Having watched this, and having forgotten a lot of the Jay Ward testimony, including the voir dire testimony, I find it interesting the appeals court is focusing on whether Jay Ward's lack of "forensic" qualifications excludes him from testifying as an expert. I agree with the appeal court that the word "forensic" isn't particular helpful to determine qualifications.
That being said, Jay Ward's expertise was network security, not in how data should appear on a hard drive for any particular operating system.
In any event, Jay Ward was allowed to testify as a network security expert, was he not?
I found both appellate counsel's arguments poor-- in that they both missed their best points, but that's just my opinion. I found it interesting that the appeal panel focused a lot on the threshold test to qualify an expert under the NC rules.
I also found it interesting that Brad's appellate counsel chose to not throw Kurtz under the bus. And that Kurtz was in the front row watching.
This appeal is not really about whether Brad did it, which I'm confident he did, but rather, on the integrity of the process. And that's fine too. Brad may very well obtain a new trial in this.
Looking back, I expect the state, knowing about the technical side better now than they seem to before, would have a stronger case the second time around.