Another example: Multiple experts who have reviewed the cases have said that the girls’ injuries were clearly inflicted after death. That would mean they were unlikely to have been human bites (the same experts said that, too). Hayne could have made sure one way or another by taking biopsies of the injuries and examining them under a microscope. He didn’t. Instead, he merely stated definitively that they were inflicted before death, then brought West in to do his magic. But the most damning evidence of recklessness is that the men — West in particular — used a method of bite-mark analysis West called “direct comparison.” The “technique” (which Hayne has also admitted to using) involves forcefully pushing a mold of the suspect’s teeth directly into the skin of the victim, on top of the alleged bite mark. As you might imagine, more-credible forensic specialists find this to be outrageous. Even within the already scientifically suspect bite-mark community, West’s methods are considered out of bounds. At best, pushing a replica of a suspect’s teeth into allege bite marks distorts the marks so that no other expert can examine them in their original state. At worst, it’s manufacturing evidence. I’ve written about two subsequent cases in which West actually recorded his examination of the victim, and in both cases, he appears to be creating the very bite marks he later attributed to the defendant. That is, the video shows no marks on the skin before West does his thing — it only appears afterward. Experts who have examined those videos have called West’s “technique” somewhere between malpractice and criminality. There’s a video of West’s exam in the Brewer case as well, although it hasn’t been released to the public. Experts who have seen it, however, say that West appears to have created the bite marks in that video, too. Even if you believe that expert witnesses should have qualified immunity, that particular form of immunity goes only so far. It would not protect a witness if a defendant could show that he or she knowingly lied on the witness stand, for example. And it certainly wouldn’t protect a witness who fabricated evidence.
The 5th Circuit opinion acknowledges that bite-mark evidence has recently been “called into question,” but finds that because it was widely accepted at the time, Brewer and Brooks would have to show that West either fabricated evidence or knowingly lied in court............In the end, there will be no reckoning. The men who did Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks wrong will get away with it. The system that enabled these wrongful convictions will continue to shield itself from any real accountability. And despite the fact that we now know that the evidence used to convict the two men was dubious from the start — and that there was plenty of reason for the courts to have known it was dubious — there have been no measures put in place to ensure that it won’t happen again."

The entire commentary can be found at: