Saturday, October 31, 2015

Bulletin: The Monfils Six: Wisconsin; Dozens March for Justice for the Monfils Six; "Now new evidence has been brought forward by Keith Kutska, one of the men convicted of murder. Kutska is seeking a new trial claiming Monfils committed suicide. That appeal is giving hope to the others that are serving time and on the outside who are fighting for justice." NBC 26;


"This is the sixth year for the Monfils Six Walk, a case that's been taken up by the Innocense Project to free the men who were found guilty in 1995 of murdering their co-worker. One of the six men, Mike Piaskowski, has since been released from prison but the other five; Dale Basten, Mike Hirn, Mike Johnson, Rey Moore and Keith Kutska are still behind bars. Tom Monfils was found dead at the former James River Paper Mill, now Georgia Pacific.  His body was discovered in a pulp vat with a 50 pound weight tied to his neck.  Now new evidence has been brought forward by Keith Kutska, one of the men convicted of murder.  Kutska is seeking a new trial  claiming Monfils committed suicide.  That appeal is giving hope to the others that are serving time and on the outside who are fighting for justice. ........Kutska is currently awaiting to hear whether he will get a new trial following his new evidence claim."
http://www.nbc26.com/news/dozens-march-for-justice-for-the-monfils-six

Bulletin: Predictive policng": Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes; "The strategy, known as predictive policing, combines elements of traditional policing, like increased attention to crime “hot spots” and close monitoring of recent parolees. But it often also uses other data, including information about friendships, social media activity and drug use, to identify “hot people” and aid the authorities in forecasting crime. The program here has been named the Kansas City No Violence Alliance, or KC NoVA. And the message on that June night to Mr. Brown and the others was simple: The next time they, or anyone in their crews, commit a violent act, the police will come after everyone in the group for whatever offense they can make stick, no matter how petty.........“We have a moral reason to do a better job at addressing violence in this community,” said Jean Peters Baker, the prosecutor for Jackson County, which includes Kansas City. “I don’t know that this will work, but we need to try.” The use of computer models by local law enforcement agencies to forecast crime is part of a larger trend by governments and corporations that are increasingly turning to predictive analytics and data mining in looking at behaviors. Typically financed by the federal government, the strategy is being used by dozens of police departments — including Los Angeles, Miami and Nashville — and district attorneys’ offices in Manhattan and Philadelphia." New York Times;


"At the request of his probation officer, Tyrone C. Brown came to a community auditorium here in June and sat alongside about 30 other mostly young black men with criminal records — men who were being watched closely by the police, just as he was. He expected to hear an admonition from law enforcement officials to help end violence in the community. But Mr. Brown, 29, got more than he had bargained for. A police captain presented a slide show featuring mug shots of people they were cracking down on. Up popped a picture of Mr. Brown linking him to a criminal group that had been implicated in a homicide. “I was disturbed,” said Mr. Brown, who acknowledges having been involved in crime but denied that he had ever been involved in a killing. That discomfort was just the reaction the authorities were after. The strategy, known as predictive policing, combines elements of traditional policing, like increased attention to crime “hot spots” and close monitoring of recent parolees. But it often also uses other data, including information about friendships, social media activity and drug use, to identify “hot people” and aid the authorities in forecasting crime. The program here has been named the Kansas City No Violence Alliance, or KC NoVA. And the message on that June night to Mr. Brown and the others was simple: The next time they, or anyone in their crews, commit a violent act, the police will come after everyone in the group for whatever offense they can make stick, no matter how petty.........“We have a moral reason to do a better job at addressing violence in this community,” said Jean Peters Baker, the prosecutor for Jackson County, which includes Kansas City. “I don’t know that this will work, but we need to try.” The use of computer models by local law enforcement agencies to forecast crime is part of a larger trend by governments and corporations that are increasingly turning to predictive analytics and data mining in looking at behaviors. Typically financed by the federal government, the strategy is being used by dozens of police departments — including Los Angeles, Miami and Nashville — and district attorneys’ offices in Manhattan and Philadelphia."

Friday, October 30, 2015

Bulletin: Automatic justice: Is technology eliminating the presumption of Innocence? An excellent question posed by Phil Locke of the Wrongfull Convictions Blog; "The agents of the justice system – lawyers, judges, police, and especially juries – have been notoriously ignorant regarding the scientific, technological, and mathematical issues of evidence. This is why so much of the justice system depends upon so-called “experts” to try to understand and explain what all the technology means; but, these experts, often self-styled, may be legitimate — or they may not be. Unfortunately the lawyers, judges, and juries have no way to tell..........All this, unfortunately, leaves the justice system, and the defendant, at the mercy of “experts,” and there is no scientific way built into the justice system to sort through which “science” is true and correct, and which is junk – and which experts are truly expert, and which are charlatans."


"A recent legal research paper from the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London has raised the issue of technology’s impact upon the criminal justice system, and how its effect may be replacing presumption of innocence with presumption of guilt. A truly frightening prospect. You can download the paper here: Automatic justice? Technology, Crime and Social Control. The nature of evidence in the justice system has steadily been evolving to be ever more founded in technology, be it legitimate and proven technology … or not. And the tendency is for the prosecution (and police) to say, “We have ‘scientific’ evidence of your guilt; therefore, you are guilty.” And here’s the problem: much of this “technology” has not been verified and statistically validated. It just gets presented in court as “science,” and judges, lawyers, and juries don’t have a clue as to whether or not it’s actually accurate or relevant. How do you know the latest “computer app” is actually true and accurate? You don’t. We’ve seen frequent examples of so-called forensic “science” being proven wrong. Just three of these would be compositional analysis of bullet lead (CABL), microscopic hair comparison, and bite marks. There are currently thousands of cases under re-investigation as a result of scientifically flawed FBI hair comparison work and testimony. There are some infamous cases of fingerprint identifications being wrong; one of these being the case of Brandon Mayfield. Most people, (including lawyers) don’t understand that there is huge margin for error in locating a cell phone through cell towers. The agents of the justice system – lawyers, judges, police, and especially juries – have been notoriously ignorant regarding the scientific, technological, and mathematical issues of evidence. This is why so much of the justice system depends upon so-called  “experts” to try to understand and explain what all the technology means; but, these experts, often self-styled, may be legitimate — or they may not be. Unfortunately the lawyers, judges, and juries have no way to tell..........All this, unfortunately, leaves the justice system, and the defendant, at the mercy of “experts,” and there is no scientific way built into the justice system to sort through which “science” is true and correct, and which is junk – and which experts are truly expert, and which are charlatans. From the conclusion of the paper: “Our deepest concern is the emergence of a potentially unfettered move towards a technologically driven process of ‘automatic criminal justice.’” We – all of us – have a problem. The justice system was never conceived or designed to comprehend the explosion of technology. And the lawyers and judges are not trained or prepared to deal with it. It’s a problem."
http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2015/10/29/automatic-justice/

