Your question supposes that I know:
1. The work that the experts were requested to perform.
2. The work they actually did in carrying out their assignment.
3. The information that was readily available for their consideration.
4. Whether they in fact considered the available information.
5. Whether they exercised a reasonable level of skil in carrying out their assignment, and
6. The information they provided to their principle clients once their work was completed.

I do not know these things and as I have stated above, without knowing these things it is incorrect to jump to conclusions about this verdict being outrageous, wrong, or otherwise.

But people like the story of "experts jailed for failing to predict the occurence of an earthquake." and they are not going to let the truth get in the way of their story.

 

BS! If someone is willing to pay, you'll give an opinion like everyone else.

 

And there lies the flaw in the system, opinion. Unlike the law which is based on opinion, scientific research is based in fact, provable facts, not opinions.
Maybe we can have Newton's opinions or maybe the opinions of thermodynamics. Opinions are not always facts but rather a perception.

 

Yeah, lawyers hold themselves to high standards: that's why we hear so often about the punishment meted out to public defenders who provide an incompetent defense. They all go to jail, right? ;-)

 

(Sigh) Ken, I have worked with these guys for years. I have a case right now involving seismic code. This is not black and white, it is risk assessment The engineers get paid a great deal of money to do an analysis that involves soil borings, analysis of the test results, review of the seismic zone, review of the seismic history and a review of the existing buildings, or the building to be built. They are all delighted to get the work and they know they are exposed to liability if they screw up. No one is asking them to predict an earthquake. No one is asking them to predict how strong the next earthquake will be. It is all about the risk that the building is likely to face, usually in a 90 percentile occurrence. If that quake in the last 10% occurs and everything goes to hell, the engineers have a great defense from any charges if they did their job right. And 99% of the time they do a good job to an acceptable degree of engineering certainty. But they can absolutely blow it and when they do, it is often because they missed something that they should not have missed. And sometimes people die because of it.

 

I haven't seen criminal charges for incompetence, but I am a hearing officer for the my state bar board and we can and do recommend sanctions including disbarment. The state supreme court can require restitution on top of that.

 

So jail for an incompetent Italian scientist, but a slap on the wrist and a career change for an incompetent American lawyer?

 

From today's headlines:

http://hosted2.ap.org/OHCOL/8ef53207...17081ac6b15f51

"Despite little physical evidence, Harrington and McGhee were convicted at 1978 trials and sentenced to long prison terms. They were freed in 2003, after the Iowa Supreme Court found that prosecutors committed misconduct in concealing reports about another man seen near the crime scene with a shotgun."

So these prosecutors who broke the law and sent someone to prison for 25 years should be "disciplined" by a panel of lawyers, rather than getting the hard time they earned for themselves?

 

That's one way to misconstrue what I wrote.

 

And here is another. I think we were talking about incompetence, not violations of criminal law. Lawyers get prosecuted for breaking the law just like everyone else.