Frequent expert witness surrenders his medical license

A psychiatrist who often testifies in Iowa criminal trials says he intends to continue working as an expert witness even though he no longer has a medical license.

Dr. Michael Taylor of Cumming surrendered his state license on April 8, the Iowa Board of Medicine reported this week. The board had accused Taylor of failing to maintain appropriate medical records on several patients. It said the psychiatrist demonstrated a “failure to conform to the minimal standard of acceptable and prevailing practice of medicine.”

Taylor, 70, is a regular presence in Iowa courtrooms, where he is paid to offer opinions about whether defendants are legally insane. He said in an interview Friday that he has testified in hundreds of cases, and he intends to continue doing so. “There’s nothing in Iowa law that says an expert witness needs to be licensed,” he said.

Just this week, he testified for the prosecution in the Polk County murder trial of Patrick Kirwan, who killed a neighbor. Kirwan’s lawyers said the shooting stemmed from a mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder from his Army service in Iraq. Taylor successfully rebutted the defense’s legal-insanity claim. The jury Thursday convicted Kirwan of second-degree murder.

A trial transcript shows that under questioning Tuesday from a prosecutor in the Kirwan case, Taylor told jurors he recently surrendered his medical license to settle allegations he failed to keep proper records in his home office for 11 longtime patients. He said that he had been planning to retire from patient care anyway, and that he stopped seeing patients last October.

Medical board records show that besides giving up his medical license, Taylor agreed to pay a $5,000 fine.

Taylor has testified for the prosecution or defense in numerous prominent criminal cases. For example, he was a key prosecution witness in the 2010 murder trial of Mark Becker of Parkersburg, whose lawyers contended his severe schizophrenia made him legally insane. Becker shot high-school football coach Ed Thomas in front of horrified high-school students. The case garnered national attention because of Thomas' fame as a coach and town leader.

Despite Becker’s hallucinations and bizarre rants about demons, Taylor testified the young man was legally sane when he killed Thomas. “He wasn’t running around like a chicken with his head cut off,” the psychiatrist testified. “He was pursuing his prey in a well-organized, meticulous, methodical manner.”

The jury turned down Becker's insanity defense and convicted him of first-degree murder.

Drake University law professor Robert Rigg, who works as a defense lawyer, said Taylor is correct that he does not need a medical license to serve as an expert psychiatric witness in court. “In Iowa, we have really liberal rules about expert testimony,” Rigg said.

The professor said opposing lawyers could try to undermine Taylor’s credibility by raising the fact he no longer has a state medical license. The lawyers could suggest that failing to keep proper medical records indicates the psychiatrist doesn’t keep up on current practices and findings in his field. However, Rigg said, lawyers probably will continue to hire Taylor as an expert witness because he is effective at testifying.