Discredited bite-mark evidence: Steven Chaney; Cases based on discredited bite-mark evidence will be tough to find. "Chaney said he hopes his case will serve as a warning to other prosecutors. He said the evidence shouldn’t be used under any circumstances. “It’s not like fingerprints or DNA,” Chaney said. “What you are getting is somebody’s opinion, and it’s not fact.” Chris Fabricant, director of strategic litigation at the New York-based Innocence Project, pointed to a study the forensic odontologists board conducted last year that concluded many of the dentists in the group couldn’t even identify which injuries were bite marks. “There is no basic or applied research that supports any claims that bite-mark experts routinely make,” Fabricant said. “It has no business in criminal court, period.”" Dallas Morning News. Dallas Morning News


STORY: "Cases based on discredited bite-mark evidence will be tough to find," by reporters Brandi Grissom and Jennifer Emily, published by the Dallas Morning News on October 25, 2015.

PHOTO CAPTION:  "Steven Chaney was released from prison nearly 30 years after bite-mark analysis was used to convict him in a Dallas County double homicide."

GIST;  "No one knows just how many more Steven Chaneys are sitting in Texas prisons — men and women convicted of crimes based on outdated dental analysis that scientists now say is nonsense. In some ways, Chaney was one of the lucky ones. He was released from prison two weeks ago after a Dallas County district judge agreed his murder conviction and life sentence in a 1987 double homicide were based on unreliable scientific conclusions about his teeth. He got a shot at freedom because defense lawyers and the Dallas County Conviction Integrity Unit identified his case and set about investigating the bite-mark evidence that had secured his conviction. Tracking down dozens — maybe hundreds — of other potentially innocent victims of junk science won’t be nearly as easy. There is no central repository of cases in which bite-mark testimony was key. There’s no database of dentists who testified about bite marks. And the cases are mostly decades old, and experts, defense lawyers and prosecutors have moved on or died. As Chaney settles into life on the outside after just a couple weeks of freedom — learning to use a cellphone and the TV remote — lawyers and criminal justice officials statewide are trying to figure out how to find others like Chaney. The Texas Forensic Science Commission, a tiny agency charged with overseeing the use of science in courtrooms, is working to ferret out those cases while ensuring that wrongful convictions based on faulty bite-mark interpretations don’t continue. But it’s a lofty task, and the commission, with four employees and a $500,000 annual budget, can’t do it without help. “We rely on the community’s willingness to step forward and take an introspective look at their work,” said Lynn Robitaille Garcia, the Forensic Science Commission’s executive director. Since the 1950s, prosecutors have invoked the testimony of dentists who compared molds of suspects’ teeth to bite marks left at a crime scene. In Chaney’s case, Dr. Jim Hales told the jury that there was a “one-to-a-million chance” that anybody but the Dallas construction worker had made a bite mark found on the body of one of the victims, John Sweek. (Chaney hasn’t been fully exonerated, and his case isn’t finally settled.) In recent years, though, the nation’s foremost forensic science bodies have concluded that no scientific data exists to support the notion that such an exact match can be made. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences published a report that concluded there was insufficient scientific basis to conclusively match bite marks. The Associated Press reported in 2013 that at least 24 people had been exonerated in cases in which bite-mark evidence played a central role in the conviction. And even the American Board of Forensic Odontologists, the body that certifies dentists who analyze bite marks, has decided the evidence can’t be used to draw strong conclusions, such as in Chaney’s trial. “People had made statements about the validity of bite marks that were greatly exaggerated,” said Dr. Adam Freeman, a forensic odontologist and the incoming American Board of Forensic Odontologists president. Hales, in an affidavit filed with the court, acknowledged that the testimony he gave in Chaney’s case is inaccurate.
Chaney’s case is likely to be just the first of many reviewed. In a set of bizarre Waco cases, at least three men were convicted of murder in trials that hinged on testimony from the same dentists involved in Chaney’s case. Two of the men were exonerated by DNA after spending a total of nearly two decades in prison. The third man, David Spence, was sentenced to death and executed in 1997. His son, Jason Spence, wants prosecutors and the commission to re-open the case. “I want his name cleared,” said Spence, who lives in Alabama. “They took away my father over something he did not do.” To find more bite-mark cases, the Texas Forensic Science Commission will comb through legal documents available online. They’ll also ask prosecutors and defense lawyers to review old cases. Dallas County District Attorney Susan Hawk is the first prosecutor in the nation to agree to an inmate’s release from prison because of faulty dental testimony. Other counties have taken note of the Chaney case, and some are reviewing old cases and mulling whether to continue using bite-mark evidence in prosecutions. In Tarrant County, prosecutors are working with the medical examiner to determine how many involved bite marks. “We aren’t expecting it to be a large number,” said Samantha K. Jordan, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Sharen Wilson. In Harris County, prosecutors will no longer go forward with cases in which a bite mark is the lone evidence.........Chaney said he hopes his case will serve as a warning to other prosecutors. He said the evidence shouldn’t be used under any circumstances. “It’s not like fingerprints or DNA,” Chaney said. “What you are getting is somebody’s opinion, and it’s not fact.” Chris Fabricant, director of strategic litigation at the New York-based Innocence Project, pointed to a study the forensic odontologists board conducted last year that concluded many of the dentists in the group couldn’t even identify which injuries were bite marks. “There is no basic or applied research that supports any claims that bite-mark experts routinely make,” Fabricant said. “It has no business in criminal court, period.”"

