AGAINST CAUTION

When Peggy Sanford, DCF deputy general counsel, was asked to submit a list of suggested witnesses in February 2007, she asked in an e-mail: ``What kind of expert witnesses are needed? To testify to what.''

She was told the attorney general's office wanted someone who could say ``two parent heterosexual families are best.''

Sanford replied: ``I have no experts on this issue. I thought we were relying on following the law.''

Rekers had been used in a previous case involving the state DCF and was retained as an expert witness in an Arkansas case. But the lead trial attorney defending the state ban on adoption, Assistant Attorney General Valerie Martin strongly urged the state not to use him again.

``Dr. Rekers is a right-wing, religious based expert who I was reluctant to use - but nevertheless contacted him with no response,'' Martin wrote in a March 2007 e-mail to John Slye, DCF deputy general counsel.

The trial date was extended to August and the state then considered 35 possible expert witnesses but, Martin said in a July e-mail, she was ordered to hire Rekers ``against my strong cautions.''

McCollum said he was aware that Rekers was not considered as credible in Arkansas as he was in a previous case in which he was used in Florida ``but he was qualified. There was never any dispute over his qualifications.''

Hannah acknowledged they hired Rekers to bolster their case. ``If you haven't hired the experts to help you win the case, then you're not doing the job. You can't sit and rationalize over the expert or later even over his personal life,'' she said.

Staff writers John Frank and Lee Logan contributed to this report.

Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at meklas@MiamiHerald.com