PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Duncan’s original appeal described a sharp disagreement at trial. The prosecution’s dental expert, Neal Riesner, connected marks on Haley’s body to Duncan’s teeth with varying levels of certainty. Defense experts disputed whether the injuries were bite marks at all. Original appeal Imagine being a juror hearing that testimony. One expert says the marks connect the defendant to the child. Another says they are not even bite marks. How is someone without scientific training supposed to decide? The answer should not depend on which witness sounds more certain. The court needs to ask what research supports the method, how often it produces mistakes, and whether other qualified people can reach the same result. Those questions should be answered before a jury is asked to rely on the evidence."
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COMMENTARY: "Jimmie Duncan Deserves His Life Back - and Science in Court Must Earn Our Trust," by Bill Kissinger, published on 'The Death Penalty Corner" on September 13, 2026. (Bill Kissinger recently celebrated his third “FreedomVersary” after serving 47 flat calendar years on a LWOP (Life Without Parole) sentence in Angola, one of the roughest prisons in America. He was released on a final court judgment on March 30, 2023, based on a Ramos v. Louisiana (2020) case, which he had been fighting for years. He is a published author, operates a website, and awaiting publication of his autobiography, “47 Winters”. He can be found on Substack where he has a column called “The Death Penalty Corner” at williamkissinger.substack.com.)...Nota bene: (WIKIPEDIA): Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. 83 (2020), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that guilty verdicts be unanimous in criminal trials.
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SUB-HEADING: "When You Can No Longer Trust Science Or Experts In The Courtroom."
Jimmie “Chris” Duncan was convicted in 1998 of killing 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux, his girlfriend’s daughter, who drowned while in his care. He spent 27 years on Louisiana’s death row before his release in November 2025. On June 29, 2026, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the ruling that threw out his conviction and death sentence on factual-innocence grounds. Case background and release; Supreme Court decision.
As of September 12, Duncan is out of prison, but he still faces the possibility of another trial. His conviction is gone. The threat of another prosecution is not. Recent reporting
I believe Duncan deserves the chance to rebuild his life. I also believe we need to look closely at how scientific “evidence” helped take so much of that life away.
Most of us expect an expert witness to help a jury understand the facts. We expect that person to use sound methods, keep honest records, and admit what the evidence cannot tell us.
Those are reasonable expectations. When someone’s freedom - or life - is at stake, they should be firm requirements.
The FBI’s past laboratory problems and the recent prosecution of Colorado scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods show why we cannot take those requirements for granted.
In 2004, former FBI employee Jacqueline Blake pleaded guilty after submitting more than 100 reports falsely stating that she had completed required checks during DNA testing. She received two years of probation and 100 hours of community service. The Justice Department reported that its review had not found a changed outcome in a criminal case where her results were used. It nevertheless acknowledged the damage to her work and the laboratory’s integrity. Justice Department report
The missing checks were meant to detect contamination. The inspector general found that skipping them made her analyses scientifically invalid. That distinction matters: a result might happen to be “right” even though the work needed to justify trusting it was not done. Inspector-general findings
The FBI also faced serious questions about experts making claims that went beyond what science could support, including examiner Michael Malone. A 2014 investigation criticized unreliable evidence and failures in reviewing affected cases. A broader FBI review later found errors in testimony in 257 of 268 reviewed cases where hair evidence pointed toward the defendant. That did not mean 96 percent of those defendants were innocent. It meant the testimony in that particular group of cases contained errors. 2014 investigation; FBI review
Then there is Woods.
On September 8, 2026, a Colorado judge sentenced the former Colorado Bureau of Investigation analyst to ten years in prison. She had pleaded guilty to cyber-crime, perjury, attempting to influence a public servant, and forgery. Prosecutors identified 52 false laboratory reports and another “misleading” report. Much of the conduct involved reporting that DNA was absent when testing had detected it, stopping opportunities for further investigation. Prosecutors said they had not established false DNA identifications or false-positive results. Colorado sentencing announcement
Jimmie “Chris” Duncan was convicted in 1998 of killing 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux, his girlfriend’s daughter, who drowned while in his care. He spent 27 years on Louisiana’s death row before his release in November 2025. On June 29, 2026, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the ruling that threw out his conviction and death sentence on factual-innocence grounds. Case background and release; Supreme Court decision.