The entire story can be found at"

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20151025-cases-based-on-discredited-bite-mark-evidence-will-be-tough-to-find.ece

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html  
I look forward to hearing from readers at:

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

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Bulletin: Annie Dookhan; Crime lab scandals just keep getting worst; How many people are in jail based on faked data? "When a crime lab screws up, whose responsibility is it to clean up the mess?.......Over the past decade, crime lab scandals have plagued at least 20 states, as well as the FBI. We know that one of the unintended consequences of the war on drugs has been a rush to prosecute and convict and that crime labs have not operated with sufficient independence from prosecutors’ offices in many instances. Their mistakes ruin lives. Years of deliberate falsification have ruined thousands of lives. We also know that there remains almost no reason for a prosecutor’s office to admit error and that the cost of fixing those errors can become prohibitive. So what do we do when a scandal infects hundreds or thousands of prosecutions? If Massachusetts is any indication, even three years later, we still don’t do all that much."


STORY: "Crime Lab Scandals Just Keep Getting Worse; How many people are in jail based on faked data?, by Dahlia Lithwick, published by Slate. (Dahlia Lithwick writes about the courts and the law for Slate.)

GIST: "Earlier this year, I wrote about a sprawling prosecutorial scandal in Orange County, California, involving a long-standing program of secret jailhouse snitches that had tainted prosecutions in cases almost too numerous to count. This story has only continued to worsen. One of the prosecutors at the heart of the case simply packed up and left California last month, and just this week the news emerged that Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas had been told that his office might have a jailhouse informant problem all the way back to 1999, a full 16 years before the current allegations about the misuse of jailhouse  snitches had surfaced. The problem with a scandal on this order of magnitude isn’t just that it reflects a fundamental flaw in the justice system. The problem is that, as a purely practical matter, there is simply no easy way to correct it. In Orange County, some convictions have been tossed, others have been stalled, and a call for a Justice Department investigation has gone unheeded. Even years after cases like this come to light, undoing or redoing wrongful convictions proves almost impossible to achieve, especially when the state believes someone else should be cleaning up the mess. Perhaps the most dramatic example of a massive scandal that cannot seem to be reversed involves Annie Dookhan, a chemist who worked at a Massachusetts state lab drug analysis unit. Dookhan was sentenced in 2013 to at least three years in prison, after pleading guilty in 2012 to having falsified thousands of drug tests. Among her extracurricular crime lab activities, Dookhan failed to properly test drug samples before declaring them positive, mixed up samples to create positive tests, forged signatures, and lied about her own credentials. Over her nine-year career, Dookhan tested about 60,000 samples involved in roughly 34,000 criminal cases. Three years later, the state of Massachusetts still can’t figure out how to repair the damage she wrought almost single-handedly. By the close of 2014, despite the fact that there were between 20,000-40,000 so-called “Dookhan defendants” (depending on whether you accept the state’s numbers or the American Civil Liberties Union’s), fewer than 1,200 had filed for postconviction relief.* Many of them were sentenced under plea agreements rather than at trial, and they feared that a re-examination of their cases could potentially lead to even longer sentences. So the ACLU of Massachusetts stepped in last spring, filing Bridgeman v. DA of Suffolk County to ensure that no defendants would face harsher penalties if they challenged their Dookhan evidence. In May, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts unanimously ordered that each of the defendants whose guilty pleas were based on Dookhan’s evidence could seek new trials without facing added charges or stiffer sentences. The state court stopped short of ordering each of the convictions vacated—the remedy sought by the ACLU. But the court effectively capped any defendant’s sentence to what it would have been under the original plea agreement. The state argues that most of those Dookhan defendants were surely guilty of something, and the cost of vacating all of their convictions would be chaos. There has already been one reported homicide attributed to a freed Dookhan defendant. In 2012, Donta Hood had his conviction thrown out because Dookhan had tested his drug evidence and testified against him at trial. He was released from prison two years early and charged with murder a year later. Of course, there are also an awful lot of folks whose convictions were predicated on a massive fraud. Many of them don’t even know this, and most cannot afford to hire attorneys to reopen their cases. Even if they have already served their sentences, the collateral impact of having drug convictions infects every part of their lives. Who is responsible for fixing that? When a crime lab screws up, whose responsibility is it to clean up the mess? In Massachusetts it doesn’t even end there. Only a few months after Dookhan’s conviction, it was discovered that another Massachusetts crime lab worker, Sonja Farak, who was addicted to drugs, not only stole her supply from the evidence room but also tampered with samples and performed tests under the influence, thus tainting as many as 10,000 or more prosecutions. Records show Farak used cocaine, crack, or methamphetamines daily or almost daily while she was at work, as well as ketamine, MDMA, ecstasy, phentermine, amphetamines, LSD, and marijuana. Farak pleaded guilty and served 18 months behind bars. But in April, Massachusetts’ highest court found that state law enforcement officials had never fully investigated the scope of Farak’s wrongdoing, retesting only 10 samples of her work. And based on new discoveries by defense lawyers, the extent of Farak’s drug abuse now appears far greater than was initially alleged. Officials at the time of Farak’s arrest claimed she had tampered with the drugs she tested beginning only in July 2012, and only after she had tested each sample. That is now in serious doubt. Retired Superior Court Judge Peter A. Velis was appointed by Attorney General Maura Healey to examine the Farak case after the April ruling, and he is tasked with determining the real scope of wrongdoing from the Farak case. Among other things, Velis’ investigation is now looking into allegations by several defense lawyers that the attorney general’s office under then–Attorney General Martha Coakley deliberately withheld evidence that the Farak scandal was much worse than it let on. Two defense attorneys, Luke Ryan and Rebecca Jacobstein, subpoenaed Farak’s medical records to see if their clients had been affected and found that her drug use and theft had extended all the way back to 2004, eight full years before the state claimed it began. They contend that this new evidence warrants a review of all 29,000 samples Farak claimed to have tested during her career. They also claim the government concealed this “smoking gun” evidence from defense attorneys.........Documents revealing Farak’s addiction were kept from defense lawyers for more than a year and a half, despite multiple requests. Once they were finally able to inspect these documents, defense attorneys obtained court orders requiring Farak’s clinicians to produce copies of their treatment records.* Judge C. Jeffrey Kinder ruled last June that Farak’s treatment records should be unsealed because they contain information that could be important to others whose cases involved evidence tainted by Farak. Among the newly revealed records are these notes from a local Amherst, Massachusetts, therapist who treated Farak in 2009 and 2010: “She obtains the drugs from her job at the state drug lab, by taking portions of samples that have come in to be tested.”  Despite the defense counsel’s requests for “any third party who may have been aware of Farak’s evidence tampering” in late 2013, the prosecutor’s office had claimed “there is no reason to believe that a third party had knowledge of Farak’s alleged malfeasance prior to her arrest. A prosecutor from the attorney general’s office called the evidence defense attorneys were seeking “irrelevant to any case other than Farak’s,” dismissing requests for evidence that Farak’s drug use had been long-standing as “merely a fishing expedition.” Ryan learned that one of his clients had been convicted with evidence Farak had produced on a day she was using drugs. But as Ryan has pointed out, relief comes case by case, and many who have been convicted using tainted evidence never even know they are eligible for relief. As Ryan told the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the Farak defendants may prove even harder to track down and help than those who were tainted by Dookhan, which would be a nightmare: Almost three years after Dookhan’s arrest, only 8,700 of those defendants have been assigned lawyers, Ryan said. “And in this case, we don’t even have a list.” Despite the ongoing scandal, the district attorneys take the position that it is not their responsibility to help identify Dookhan or Farak defendants. They lack the budgets or resources to do so, and—as they have argued in oral argument in the Bridgeman case—prosecutors have no special duty to notify defendants that their convictions might have been obtained with evidence that was falsified by government employees.  So the question remains: When a crime lab screws up, whose responsibility is it to clean up the mess?.......Over the past decade, crime lab scandals have plagued at least 20 states, as well as the FBI. We know that one of the unintended consequences of the war on drugs has been a rush to prosecute and convict and that crime labs have not operated with sufficient independence from prosecutors’ offices in many instances. Their mistakes ruin lives. Years of deliberate falsification have ruined thousands of lives. We also know that there remains almost no reason for a prosecutor’s office to admit error and that the cost of fixing those errors can become prohibitive. So what do we do when a scandal infects hundreds or thousands of prosecutions? If Massachusetts is any indication, even three years later, we still don’t do all that much." (Correction: In an Oct. 28 Crime, Dahlia Lithwick misstated that Massachusetts lab worker Sonja Farak’s medical records were hidden from defense counsel. Other documents were kept from counsel leading to discovery of the medical records. Also, due to a production error, this article misidentified the American Civil Liberties Union as the American Civil Liberty Union.)

