March 28, 2015
Thomas Lee Goldstein v. City of Long Beach, et al.
The plaintiff was convicted of a crime and incarcerated for over 20 years before the charges ultimately were dismissed. Mr. Goldstein’s conviction was due, in part, to the defendants’ use of a jailhouse informant who testified against Mr. Goldstein in 1979.
Econ One was retained by counsel for the plaintiff to provide an expert probability analysis on the use of a jailhouse informant. Brian Kriegler examined whether the City of Long Beach used a disproportionate number of jailhouse informants in Los Angeles County from 1979 through 1989, given crime and officer data from the same period. Dr. Kriegler concluded that the Long Beach Police Department had a substantially higher number of jailhouse informant cases than one would expect, based on chance. Dr. Kriegler submitted two declarations and provided deposition testimony. He was slated to testify at trial as an expert, but the parties settled prior to trial for approximately $8 million.
