Every conclusion tied to statute, training standards, model policy, or the department's own written rules, and verified against the record. Rule 26(a)(2)(B) expert reports for Section 1983 plaintiff's counsel nationwide.
The rules governing police conduct are built in layers: statutes and case law at the foundation, then the state-mandated training standards taught to every academy graduate, then model policy from bodies like the International Association of Chiefs of Police and guidance from the Department of Justice, and finally the department's own written manual, where all of it is supposed to come together.
My work is to lay an incident against that structure and document precisely where the conduct departed from it. Often the most damaging findings are not about national standards at all, but about the department's own written rules, which no one followed and, in some cases, no one had ever read.
Every conclusion is tied to an authority, and every citation is verified personally: quotations checked against the source recordings, record citations checked against the actual Bates-stamped page, training and legal authorities read from the original source document.
I deliver a finished report and take no content input from the retaining party. My professional services agreement tells every client that what I write may not be to their liking. I have declined to continue an engagement, offering to refund the fee, when delays in discovery threatened the quality of the work product. That independence is what survives a Daubert challenge and a hostile cross.
Every quotation is checked against the source recording. Every record citation is checked against the Bates-stamped page. Every training and legal authority is read from the original source document. Nothing is offered as opinion alone.
Robert Woolverton · The verification standard applied to every report
First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim against a municipal police department. The report measures the arresting officer's sworn deposition testimony against video of the incident, the probable cause standard set by controlling case law, and the department's own policy chapters on body-worn cameras, professional standards, and criminal investigations.
Settled
Arrest of a bystander at a traffic stop, charged with disorderly conduct and resisting. The report documents the shifting justifications offered between the incident, the charging decision, and courtroom testimony, and lays the arrest against the probable cause standard and the First Amendment protections that cover speech directed at police.
Settled
Wrongful death claim arising from a high-speed pursuit over a non-violent offense that ended in the death of the fleeing driver. A step-by-step analysis of the decisions to initiate and continue the pursuit, measured against national pursuit research, IACP guidance, and model policy standards for supervision and termination.
Settled
Use-of-force claim brought on behalf of a minor child after an on-duty law enforcement executive used physical force at a high school. The report lays the incident against the legal standards governing use of force and documents what was missing from the record itself: no use-of-force report and no body-worn camera video.
Settled
False arrest claim arising from a domestic violence investigation by a major-city police department. The report traces the investigation step by step, documenting the exculpatory evidence available at the scene and the credibility warnings raised by other officers, then measures the supervisory response against POST training standards and department policy, framing the failure to train and supervise.
Settled
Unlawful seizure and detention claim arising from a police and county crisis-team co-response. A 41-page report laying the incident against statute, POST training standards, and the department's own written policies: more than 50 footnotes, two appendices, and a timestamped table of every refusal captured on body-worn camera.
Pending · Expert report submitted
Civil rights claim against a nationally accredited state police agency. An initial case review followed by a supplemental statement built on newly available evidence: the agency's own public records production and sworn command-staff deposition testimony, measured against the written policies its accreditation certifies. Eight findings reducing to a single Monell custom-and-practice conclusion, documenting the gap between policy on paper and practice on the ground.
Pending · Expert report and supplement submitted
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A master checklist of 166 records and information requests for police misconduct litigation, organized in four tiers: the incident, the individual officers, the department itself for Monell claims, and claim-specific add-on modules. It includes the categories most plaintiff's attorneys never see requested: insurance and claims payout histories, early intervention system records, internal investigation disposition summaries. Check off what applies and adapt the items into requests for production, interrogatories, or subpoenas.
Excerpts from a 41-page Rule 26(a)(2)(B) expert report prepared in an active Section 1983 matter, fully de-identified. The excerpt includes the complete Summary of Principal Opinions, the section explaining how the rules governing police conduct are established, one full analysis section showing conclusions tied to authority and verified against the record, and a timestamped appendix of every refusal captured on body-worn camera. The complete redacted report is available on request.