The entire article can be found at:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/10/massachusetts_crime_lab_scandal_worsens_dookhan_and_farak.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html  
I look forward to hearing from readers at:

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

Forensics acoustics analysis; Opportunity to volunteer in an interesting research project tied to an interesting event in Canadian political history: The Saskatchewan robocall scandal; Link to further information provided. (Sounds neat; I'm signing up!) HL.


PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I have been approached by a researcher conducting "forensic voice comparison" at the University of Alberta - and have offered to draw the opportunity to the attention of our readers,'

The research specifically  relates to the Saskatchewan robocall scandal from a couple of year ago.

The project is looking for adult male speakers of western Canadian English (western excludes people who clearly have Newfoundland or Maritimes accents). They have to make 5 short telephone calls to the project's lab  - they can do this from their own home or office, everything is done via e-mail and telephone so they never have to come to the  lab. There is a $25 gift certificate for anyone who completes the task.

Just one significant requirement to point out: The Project is seeking  volunteers who can make the calls from a landline telephone (service provided by either the telephone company or cable company).

More details: http://aphl.artsrn.ualberta.ca/?p=430

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;

Bulletin: Keiko Aoki and Tatsyhiro Boku: Japan: Pair held 20 years in arson-murder case released for retrial; "Upholding the lower court decision, the Osaka High Court concluded Friday that the fire could have been accidental and that Boku’s arson confession had lost credibility. The pair’s lawyers conducted an experiment to simulate the fire and claimed it was accidentally caused by a bathtub water heater and gasoline leaking from a car in their garage. After lodging an objection to the district court decision on the retrial, prosecutors conducted their own experiment but failed to reverse the defense claim. Experts say the ruling follows a trend where courts focus more on evidence with a scientific basis than on suspects’ confessions."


A man and woman serving life in prison for starting a fire that killed the woman’s 11-year-old daughter were freed Monday when the Osaka High Court ordered their release following a decision to reopen the arson-murder case. At around 2 p.m., Keiko Aoki, 51, walked out of a prison in Wakayama Prefecture while Tatsuhiro Boku, 49, was released from a prison in Oita Prefecture. They had been behind bars for two decades. Prosecutors had sought to prevent their release.........Last Friday, the Osaka High Court endorsed a March 2012 lower court decision to grant a retrial to Aoki, the mother of the 11-year-old victim, and Boku, her de facto husband. Both were serving life terms after being found guilty of setting their house on fire in a bid to kill the girl and collect on the life insurance. They pleaded not guilty during their initial trial, even though at one point during questioning by police and prosecutors they had admitted to the allegations. In Friday’s decision, Judge Masaaki Yoneyama said there is a high possibility that the two are not guilty and that it would be “unjust to further detain them 20 years after their arrest.” The couple were arrested in September 1995 on murder charges, and their conviction was finalized by the Supreme Court in late 2006. The Osaka District Court decided in 2012 to reopen the case after the two requested a retrial in 2009. Upholding the lower court decision, the Osaka High Court concluded Friday that the fire could have been accidental and that Boku’s arson confession had lost credibility. The pair’s lawyers conducted an experiment to simulate the fire and claimed it was accidentally caused by a bathtub water heater and gasoline leaking from a car in their garage. After lodging an objection to the district court decision on the retrial, prosecutors conducted their own experiment but failed to reverse the defense claim. Experts say the ruling follows a trend where courts focus more on evidence with a scientific basis than on suspects’ confessions."
 http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2015/10/26/more-on-higashi-sumiyoshi-arson-case/

