A Fulton County judge on Friday heard a challenge by former Atlanta schools Superintendent Beverly Hall’s defense attorneys to the admission of erasure analysis testimony.
Lawyers for Hall are asking Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter to exclude the analysis and expert testimony at the racketeering conspiracy trial scheduled to begin in August. The analysis and testimony are expected to show improbably high wrong-to-right erasures on the standardized tests, leading experts to conclude that cheating had to have occurred.
Hall’s legal team contends the erasure analysis is too unreliable to be allowed to be admitted into evidence at trial. The hearing continues this afternoon.
Hall, who did not attend the hearing on advice of her doctor, is scheduled to stand trial with a dozen other co-defendants. Ten of those co-defendants have joined in with Hall’s motion to exclude the erasure analysis of the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test.
Earlier this week, Baxter granted Hall’s request to continue the trial to allow her to receive new rounds of chemotherapy to treat her Stage IV breast cancer, which has spread to her liver and her bones.
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