Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Flawed arson "science." Ed Graf case; Editorial; Dallas News. "Duty to correct bad cases."


STORY: "Editorial: Duty to correct bad arson cases," published by the Dallas Daily News on January 9, 2013.

GIST: "As a fledgling agency, the Forensic Science Commission took heat for stretching its authority in 2008 and accepting the Willingham case for review. This newspaper is glad it did, even though the law creating the commission didn’t expressly list arson as a forensic science under its purview. The commission’s final report — while not commenting on Willingham’s guilt or innocence — said prosecutors relied on arson investigators who had a poor understanding of fire science and learned their craft when there were no uniform standards. Those very themes surfaced in the Graf case, in reports compiled by experts retained by the Innocence Project of Texas. Prosecutors put Graf away for life after his two stepsons burned to death in a frame storage shed behind his house. Yet the state arson investigator had little grasp of how fire burns and employed “old wives’ tales” in reaching conclusions, one expert wrote. Worse, there was no “crime scene” to examine, since the burned-up shed had been knocked down by volunteer firefighters and hauled off to a dump. Graf, at the very least, deserves another day in court. That’s consistent with one major theme in the Forensic Science Commission’s final Willingham report. It stressed the “duty to correct” when investigators become aware of advances in fire science that could reverse a criminal conviction."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20130109-editorial-duty-to-correct-bad-arson-cases.ece

Background from the Arson Project with supporting documents:

http://www.thearsonproject.org/cases/cases-graf.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

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 found at:

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

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.