SeeDaily Mail on line report: "Defence lawyers had argued that subsequent tests suggested the fire was likely not arson, and there were questions about whether the boyfriend was forced into a false confession during his interrogation. Prosecutors had also failed in their attempts to re-create the fire with key details from his original confession, reports said. Their release comes after Iwao Hakamada -- believed to be the world's longest-serving death row inmate -- walked free from jail last year after decades in solitary confinement, in a rare about-face for Japan's rigid justice system. He had been accused of being responsible for the grisly 1966 murder of his boss and the man's family, but doubts arose about the reliability of his confession. Confessions are common in Japanese criminal cases and typically seal the fate of almost all those charged with crimes. Masaru Okunishi, who had spent decades seeking a retrial while sitting on death row, passed away this month at the age of 89. He had been convicted of multiple counts of murder for slipping pesticides into wine at a community party in a remote mountain village in the early sixties."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3289678/Japan-couple-freed-20-years-doubt-murder-guilt.html

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Bulletin; Larry Swearingen; Texas; Court Again Denies DNA Tests in Death Row Case


STORY: "Court Again Denies DNA Tests in Death Row Case." by reporter Johnathan Silver,  published by The Texas Tribune,  on October 28, 2015.   
 
PHOTO CAPTION: "Death row inmate Larry Swearingen during an interview at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Melissa Trotter. He says he is innocent and that she was killed while he was already in jail for other offenses."
 
GIST: "The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for the second time Wednesday reversed a state district judge’s order that would have allowed East Texas death row inmate Larry Swearingen to test DNA from evidence in his murder case. Swearingen, 44, was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing 19-year-old Melissa Trotter, then a Lone Star College student in 1998. He was sentenced to death in 2000. His execution date has been set and stayed multiple times. The death row inmate has argued that he couldn’t have killed Trotter because he was in jail when she was murdered, and DNA testing would prove that someone else committed the crime. State District Judge Kelly Case twice granted Swearingen’s requests for evidence to be tested...Each time, the court ultimately has ruled that results from DNA testing would not have overcome the “mountain of evidence” establishing Swearingen's guilt.
http://www.texastribune.org/2015/10/28/texas-cca-denies-death-row-inmates-dna-testing-req/

Bulletin: Johnny Hincapie; New York; NBC’s Dateline airs episode tomorrow - Friday 29 October (9pm/8c) - on this New York man who was released earlier this month after 25 years in prison when his 1990 murder conviction was overturned. "Hincapie now says he was coerced into confessing to the crime and insists he was in a different part of the station when the incident occurred. New witness testimony corroborates his claim. The Manhattan district attorney is currently deciding whether to retry him."


"(Johnny) Hincapie was among the seven young men convicted in relation to the murder of a 22-year-old tourist who was fatally stabbed during a robbery inside a subway station. Hincapie now says he was coerced into confessing to the crime and insists he was in a different part of the station when the incident occurred. New witness testimony corroborates his claim. The Manhattan district attorney is currently deciding whether to retry him. The episode, "Tipping Point," will feature interviews with Hincapie by Lester Holt, including an interview directly following his release. It will air Friday, October 23, at 9pm/8c on NBC’s Dateline.Watch a preview here. Learn more about Hincapie’s case here.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/news-events-exonerations/nbc2019s-dateline-will-feature-recent-new-york-exoneree-johnny-hincapie

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Ivan Henry: British Columbia: Former investigator has difficulty recalling events - downplays his role in Henry’s arrest for sexual assaults; Ian Mulgrew. Vancouver Sun. "Ivan Henry was imprisoned for 27 years after being wrongfully convicted of sexual assault in 1983. He is suing prosecutors for allegedly breaching his charter rights after he was acquitted in 2010 of 10 sexual-assault convictions). "Harkema, a VPD officer from 1965 until 1998, was to be a cornerstone of the city’s argument. Unfortunately, he often couldn’t recall or didn’t remember the events from the early 1980s and his sullen, cross-armed pose during cross-examination did not enhance his testimony. “I have no current memory,” he said of his key encounter with the other critical witness in the city’s case, the victim who seemingly maintains Henry attacked her."


"Retired detective William Harkema, 72 and infirm, hobbled into B.C. Supreme Court on two ski-pole canes intent on testifying against an old nemesis. Yet the Vancouver Police Dept. officer most responsible for putting Ivan Henry behind bars for a series of 1980s sexual assaults had little memory of events 33 years ago and downplayed his role. He insisted he was the “co-lead” investigator, not the “lead” as numerous documents identify him. Although Henry was not in court Monday, with the city presenting its case, there was tension in the room. Two conflicting, adversarial stories have clashed during the last two months of proceedings: Henry’s plea for compensation for an ordeal of wrongful conviction and 27 years imprisonment versus the city’s insistence that notwithstanding a 2010 acquittal ordered by the B.C. Court of Appeal, he is not innocent. The provincial and federal governments are presenting their own defences to claims against prosecutors and politicians for their roles in the miscarriage of justice. Harkema, a VPD officer from 1965 until 1998, was to be a cornerstone of the city’s argument. Unfortunately, he often couldn’t recall or didn’t remember the events from the early 1980s and his sullen, cross-armed pose during cross-examination did not enhance his testimony. “I have no current memory,” he said of his key encounter with the other critical witness in the city’s case, the victim who seemingly maintains Henry attacked her..........Harkema said Henry was the prime suspect, “tentatively identified” by three victims, and he immediately wanted him placed under surveillance because of the serious public safety concerns. “I felt there was a situation that was escalating and needed to be taken care of,” Harkema said. He had worked only one sexual assault before and had little formal training in such investigations — “very little that I can recall, I can’t recall anything, no.” He didn’t know whether there was a list of evidence seized during the Henry investigation, didn’t know if he kept a list of people he interviewed and didn’t know what might have happened to other material absent from police files. Although he was later a sergeant making decisions in the sexual assault squad, Harkema conceded he knew little about forensics or what insights and information such scientific techniques might produce from a semen sample. But at the time he pointed out forensic evidence was cavalierly stored in a locker at the front of the police station that the public could easily access. Where were the results from the forensic and identification units kept, he was asked. “I don’t know,” Harkema replied. Little more than a month after Harkema was tagged, Henry was charged as a result of the woman still to testify identifying him from a photo lineup Harkema put together.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/detective+ivan+henry+case+difficulty+recalling+events/11469950/story.html

