Opinion ID: 1940967
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Motion for New Trial and the South Dakota Hearing

Text: Appellant appeals separately from the trial court's denial of her motion for new trial. She claims that the court abused its discretion in denying her motion on the ground that she had failed to show that her newly discovered evidence established perjury on the part of Dr. Shaibani, that the government knew or should have known about his perjury, and that there was a reasonable likelihood that his supposedly perjured testimony could have affected the verdict. She places great reliance on the record from the South Dakota hearing, whichin her viewdemonstrates that Dr. Shaibani lied when he said he was affiliated with Temple University after 1996 and that his testimony about his clinical experience at Temple with trauma victims and their physicians was false. Specifically, appellant contends that Dr. Shaibani's testimony in South Dakota cannot be reconciled with his testimony at trial in this case that he spent over 80 percent of [his] time consulting with his medical colleagues as part of his work as a clinical professor at Temple. [36] Appellant also maintains that the trial court abused its discretion when it ruled, in light of Dr. Gawlinski's letter disputing Dr. Shaibani's claim that he was an associate clinical professor in Temple University's physics department, that appellant had failed to prove that the government knew or should have known about Dr. Shaibani's allegedly false testimony. Appellant's contention is that once the government was presented with Dr. Gawlinski's letter, it had an affirmative duty to investigate specific, non-trivial Brady requests. [37] Instead, she asserts, all that the government did to investigate the matter was to inquire of Dr. Shaibani in private to determine whether he was still affiliated with Temple University. Finally, appellant argues that the court abused its discretion when it concluded, in its order denying her motion for new trial, that there was no reasonable likelihood that Dr. Shaibani's allegedly false testimony affected the verdict. She maintains that the trial court's statement that Dr. Shaibani was qualified as an expert witness and would have been permitted to testify as an expert, even without his (supposedly non-existent) Temple credentials, was not supported by the record. [38] During the South Dakota hearing, Virginia Flick, an associate university counsel for Temple University, testified that she had been ordered during the North Carolina case to provide documents that pertained to Dr. Shaibani, but because Temple never had a file on Dr. Shaibani, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Ms. Flick was able to locate the original appointment letter that was admitted into evidence at appellant's trial. [39] In addition, she produced a letter dated August 5, 1995, from Dr. Shaibani to Dean Adams, in which he accepted the dean's gracious invitation ... to become clinical associate professor in the physics department. Ms. Flick provided copies of other correspondence between Dean Adams and Dr. Shaibani between 1996 and 1999 in which Dr. Shaibani informed Dean Adams of his work and referred to her acknowledgment of that work. Appellant points out that at the South Dakota hearing Ms. Flick also testified (1) that the title clinical associate professor was used only by the medical school and not the physics department, and that Dr. Shaibani's appointment was requested by Dr. Kolff, an official at Conemaugh Hospital; (2) that Dr. Kolff told her Dr. Shaibani was terminated within a few months of receiving the courtesy appointment as a result of questionable expenses; and (3) that Temple University requires all appointments to be in writing, and that there was no documentation that Dr. Shaibani conducted any off-campus nationwide seminars on behalf of Temple. According to Ms. Flick, a review of Temple records showed that, as of 2000, Dr. Shaibani was not affiliated in any way with Temple or appointed to our faculty in any capacity. When asked if it would be possible under the rules and regulations of Temple for Dr. Shaibani to have received a permanent appointment that was not in writing, Ms. Flick replied, It would not be possible. It would not have occurred. Finally, Ms. Flick stated that Temple had taken no legal action against Dr. Shaibani. At the South Dakota hearing, Dr. Shaibani testified that he began working at Conemaugh Hospital in 1992, at the invitation of a friend, under the title of principal research fellow. Dr. Shaibani denied that he had been terminated from Conemaugh in 1996, insisting that the decision for him to leave had been mutual. After leaving Conemaugh, he said, he spent nearly all [his] time in his position as clinical professor of physics. In November 1997 Dr. Shaibani called the office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and had a conversation, a few minutes in length, with a staff person (who may have been named Mary). When he asked about the reappointment process, he was directed to contact the chairman of the physics department, Dr. Gawlinski. Dr. Shaibani then wrote to Dr. Gawlinski asking him to write to Dean Adams and recommend that he be reappointed for an additional three years. After receiving no response from Dr. Gawlinski, Dr. Shaibani called the Dean's Office again on July 20, 1998, and the person who answered the phone told him that the office would follow up on the status of his reappointment. [40] On August 10 Dr. Shaibani called the Dean's Office again, and the woman who took the call told him that they still hadn't heard from the Physics Department but that she would follow up. [41] On August 21 Dr. Shaibani spoke to a person in the physics department, who informed him that he or she was aware that the Dean's Office was waiting to hear from the department about the reappointment and that the person would inquire further. On August 31, 1998, Dr. Shaibani called the Dean's Office and informed the person with whom he spoke that this was the last day of his appointment, and that he was facing deadlines for submitting papers and did not want to put Temple University's name down as an academic affiliation in the papers ... unless you give me the green light. According to his South Dakota testimony, the person said go ahead. From that conversation, Dr. Shaibani understood that once the physics department signed off, his renewal would be permanent. He waited for a confirmatory letter, but when he did not receive one, he just assum[ed] they were happy to continue informally. [42] Dr. Shaibani continued to write letters in 1999 and 2000 reporting on his activities and continued to identify himself with Temple on his papers and at conferences. He testified that Temple must have known that he was still identifying himself as someone affiliated with the university because it was out there in plain view in the public domain. When asked if he was currently affiliated with Temple, Dr. Shaibani testified that he was not. Ms. Flick's letter of September 25, 2003 [43] which was first disclosed to Dr. Shaibani during the Peterson trial in North Carolinacontradicted his understanding of his affiliation with Temple, and Dr. Shaibani thought it would be foolhardy to ignore it. After seeing that letter, Dr. Shaibani did not assert any affiliation with Temple and did not include Temple's name on any of his published papers. Dr. Shaibani also testified at the South Dakota hearing about his contact with medical patients. After he left Conemaugh in 1996, he would still go to doctors' offices or clinics, but only on a short-term basis. He estimated that there were probably more than twenty occasions since 1996 when he had visited a clinic or a doctor's office to see patients and to consult. When he was asked about his testimony in prior trials that being a clinical professor meant dealing with patients on a day-in, day-out basis and involved real people in the real world, he explained that dealing with patients to him did not always mean seeing the patient, but could also mean studying patient files or consulting with physicians. He also noted that in one visit to a pediatrician's office, he would see thirty, forty, fifty patients [on] that one day. [44] In her appeal from the denial of her motion for new trial, appellant argues that the trial court abused its discretion in denying the motion in light of recent developments in particular, the South Dakota hearingconcerning Dr. Shaibani's credentials. She contends that the government's failure to conduct a more thorough investigation of Dr. Shaibani's credentials violated her due process rights, thus entitling her to a new trial under Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 79 S.Ct. 1173, 3 L.Ed.2d 1217 (1959), and Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972). Appellant also maintains that the trial court disregarded her arguments concerning the testimony of Ms. Flick and Dr. Shaibani at the South Dakota hearing which contradicted his trial testimony.