Multnomah County has retained Dr. Kevin Murphy to help cover up inmate abuse at the Multnomah County Detention Center (MCDC). Dr. Kevin James Murphy describes himself in his expert witness report as "the chief medical officer of the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer" before offering a weak opinion clearly intended to help deputies get away with breaking an inmate's arm and denying him proper medical care. A bootlicker like him does not deserve to be the chief medical officer of any team let alone a team with a progressive fan base like the Portland Timbers.
It is well known that many Timbers fans are members of Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and other groups frequently targeted by law enforcement. After the murder of George Floyd, countless Timbers fans were beaten in the streets and wrongfully imprisoned in MCDC. Luckily, District Attorney Mike Schmidt was kind enough to grant most of them amnesty because otherwise they would have likely been abused by staff the second they asserted their rights. If any of them threatened to post a guard's home address on a website they could have been abused just like the victim in this case for the same reason. However, the victim in this case had gained a reputation for being mentally unbreakable, so they broke his arm. Breaking his arm didn't even work either, it just sidelined him for a bit and led to a lawsuit.
To Dr. Murphy's credit, the victim in this case wishes that Multnomah County would have hired him years ago to treat his broken arm instead of Dr. Michael Seale (https://copblaster.com/blast/131/inmates-health-neglected-by-the-multnomah-county-health-department). Dr. Seale appears to be a general medical practitioner while Dr. Murphy appears to be a highly qualified orthopedic surgeon. However, Dr. Murphy's opinion on its face does not appear to rebut many claims made by the Plaintiff's experts, validates others, and at times overreaches into areas outside his field of expertise. The exact meaning of that last sentence will be exposed in federal court in the near future.
Finally, as tax payers we feel ripped off by the rates Dr. Murphy is charging Multnomah County. According to his report, Multnomah County has been paying him $800 per hour for expert review and report preparation. That rate is about standard, but if the case goes to trial he will bill Multnomah County $2,000 an hour for his testimony. We do not know why Multnomah County would go with such an expensive expert when surely they could have found a qualified orthopedic surgeon for less. Perhaps such doctors were not as overreaching as they would like. We the people have had enough. Wasting tax payers money in pursuit of injustice will not be tolerated. Fortunately, as an update below will show, Dr. Murphy's testimony appears likely be restricted to just his field after all.
Plaintiff's expert witness reports can be found at:
https://copblaster.com/uploads/files/expert-witness-report_compressed.pdf
https://copblaster.com/uploads/files/redacted-expert-report.pdf
The point of posting those links is so that people that know what to look for know to look at them. For lay people, look for the few pages in each report that contains the summary of the experts' conclusion then compare them. Comparing them to the Murphy Report should reveal that there are many things the county fails to address or addresses inadequately as will be explained in court shortly.
We ask that you not attend Timbers games or purchase Timbers merchandise as long as they employ individuals that work with law enforcement.
Note: This report is being classified as jail staff because even though we have a category for witnesses, that category is a subcategory of snitches which we reserve for people that give information in criminal proceedings. Dr. Murphy on the other hand seems more like someone contracted to assist jail staff. While Dr. Murphy has nothing to do it seems with day to day operations of the jail, he is none the less employed to defend how those working at the jail do their jobs which makes him more like jail staff than a witness in a criminal proceeding. If there is still any confusion as to the categorization we apologize.
UPDATE: The victim's former defense attorney has chimed in on this issue. Her exact quote will be added eventually. For now, we will say that she seems to agree that "a garden variety orthopedist has very little to offer on that question" in reference to a question Dr. Murphy attempts to answer as if it falls within the scope of his expertise. Dr. Murphy's CV looks like what one would expect from a garden variety orthopedist whose spent most of his career in sports medicine. That qualifies him to review the medical care that the victim received after the arm was broken, but little else. This article is primarily motivated by Dr. Murphy offering an opinion on issues outside his field of expertise on top of what he is qualified to offer an expert opinion about. There appears to be no question that Dr. Murphy is qualified to evaluate the medical care that the victim received because his training and experience qualifies him to treat broken arms and evaluate how other medical doctors treat broken arms, but his area of expertise does not appear to extend beyond the diagnosis and treatment of injuries typically treated by orthopedic surgeons.
UPDATE: The scene of the crime was featured in the video below late last year. The victim's arm was broken in cell 4F13. That housing unit is usually used to house people so mentally ill that they can't provide credible testimony as to abuses they witness due to being psychotic or delusional. As a result, the victim was the only sane inmate in the unit at the time. The video is not about this case, but it offers insight into why the county would be inclined not to hold deputies accountable for abusing inmates. They are significantly understaffed and holding just the bad apples in this case alone accountable would require the firing of several deputies that were either directly involved in breaking the arm or lied about relevant things necessary to cover it up.
UPDATE: It seems that the county might not try to use him to rebut the Plaintiff's biomechanics expert after all. It is starting to look like they have no rebuttal expert for the biomechanics expert. At a scheduling conference today, the county focused on Dr. Murphy's use to rebut the medical claims. Plaintiff stated he has no problem with Dr. Murphy testifying as an expert on medical issues, but voiced his intention to challenge his qualifications if the county tries to use him in an expert capacity to refute the work of a biomechanics expert. The biomechanics expert has spent his entire career in fields related to etiology of injuries while Dr. Murphy does not appear to have any training or experience in such areas according to his CV. Despite having no biomechanics training, Dr. Murphy said in his report, "I believe that such an injury is entirely consistent with the deputies accounts of the incident. Spiral oblique fractures result from twisting mechanism and would be consistent with attempts of the deputies to place." Dr. Murphy offered no methodology to support his claims at all let alone one capable of surviving a Daubert challenge. While Dr. Murphy is perfectly qualified to offer his opinion on matters of medical care, he is not qualified to offer an expert opinion on etiology any more than the biomechanics expert is qualified to treat a patient.
The Plaintiff also announced his intention to challenge the admissibility of Dr. Murphy's report in its entirety for being an unsworn statement. Unsworn expert witness reports are inadmissible. To be admissible, the report must include a sworn declaration stating that under penalty of perjury, what you are saying is true and correct, or similar language of identical meaning. What kind of expert charges his rates and doesn't even produce an admissible report?
To be continued...