The "Protecting Innocent Families Petition: (PIF): Another disturbing factor disclosed by the petition, reported on recently by 'ON SBS.' In addition to calling for a review of the scientific literature, the petition objects to "the suppressive tactics used by the state and by professional organizations" which impose extraordinary pressure on both families and professionals. (Particular reference to attacks on Dr. Waney Squier, Dr. John Plunkett and Dr. John Lloyd.) ..."Even when charges are dismissed, caretakers acquitted, or verdicts overturned, families are emotionally and financially devastated, with many unwilling to speak out because they are still traumatized or they fear stigma or retaliation. Doctors and other experts who question or criticize these diagnoses also suffer retaliation, including threats against their jobs and licenses." (Must Read. Must Sign. HL);


POST: "Innocent Family Petition hits a nerve, by Sue Luttner, published on her formidable blog 'On SBS'  on October 22, 2015.

GIST: "Even when charges are dismissed, caretakers acquitted, or verdicts overturned, families are emotionally and financially devastated, with many unwilling to speak out because they are still traumatized or they fear stigma or retaliation. Doctors and other experts who question or criticize these diagnoses also suffer retaliation, including threats against their jobs and licenses. Right now in England, for example, neuropathologist Dr. Waney Squier is facing hearings by the General Medical Council, where she is accused of testifying “outside her field of expertise,” giving biased opinions, and not paying “due regard to the views of other experts.” Last fall, The Telegraph reported that the original complaints against Dr. Squier came from the Metropolitan Police, who were tired of losing shaken baby cases because of her testimony on behalf of accused parents. Dr. Squier has long been the target of direct and indirect harassment from her opponents. ........In the U.S. in the early 2000s, forensic pathologist Dr. John Plunkett was forced to defend himself against charges that he lied under oath after he testified on behalf of an Oregon defendant in a child head injury case. In “The Battle of the Expert,” ABA Journal reporter Mark Hansen traced the byzantine course of the case against Dr. Plunkett, which ended with an acquittal in 2005..........Similarly, the state attorney in Florida’s 14th judicial district charged biomechanic John Lloyd, PhD with perjury in 2013 for his work on behalf of Timothy Foxworth, accused of beating his 10-week-old son into permanent brain damage......... The Protecting Innocent Families petition is an effort to bring together the many people who are affected by misguided diagnoses of child abuse, including the accused families, their extended communities, and the medical and legal professionals who defend them. If you agree that we need an objective, scientific review of the evidence base for today’s guidelines for diagnosing child abuse, please sign the petition, at http://tinyurl.com/InnocentFamilyPetition. If you have a web site or Facebook page, please post the  url. If you are a medical or legal professional, please consider sharing the url with your colleagues and clients (that’s http://tinyurl.com/InnocentFamilyPetition).

The entire post can be  found at:

http://onsbs.com/2015/10/22/innocent-family-petition-hits-a-nerve/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html  
I look forward to hearing from readers at:

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

Monday, October 26, 2015

"The Protecting Innocent Families petition: (PIF): On SBS says the petition has "hit a nerve."..."The petition calls for "an objective, scientific review of the evidence base underlying today’s guidelines for diagnosing child abuse."..."When PIF launched the petition in March of 2015, the immediate goal was to collect the names of 1,000 people who had seen a medical misdiagnosis of child abuse tear apart an innocent family. Three weeks after the petition went live, 1,000 people had signed and signatures were still coming in. The rate has slowed since then, but new names continue to arrive, and PIF has decided to launch another publicity campaign before implementing its labor-intensive plan for taking the petition to Congress." (Must Read. Must Sign!. HL); (Tomorrow, the Charles Smith Blog looks at another aspect of the petition disclosed by the ON SBS Blog.)


POST: "Protecting Innocent families" (PIF) petition hits a nerve," published by Sue Luttner  on her formidable Blog 'On SBS,' on October 22, 2015;