As of September 12, Duncan is out of prison, but he still faces the possibility of another trial. His conviction is gone. The threat of another prosecution is not. Recent reporting
I believe Duncan deserves the chance to rebuild his life. I also believe we need to look closely at how scientific “evidence” helped take so much of that life away.
Most of us expect an expert witness to help a jury understand the facts. We expect that person to use sound methods, keep honest records, and admit what the evidence cannot tell us.
Those are reasonable expectations. When someone’s freedom - or life - is at stake, they should be firm requirements.
The FBI’s past laboratory problems and the recent prosecution of Colorado scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods show why we cannot take those requirements for granted.
In 2004, former FBI employee Jacqueline Blake pleaded guilty after submitting more than 100 reports falsely stating that she had completed required checks during DNA testing. She received two years of probation and 100 hours of community service. The Justice Department reported that its review had not found a changed outcome in a criminal case where her results were used. It nevertheless acknowledged the damage to her work and the laboratory’s integrity. Justice Department report
The missing checks were meant to detect contamination. The inspector general found that skipping them made her analyses scientifically invalid. That distinction matters: a result might happen to be “right” even though the work needed to justify trusting it was not done. Inspector-general findings
The FBI also faced serious questions about experts making claims that went beyond what science could support, including examiner Michael Malone. A 2014 investigation criticized unreliable evidence and failures in reviewing affected cases. A broader FBI review later found errors in testimony in 257 of 268 reviewed cases where hair evidence pointed toward the defendant. That did not mean 96 percent of those defendants were innocent. It meant the testimony in that particular group of cases contained errors. 2014 investigation; FBI review
Then there is Woods.
On September 8, 2026, a Colorado judge sentenced the former Colorado Bureau of Investigation analyst to ten years in prison. She had pleaded guilty to cyber-crime, perjury, attempting to influence a public servant, and forgery. Prosecutors identified 52 false laboratory reports and another “misleading” report. Much of the conduct involved reporting that DNA was absent when testing had detected it, stopping opportunities for further investigation. Prosecutors said they had not established false DNA identifications or false-positive results. Colorado sentencing announcement
These cases are different. Lying about laboratory work is not the same as using a method that cannot support the conclusion being offered. Neither automatically proves what happened in Duncan’s case.
But they help us understand the same basic danger: people can place enormous trust in scientific evidence without seeing the problems beneath it.
There are three reasons Duncan’s case should change how we think about that trust.
First, an expert’s confidence is no substitute for proof that the method works.
A degree tells us someone has studied a subject. Experience tells us someone has done the work before. Neither guarantees that a particular method can answer the question being asked.
That is the problem with identifying someone from a supposed bite mark.
Before that identification can be trusted, we need to know that teeth leave useful differences, that skin records those differences accurately, and that examiners can reliably read the marks.
A 2023 review by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, found that those basic claims lacked enough scientific support. Skin can stretch and distort a mark. The research did not establish the reliable identification process that confident courtroom testimony can suggest. NIST review
This problem exists even when an examiner believes every word he says. Being “sincere” cannot make an unreliable method dependable.
Duncan’s original appeal described a sharp disagreement at trial. The prosecution’s dental expert, Neal Riesner, connected marks on Haley’s body to Duncan’s teeth with varying levels of certainty. Defense experts disputed whether the injuries were bite marks at all. Original appeal
Imagine being a juror hearing that testimony.
One expert says the marks connect the defendant to the child.
Another says they are not even bite marks.
How is someone without scientific training supposed to decide?
