Dr. Philip Dauterman, CHCC pathologist, testified on Monday in the jury trial of Calvin Tagabuel, who is charged with 2nd-degree murder.
SAYING that Dr. Philip A. Dauterman has the education, training and experience to testify as an expert in the field of clinical autopsy, Superior Court Judge Joseph N. Camacho on Monday denied the defense’s motion to exclude the doctor’s testimony in Calvin Tagabuel’s jury trial.
In an eight-page order, Judge Camacho also certified Dauterman as an expert in the field of clinical autopsy.
Judge Camacho said “the second autopsy report is highly probative to both parties’ theory of the case. For the Government, the second autopsy report is a reevaluation of the evidence by an expert in clinical autopsy. For the Defendant, the second autopsy report highlights impermissible tactics by the Government, and a means to attack Dr. Dauterman’s credibility and bias.”
The judge said the defendant claims that the government investigator and prosecutor improperly influenced Dauterman to revise his medical findings and issue the second autopsy report.
“Credibility and bias are always relevant, and it is the trier-of-fact (the jury in this case) that has to weigh credibility and biases. It will be for the jury to decide whether or not the first or second autopsy is credible, or both or neither. And it will be the jury to decide whether Dr. Dauterman was biased in his first or second autopsy reports, or both or neither,” the judge said.
He noted that “cross-examination is the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.”
His order stated that there are two types of autopsies: clinical and forensic.
“A clinical autopsy is performed in a hospital setting to determine the medical cause of death for research or to better understand a patient’s disease process, while a forensic autopsy is conducted when there is suspicion of foul play or a need to gather evidence for legal purposes, focusing on identifying the cause and manner of death, often including detailed examination of injuries and toxicology testing; essentially, a clinical autopsy is primarily for medical understanding, while a forensic autopsy is primarily for legal investigation,” the order stated.
Tagabuel, 48, is accused of causing Lark Kasian’s death by delivering a single punch to Kasian’s face, rendering him unconscious and causing him to fall on the concrete floor, where he struck the back of his head. He was 44.
The jury trial began on Feb. 11.
Earlier, defense attorney Joey McDoulett requested the court to exclude Dauterman’s second revised autopsy report from being admitted as evidence.
McDoulett said the second autopsy report “is inherently tainted by undue prosecutorial influence [and] lacks the requisite independence required of an autopsy report.”
The prosecution opposed the motion. Chief Prosecutor Chester Hinds said, “The idea that Dr. Philip A. Dauterman changed his findings because the Office of the Attorney General asked him is blatantly false, and there was no nefarious collusion.”
In his testimony on Monday, Dauterman said that in his examination of the deceased, there was no evidence of pulmonary embolism or blood clots in the heart.
The “amount of blood in the brain area was not normal,” he said, adding, “evidence shows one blow to the head.”
“He would not be walking if he had a skull fracture from a prior altercation before the punching incident. He would have been unconscious,” Dauterman said, referring to Kasian.
During cross-examination by the defense, the prosecution objected to the admission of Kasian’s medical history report from CHCC, arguing that it was unrelated to the incident.
Judge Camacho sustained the prosecution’s objection.
Dauterman, the 14th government witness, was still undergoing cross-examination as of 4:30 p.m. on Monday.
In related news, Juror #7 was excused from Monday’s proceedings due to a family emergency.
The jury trial will resume today, Tuesday, March 4, 2025, at 9 a.m.