GIST: "When child protective services separated Melissa and Anthony Geers from their five sons last spring, Melissa says, the pain was staggering. The worst part was watching the effects on their children: the 9-year-old’s full-blown panic attack, the 8-year-old’s holding his mom “so tight I couldn’t breathe,” the sudden interruption of breast-feeding for the 4-month-old twins (Melissa pumped throughout their foster placement). The state filed to terminate the Geers’ parental rights just weeks after x-rays revealed rib fractures in both twins—but withdrew the suit 10 weeks later, after the Geers submitted opinions from eight outside experts who attributed the fractures to fragile bones, citing two underlying causes: First, the boys had a metabolic disorder that impedes bone formation. Second, like most twins, the youngest Geers had arrived early, 7 weeks early in their case. Because the rate of bone mineralization ramps up during the final trimester of gestation, premature infants in general are prone to weak bones. But those explanations entered the record only because the Geers did their own research and called in their own experts. The state tore her sons’ lives apart, Melissa says, based on the opinion of one child abuse doctor “who never met me, my husband, or our kids.” “We have two sons, now 10 and 8, who were traumatized by this experience,” she points out. “They don’t do the things they used to do. They are afraid. The child abuse experts need to understand what they are doing to children.” Since their story hit the news, Melissa says, they have been contacted by an astonishing number of families with their own stories of ill-considered abuse diagnoses—most of them with far less happy outcomes. “How are the child abuse doctors not aware of all these other things?” Melissa asks. “That’s the part that bothers me the most. Why are they not doing their due diligence?” The Geers say they understand how valuable it was to have a supportive community during their ordeal, as documented by Click on Detroit and later by Melissa herself in an essay on Medical Kidnap. Melissa says she and her husband now feel compelled to do what they can to shed light on a broken system. Earlier this fall, the Geers joined demonstrators at the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents meeting, where supporters of Joshua and Brenda Burns protested the Burns family’s treatment by the university’s Mott Children’s Hospital. As reported on this blog in the spring, the Burnses’ daughter Naomi was diagnosed as a shaken baby at Mott in 2014. While Naomi seems to have recovered fully, Joshua is serving a one-year sentence in the county jail. As he approaches his December release date, J0shua has been allowed weekly visits with his family, through a glass window and a telephone handset, after a year and a half of no contact at all with Naomi. (For an insider’s view of the regents meeting, including video statements by Melissa Geers and Brenda Burns, please see the Washtenaw Watchdogs coverage.) The Burns family and the Geers family found each other, and they also found the Protecting Innocent Families (PIF) petition, which calls for an objective, scientific review of the evidence base underlying today’s guidelines for diagnosing child abuse. The petition form includes an optional field where signers can identify the name of a defendant or family they are supporting. Of about 2,700 people who have signed the petition so far, slightly more than 1,000 have filled in the support field. The signers have named 338 individuals and families. The most frequently named case, with 270 signatures, is the Burns family, the subject of the Torn Family web site, which includes a link to the petition. The Geers family is the second most-often named, with 96 signers, presumably from their Facebook site. Other defendants named in significant numbers were a mix of past cases that helped inspire the petition—like the stories of Kristian Aspelin, Brian Peixoto, Tiffany Cole-CaliseAmanda Brumfield, and Leo Ackley—and unfolding cases like those of Rebecca and Anthony Wanosik and Cynthia and Brandon Ross, reunited with their children this summer; Cindy Rosenwinkel, convicted in 2015; and single father Andrew Sprint, who declared his innocence outside the Children’s Justice Conference this past spring in Seattle. When PIF launched the petition in March of 2015, the immediate goal was to collect the names of 1,000 people who had seen a medical misdiagnosis of child abuse tear apart an innocent family. Three weeks after the petition went live, 1,000 people had signed and signatures were still coming in. The rate has slowed since then, but new names continue to arrive, and PIF has decided to launch another publicity campaign before implementing its labor-intensive plan for taking the petition to Congress. Signers who indicated they would be willing to contact Congress personally should expect to be hearing from PIF volunteers..........If you agree that we need an objective, scientific review of the evidence base for today’s guidelines for diagnosing child abuse, please sign the petition, at http://tinyurl.com/InnocentFamilyPetition. If you have a web site or Facebook page, please post the  url. If you are a medical or legal professional, please consider sharing the url with your colleagues and clients (that’s http://tinyurl.com/InnocentFamilyPetition).

The entire post can be found at:

http://onsbs.com/2015/10/22/innocent-family-petition-hits-a-nerve/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html  

I look forward to hearing from readers at:

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

Bulletin: Rajesh and Nupur Talwar: India; DNA story examines claims that the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) was provided edited footage of a 'narco test' conducted on Krishna, an assistant of Rajesh Talwar: "The sources said a Forensic Science Laboratory is supposed to provide whatever information it could gather to the investigation agency. The agency is clueless who edited the video, whether it was the doctors who did the tests, the person who created the CDs or officers of their own investigation team. The video which has been posted on CBI record is much smaller in length than the video on YouTube, said a source requesting anonymity."..."During the trial, Rajesh and Nupur Talwars wanted that narco tests should be placed on record but Allahabad High Court as well as Supreme Court rejected their demand." (Link to video provided.HL);

STORY: "Aarushi Talwar murder case: Was CBI provided edited footage of Krishna's narco test?" published by DNA on October 25, 2015.

SUB-HEADING:  A new video purportedly of the test conducted on Krishna has surfaced on social networking site YouTube which is 58.55- minute long.

GIST: "In a new twist to Aarushi-Hemraj murder case, it has emerged that CBI does not have complete raw footage of narco-analysis conducted on Krishna, assistant of Rajesh Talwar, in its records. A new video purportedly of the test conducted on Krishna has surfaced on social networking site YouTube which is 58.55- minute long. CBI sources claimed the agency, in its records, has only about 45 minutes of video of the test conducted on Krishna at Forensic Science Laboratory, Bangalore. A source, who had been privy to the probe, said the new footage on social media appeared to be genuine. The narco tests were conducted on servants, including Krishna, by the first team of CBI under the then Joint Director Arun Kumar which suspected their involvement but could not produce any legally admissible evidence against them. The new video which has been posted on the YouTube on October 22 has a length of 58.55 minutes with the person, who posted the video, claiming that another part will be made public soon. The sources said a Forensic Science Laboratory is supposed to provide whatever information it could gather to the investigation agency. The agency is clueless who edited the video, whether it was the doctors who did the tests, the person who created the CDs or officers of their own investigation team. The video which has been posted on CBI record is much smaller in length than the video on YouTube, said a source requesting anonymity. Narco analysis is not an admissible evidence in court. Dr S Malini, who did the test on Krishna, was removed from FSL Bangalore following allegations of irregularities in 2009. However, in 2013, the Karnataka High Court had struck down her discharge from service. The apparently raw footage of the tests which has emerged now shows Krishna claiming that Arun Kumar had asked him to own the crime on the promise of a reduced sentence. Kumar had said the "original" footage did not have that portion. When asked what was the length of the video footage on the narco-test conducted on Krishna, which is part of CBI record, Kumar told PTI he cannot recollect the duration of the video. "I do not recall. It was sent from the FSL to CBI, the CD. I do not remember the minutes.... Any authorisation can come either from the organisation or the lab. Custodian of the video is FSL Bangalore. If there is a requirement they can come out with it," Kumar told PTI over phone.Kumar, now an Inspector General of Police in CRPF, said that if CBI has made public all the court orders they should bring the video and narco analysis too in the public domain even if they do not have evidence value. When asked whether the agency has only "edited" version of the narco analysis test done on Krishna, CBI spokesperson refused to comment saying the matter is sub-judice.........After the trial, Additional Sessions Judge Shyam Lal found the parents guilty of murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment. During the trial, Rajesh and Nupur Talwars wanted that narco tests should be placed on record but Allahabad High Court as well as Supreme Court rejected their demand."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-aarushi-talwar-murder-case-was-cbi-provided-edited-footage-of-krishna-s-narco-test-2138486