The answer should not depend on which witness sounds more certain.
The court needs to ask what research supports the method, how often it produces mistakes, and whether other qualified people can reach the same result. Those questions should be answered before a jury is asked to rely on the evidence.
The FBI hair cases raise a similar concern. Finding that two things look alike does not automatically tell us how strong that connection is.
An expert can turn a limited observation into a powerful accusation by giving it more weight than the science allows.
Blake and Woods show a different weakness. Even a useful, well-tested form of science can be undermined by dishonest work.
That leaves three separate questions:
Does the method work?
Was the work done properly?
Did the witness describe the result fairly?
We should demand a sound and solid answer to all three. Duncan should not have to pay for our willingness to settle for the word “expert.”
Second, we must be able to check how
the evidence was handled.
A trustworthy examination should leave a clear record.
What did the evidence look like at the start?
What did the examiner do to it?
When were the photographs taken?
Could the examination itself have changed what later experts saw?
These are basic questions. In Duncan’s case, they became deeply troubling ones.
Experts at his later hearing testified that video showed Michael West pressing dental casts against Haley’s skin and compromising the evidence. The lack of a clear photographic timeline made it difficult to tell whether pictures were taken before or after that handling. A detective disputed that West created new marks. West performed the examination; Riesner gave the prosecution’s bite-mark testimony. Supreme Court’s account
That is a problem with the evidence itself. Before discussing what a mark means, we need to know how it got there and whether it changed.
If an examination alters an injury, a later expert may be studying the effects of the examination as well as the original injury. Without a clear record, it may be impossible to separate the two.
And having several experts agree does not necessarily solve the problem. They may all be looking at the same questionable photograph. Their agreement can sound like independent confirmation when it rests on the same unresolved concern.
Blake’s case helps explain why records matter so much. Her paperwork said required checks had been done. Anyone relying on that paperwork could believe the results had safeguards they did not actually have.
Woods’s case shows why a final report cannot be accepted simply because it comes from a respected laboratory. The report must accurately reflect the work behind it.
The same standard should apply to Duncan. We should be able to examine the steps that produced the evidence against him, rather than trusting the conclusion alone.
This is also why I think we need to be careful with the phrases “fake science” and “debunked science.” They describe different problems.
Someone may knowingly falsify a record. Someone else may use a method that research shows cannot do what was claimed. An examiner may also damage or change evidence during the work. These failures can overlap, but we should explain which one the record supports.
None of that weakens Duncan’s position. It makes the argument more honest.
He should not have to prove that an examiner committed a crime before a court recognizes that the evidence is too unreliable to justify punishment. The question is whether the evidence deserves the weight the state placed on it.
When the state asks to take someone’s freedom, it should be able to show its work.
Third, correcting a mistake must mean more than admitting there was a problem.
A new scientific report does little for someone sitting in prison unless that person can use it.
The defendant needs access to the records. A qualified expert must be able to review them. A court must be willing to hear what has changed and decide whether the conviction can still stand.
Without those steps, the correction remains on paper while the punishment continues.
The FBI’s history shows how that can happen. The 2014 inspector-general report criticized problems with reviewing cases, notifying affected defendants, and giving death-penalty cases the urgency they deserved. Finding unreliable work did not automatically get useful information to the people whose lives depended on it. Oversight report
Woods’s prison sentence cannot, by itself, repair every case she touched. Punishing the scientist and reviewing the evidence are separate responsibilities. Both matter.
Duncan’s case shows why a real review is so important. The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld relief after considering new evidence that undermined the main scientific and medical claims supporting the prosecution. It did not declare all bite-mark evidence invalid. It ruled on the evidence in Duncan’s case. Supreme Court decision
That should carry real weight.
Duncan is not simply asking the public to distrust an unpopular expert or a disputed field. He has obtained a court ruling in his favor on factual-innocence grounds.