The Monell doctrine (Monell v. Dept. of Social Services, 1978) holds that municipalities can be liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 not just for the acts of individual officers, but for the policies, customs, and culture that gave rise to those acts.
This is precisely where my expertise is most valuable. I spent 34 years inside law enforcement leadership: training officers, building policy, observing what command culture actually produces on the street. I can document, in specific and legally defensible terms, how an agency's culture, supervision, and training created the conditions for the violation your client suffered.
The "bad apple" defense exists because it works, until someone with real command experience demonstrates that it wasn't a bad apple. It was a bad barrel.
Psychiatric holds, crisis intervention, co-response teams, disability accommodations in police encounters: this is one of the fastest growing categories of Section 1983 litigation, and one of the least served by qualified experts. These are often the purest systemic failure cases there are. A protocol the department's own manual required, and no one ever produced. A policy change that nobody in the field was briefed on. A co-response program whose entire documented training is measured in minutes.
I am not a mental health expert, and I offer no opinions on clinical judgment: whether a subject was suicidal, whether a diagnosis was correct, or what a clinician should have concluded. I opine on what the advisement statute required, what the documentation policy demanded, who held legal authority at each moment, and whether the agency trained and governed its people. That is police practices, and it is where these cases are won or lost.
I don't second-guess split-second tactical decisions. I examine the institutional conditions that made them necessary.
I am a second-generation law enforcement officer; my father retired from the Seattle Police Department. I spent 34 years as a police executive, working at every level of law enforcement leadership before retiring and turning my expertise toward something that matters deeply to me: ensuring that people who have been harmed by their government have access to justice.
As a graduate of the FBI National Academy at Quantico, an intensive leadership program for executive law enforcement officers from across the United States and around the world, not FBI agents, I understand at a deep level how professional standards in law enforcement are defined and where departments fall short. I also served as a leadership instructor for the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission for 12 years. I know how command culture forms, how training shapes behavior, and how to demonstrate, in court, when an agency's leadership created the conditions for a civil rights violation.
Written for attorneys evaluating a case. If you are an individual who believes you experienced police misconduct, start with the information for individuals page.
The Monell doctrine comes from Monell v. Dept. of Social Services (1978) and allows municipalities to be held liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: not just for the acts of individual officers, but for the policies, customs, and culture that gave rise to those acts. A Monell claim targets the institution. Proving it requires expert testimony from someone with real command-level experience who can document how an agency's culture, supervision, and training created the conditions for the violation.
A Section 1983 claim is a federal civil rights lawsuit allowing individuals to sue government officials, including police, for violating constitutional rights. These cases commonly involve excessive force, false arrest, unlawful search and seizure, or other Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment violations. When the suit targets the department or municipality itself, it proceeds under the Monell doctrine, which requires proving that a policy, custom, or pattern of conduct caused the violation.
An expert witness in police misconduct cases reviews department policies, training records, supervisory practices, use-of-force incidents, and command culture to determine whether systemic failures contributed to the constitutional violation. The expert prepares a Rule 26(a)(2)(B) disclosure, a detailed report connecting the department's institutional failures to the plaintiff's harm, with every conclusion tied to an authority and verified against the record.
Report work is a flat fee, quoted up front before the engagement begins, inclusive of case review calls and post-report discussion. There is no open-ended hourly exposure while the report is being prepared. Deposition and trial testimony, when needed, are billed separately and set out in the professional services agreement. Contact me for a current quote.
Most civil cases settle, whatever the strength of the experts involved. What an expert report changes is the quality of the information both sides use to value the case. A report that lays the incident against statute, training standards, model policy, and the department's own written rules, with every citation verified against the record, gives counsel on both sides a documented picture of the institutional failures at issue. Settlement decisions belong to the parties. The report's job is to make sure they are made with the facts on the table.
Consultations are confidential. I work with civil rights attorneys at any stage of litigation, from early case evaluation through trial. Report work is a flat fee, quoted up front, with no open-ended hourly exposure.
206-794-8070 · bob@policemisconductpro.com · LinkedIn Profile