Sunday, October 25, 2015

'Spy in bag' Gareth Williams was 'murdered by Russian hitmen after sexual photo blackmail plot' Former major and intelligence officer Boris Karpichkov claims he knows the truth behind the MI6 spy's death


STORY: "'Spy in bag' Gareth Williams was 'murdered by Russian hitmen after sexual photo blackmail plot,' by reporter Lucy Clarke-Billings, published by The Telegraph on October 24, 2015.

SUB-HEADING:  "Former major and intelligence officer Boris Karpichkov claims he knows the truth behind the MI6 spy's death."









PHOTO CAPTION: "British code breaker Gareth Williams."
 
GIST: "Gareth Williams, the MI6 spy whose body was found in a bag, was murdered by Russian hitmen who blackmailed him with compromising sexual photographs, according to a former KGB major. The former major and intelligence officer Boris Karpichkov, who was exiled from Russia and now lives in the UK with a new identity, claimed Mr Williams was given a lethal injection in the ear and put into the holdall by Russian operatives. Mr Williams' naked, decomposing body was found in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, London, in August 2010, after colleagues noticed he had not turned up for work. The locked handles of the holdall had been fastened with Velcro and there was no sign of him struggling to escape. No finger, foot, palm prints or DNA belonging to Mr Williams were found on the rim of the bath, padlock or zipper and he was not wearing any gloves. The key to the padlock was underneath his body, which was curled into a foetal position inside the bag, and the heating in the flat had been turned up, even though it was the middle of the summer. There were also no signs of a break in and what followed was a gruelling and fundamentally inconclusive three-year investigation into his death. A coroner ruled in 2012 that the spy was “probably killed unlawfully”, but also ruled it unlikely his death will ever be “satisfactorily explained”. But despite the result of the inquest and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, the police concluded in 2012 that Mr Williams most likely got into the bag by himself and died after failing to get out again. However, William MacKay, a confined spaces expert who gave evidence at the inquest, disagreed, and Nr Williams’ family have maintained that he was murdered. The interior of Gareth Willaims' flat on Alderney Street, London  Photo: PA At the same time as his inquest, there were reports that he died in a solo sex game gone wrong, while £20,000 worth of women’s clothing had been found in his flat. Mr Williams was also reported to have visited bondage sex websites and was seen browsing for ladies’ clothes at exclusive stores in central London.........Mr Karpichkov served in Russian intelligence for more than a decade, reaching the rank of KGB major where he was privy to Kremlin secrets at the highest level." 
 

The entire story can be found at:

Bulletin: Rajesh and Nupur Talwar: India; Fashion designer Masaba Gupta tells the Times of India that she agrees with Nupur's father that it is important to speak up now and demand a fair trial - as she gets to the heart of the bungled police investigation. "If still found guilty, then that is their fate, but the reason to jail them can't be that they were the only people alive in the house with the others dead." (I heartily agree. Harold Levy. Publisher. The Charles Smith Blog.)


"Talking about the Noida double murder case, fashion designer Masaba told us recently, "I think the most shocking thing was the way the case was handled. The one scene that shocked me was the bloody mark of the hand that was washed away by rain, and that the pictures of such important evidence were taken on a mobile phone. The sheer carelessness with which the cop said that the parents did it -because they (the cops) were just being lazy - is shocking. ........ Secondly, people who are invited for a debate on news channels have no right to comment whether Nupur Talwar was weeping or why she wasn't weeping, and say baseless things like 'she probably wasn't Aarushi's real mother because she looked calm and composed'. Don't we all have our own way of dealing with loss? While you may sob uncontrollably, someone else may choose to stare into blank space without a single tear rolling down.".........Not long after the movie's release, Nupur Talwar's father, BG Chitnis, had written an anguished open letter on FB, asking for the case to be reopened. About the letter, Masaba said, "You could be sitting in a corner, minding your own business, and the next thing you know, you're being taken to jail because someone decided to not do their job that day. I agree with Nupur Talwar's father's letter in every way. It is important to speak up now and demand a fair trial. If still found guilty, then that is their fate, but the reason to jail them can't be that they were the only people alive in the house with the others dead."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/I-agree-with-Nupur-Talwars-fathers-letter-in-every-way-says-Masaba-Gupta/articleshow/49505108.cms

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Darryl Howard: North Carolina; He wonders when ruling on new trial will come; (Maybe Tuesday?) 15 months have passed since a judge vacated his verdict; "Defense attorneys representing Howard in his most recent quest for freedom contend that the new DNA evidence and autopsy reports showed that Washington was sexually assaulted shortly before she was strangled and beaten to death. They insist that another man is the real culprit and Howard has spent more than 20 years in prison, wrongfully committed for the deeds of someone else." The Charlotte Observer;


STORY: "NC inmate waits for Tuesdays and news," by reporter Anne Blythe, published by the Charlotte Observer on October 23, 2015.

SUB-HEADING: "Darryl Howard wonders when ruling on new trial will come;
15 months have passed since judge vacated his verdict; Howard remains in prison, while Mike Peterson has been released."

PHOTO CAPTION:  " Innocence Project defense attorneys Barry Scheck, left, and James Cooney III, right, were happy for their client Darryl Howard when a judge ordered a new trial in 2014."

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article40364535.html#storylink=cpy
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article40364535.html

 PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html  

I look forward to hearing from readers at:

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