His lawyers have warned that another prosecution remains possible and have promised to continue defending him. Statement from his legal team
Before that happens, the public deserves a clear answer to this question:
What reliable evidence would justify putting him through another trial?
A prosecutor’s ability to pursue a case does not settle whether doing so serves justice. The time already spent defending a conviction cannot become a reason to keepdefending it. An accusation does not become stronger because it has been repeated for decades.
There is a responsibility to Haley, too. Her death deserves a truthful account based on careful evidence. Holding the wrong person responsible would not honor her. Protecting Duncan from an unsupported prosecution does not diminish the value of her life.
The same commitment to truth should guide both.
I do not look at these cases and come to the conclusion that we should give up on science. I conclude that we should insist on the things that make science worthtrusting: methods that have been tested, honest records, independent review, and a willingness to correct mistakes.
Those safeguards protect everyone. They help prevent wrongful convictions. They also help keep dishonest or careless work from closing off investigations that could bring answers to victims and their families.
Duncan has already lost decades of his life waiting to be executed. The courts have now ruled in his favor. Unless new, reliable evidence justifies another course, Louisiana should end this prosecution and let him rebuild his life.
An expert should be willing to show the work. A court should be willing to question it. And when that work no longer supports a conviction, the justice system should have the courage to let go.
Jimmie Duncan deserves that much.
But, “science?”
And “experts?”
You have to earn our trust again."
But they help us understand the same basic danger: people can place enormous trust in scientific evidence without seeing the problems beneath it.
There are three reasons Duncan’s case should change how we think about that trust.
First, an expert’s confidence is no substitute for proof that the method works.
A degree tells us someone has studied a subject. Experience tells us someone has done the work before. Neither guarantees that a particular method can answer the question being asked.
That is the problem with identifying someone from a supposed bite mark.
Before that identification can be trusted, we need to know that teeth leave useful differences, that skin records those differences accurately, and that examiners can reliably read the marks.
A 2023 review by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, found that those basic claims lacked enough scientific support. Skin can stretch and distort a mark. The research did not establish the reliable identification process that confident courtroom testimony can suggest. NIST review
This problem exists even when an examiner believes every word he says. Being “sincere” cannot make an unreliable method dependable.
Duncan’s original appeal described a sharp disagreement at trial. The prosecution’s dental expert, Neal Riesner, connected marks on Haley’s body to Duncan’s teeth with varying levels of certainty. Defense experts disputed whether the injuries were bite marks at all. Original appeal
Imagine being a juror hearing that testimony.
One expert says the marks connect the defendant to the child.
Another says they are not even bite marks.
How is someone without scientific training supposed to decide?
The answer should not depend on which witness sounds more certain.
The court needs to ask what research supports the method, how often it produces mistakes, and whether other qualified people can reach the same result. Those questions should be answered before a jury is asked to rely on the evidence.
The FBI hair cases raise a similar concern. Finding that two things look alike does not automatically tell us how strong that connection is.
An expert can turn a limited observation into a powerful accusation by giving it more weight than the science allows.
Blake and Woods show a different weakness. Even a useful, well-tested form of science can be undermined by dishonest work.
That leaves three separate questions:
Does the method work?
Was the work done properly?
Did the witness describe the result fairly?
We should demand a sound and solid answer to all three. Duncan should not have to pay for our willingness to settle for the word “expert.”
Second, we must be able to check how
the evidence was handled.
A trustworthy examination should leave a clear record.
What did the evidence look like at the start?
What did the examiner do to it?
When were the photographs taken?
Could the examination itself have changed what later experts saw?
These are basic questions. In Duncan’s case, they became deeply troubling ones.
Experts at his later hearing testified that video showed Michael West pressing dental casts against Haley’s skin and compromising the evidence. The lack of a clear photographic timeline made it difficult to tell whether pictures were taken before or after that handling. A detective disputed that West created new marks. West performed the examination; Riesner gave the prosecution’s bite-mark testimony. Supreme Court’s account
That is a problem with the evidence itself. Before discussing what a mark means, we need to know how it got there and whether it changed.
