JERRY HOBBS (5); TRIBUNE COLUMNIST STEVE CHAPMAN'S TAKE ON THE POLICE CASE AGAINST HOBBS: "INCREDIBLE."

"The case against Jerry Hobbs always struck me as incredible, in the literal sense of the word. A father gets so angry because his 8-year-old daughter fails to come home that he stabs her eyes out? And stabs her 9-year-old friend to death after she pulls a knife on him? It made no sense to me, but it made sense to Zion police and Lake County prosecutors, who showed an amazing capacity for suspending disbelief.

They found semen on the body and clothing of 8-year-old Laura Hobbs, but tests showed it didn't come from her father. So they insisted she could have picked it up from the ground in the park where she was found. Seriously."

STEVE CHAPMAN: THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE; "MINORITY OF ONE: SOLVING THE WORLD'S PROBLEM'S ONE POST AT A TIME;" Steve Chapman describes himself as, " a columnist and editorial writer with strong opinions about a wide range of issues, and this blog lets me address many of them. What readers can find here is an independent, libertarian perspective beholden to no party, candidate or dogma. Whatever your political outlook, I think you’ll find things to agree with—and things to disagree with."

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BACKGROUND: The northern Illinois man jailed on first-degree murder charges in the 2005 stabbing deaths of his daughter and another young girl was freed early in August, 2010, after prosecutors dropped charges because DNA evidence from the crime scene matched that of another man. Hobbs, 39, had pleaded not guilty in the stabbing deaths of his 8-year-old daughter, Laura, and her friend, 9-year-old Krystal Tobias in Zion, about 50 miles north of Chicago. Prosecutors in Lake County had several months earlier that DNA from the crime scene matched another man who once lived in Zion but was in custody in Virginia after being charged in two attacks on women. The DNA match came on June 25 from a national database, where the man's DNA had been recently entered, according to Lake County Deputy State's Attorney Jeffrey Pavletic. Prosecutors then relaunched their investigation. The man in custody in Virginia has not been charged in the 2005 Zion deaths. In May 2005, Jerry Hobbs reported finding the girls' bodies near their homes in Zion. Both had been stabbed numerous times. Prosecutors alleged Hobbs killed them because he was angry his daughter was outside when she was supposed to be home. Police said Hobbs confessed to the slayings, but his attorneys said the confession was coerced. Both defense attorneys and prosecutors have acknowledged there was no physical evidence linking Hobbs to the killings.

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"The case against Jerry Hobbs always struck me as incredible, in the literal sense of the word," Steve Chapman's Chicago Tribune post published on August 4m 2010 begins, under the heading, "What we learned from the Hobbs case (again);;

"A father gets so angry because his 8-year-old daughter fails to come home that he stabs her eyes out? And stabs her 9-year-old friend to death after she pulls a knife on him? It made no sense to me, but it made sense to Zion police and Lake County prosecutors, who showed an amazing capacity for suspending disbelief," the post continues.

They found semen on the body and clothing of 8-year-old Laura Hobbs, but tests showed it didn't come from her father. So they insisted she could have picked it up from the ground in the park where she was found. Seriously.

What have we learned from this appalling episode, now that Hobbs has been exonerated and released? Three main things: 1) Videotape interrogations to prevent police from abusing their position to extract confessions (not just confessions, as Illinois law now requires); 2) If you fail to do the first, don't believe the resulting statement unless there is lots of strong corroborating evidence; 3) If the police surmise one thing and the DNA results say the opposite, believe the science.

There have been many false confession cases that proved these propositions before. But our law enforcement authorities didn't care, and Jerry Hobbs has paid a horrible price for their indifference."

The post can be found at:

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/steve_chapman/2010/08/what-weve-learned-from-the-hobbs-case-again.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-feature-cases-issues-and.html

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;