how good the expert. We will continue to respectfully call each of the accused persons to testify that they broke no law. If there is a finding of guilt, we will appeal that ruling.”

The defendants along side Mark Glover - Canadians Rebecca Aldworth and Andrew Plumbly, Americans Chad Sisneros and Pierre Grzybowski - were charged with being within 10m of a sealer conducting a sealing activity during the 2006 hunt. Fredericks was set to testify that scientific measurements of the video shows that the defendants were at least 19.6m at the time of the incident.

Fredericks has more than 20 years experience in analyzing forensic video evidence and provides expert testimony throughout the U.S. and Canada, usually for the prosecution. Fredericks teaches the techniques used to analyze this evidence at University of Indianapolis, the U.S. FBI National Academy at Quantico, Va., and to Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers and is the video evidence advisor to the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

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