If an examination alters an injury, a later expert may be studying the effects of the examination as well as the original injury. Without a clear record, it may be impossible to separate the two.
And having several experts agree does not necessarily solve the problem. They may all be looking at the same questionable photograph. Their agreement can sound like independent confirmation when it rests on the same unresolved concern.
Blake’s case helps explain why records matter so much. Her paperwork said required checks had been done. Anyone relying on that paperwork could believe the results had safeguards they did not actually have.
Woods’s case shows why a final report cannot be accepted simply because it comes from a respected laboratory. The report must accurately reflect the work behind it.
The same standard should apply to Duncan. We should be able to examine the steps that produced the evidence against him, rather than trusting the conclusion alone.
This is also why I think we need to be careful with the phrases “fake science” and “debunked science.” They describe different problems.
Someone may knowingly falsify a record. Someone else may use a method that research shows cannot do what was claimed. An examiner may also damage or change evidence during the work. These failures can overlap, but we should explain which one the record supports.
None of that weakens Duncan’s position. It makes the argument more honest.
He should not have to prove that an examiner committed a crime before a court recognizes that the evidence is too unreliable to justify punishment. The question is whether the evidence deserves the weight the state placed on it.
When the state asks to take someone’s freedom, it should be able to show its work.
Third, correcting a mistake must mean more than admitting there was a problem.
A new scientific report does little for someone sitting in prison unless that person can use it.
The defendant needs access to the records. A qualified expert must be able to review them. A court must be willing to hear what has changed and decide whether the conviction can still stand.
Without those steps, the correction remains on paper while the punishment continues.
The FBI’s history shows how that can happen. The 2014 inspector-general report criticized problems with reviewing cases, notifying affected defendants, and giving death-penalty cases the urgency they deserved. Finding unreliable work did not automatically get useful information to the people whose lives depended on it. Oversight report
Woods’s prison sentence cannot, by itself, repair every case she touched. Punishing the scientist and reviewing the evidence are separate responsibilities. Both matter.
Duncan’s case shows why a real review is so important. The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld relief after considering new evidence that undermined the main scientific and medical claims supporting the prosecution. It did not declare all bite-mark evidence invalid. It ruled on the evidence in Duncan’s case. Supreme Court decision
That should carry real weight.
Duncan is not simply asking the public to distrust an unpopular expert or a disputed field. He has obtained a court ruling in his favor on factual-innocence grounds.
His lawyers have warned that another prosecution remains possible and have promised to continue defending him. Statement from his legal team
Before that happens, the public deserves a clear answer to this question:
What reliable evidence would justify putting him through another trial?
A prosecutor’s ability to pursue a case does not settle whether doing so serves justice. The time already spent defending a conviction cannot become a reason to keepdefending it. An accusation does not become stronger because it has been repeated for decades.
There is a responsibility to Haley, too. Her death deserves a truthful account based on careful evidence. Holding the wrong person responsible would not honor her. Protecting Duncan from an unsupported prosecution does not diminish the value of her life.
The same commitment to truth should guide both.
I do not look at these cases and come to the conclusion that we should give up on science. I conclude that we should insist on the things that make science worthtrusting: methods that have been tested, honest records, independent review, and a willingness to correct mistakes.
Those safeguards protect everyone. They help prevent wrongful convictions. They also help keep dishonest or careless work from closing off investigations that could bring answers to victims and their families.
Duncan has already lost decades of his life waiting to be executed. The courts have now ruled in his favor. Unless new, reliable evidence justifies another course, Louisiana should end this prosecution and let him rebuild his life.
An expert should be willing to show the work. A court should be willing to question it. And when that work no longer supports a conviction, the justice system should have the courage to let go.
Jimmie Duncan deserves that much.
But, “science?”
And “experts?”
You have to earn our trust again."
The entire commentary can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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. 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. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
