November 10 : Analysis of crime-scene blood and bullets: A Canadian Perspective: Researcher Sara Gordon; It can be be pivotal in court cases. But how reliable is it? CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Producer/Reporter Georgie Smyth interviews Researcher Sara Gordon, an associate professor at Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, who notes that, "Both ballistic and blood spatter analysis, which examine evidence from a crime scene, are grounded in science. But its practitioners regularly make conclusions in court that are far beyond what their own empirical evidence supports...while lawyers and judges don’t challenge those conclusions enough. "They're admitted largely because they've always been admitted and people just sort of assume that they're reliable."

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The danger of lawyers not challenging expert witness testimony in court is recognized in case law, says Rebecca McConchie, president of the Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia.  So, too, is the risk of judges and juries not appreciating the "frailties of the evidence when assessing it," she said in a statement to CBC News.  "It is so important for people to keep an open mind when they hear about criminal justice issues or evidence held out as obvious proof of a person’s guilt," McConchie said.  Ultimately, Gordon says, Canada has received far less attention in legal literature and she wants her studies to make the country's courts better at doing their job of determining guilt or innocence.  She says her work is about providing information about the evidence behind the evidence for lawyers and judges to be able to ask more questions — to "lay that out for them in a way that just makes them view the evidence a little bit more skeptically."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Her research, which follows similar audits of forensic evidence in the United States, cites a case in Ontario in 2021, where a firearms examiner conceded under cross-examination that her conclusion — that shell casings from a crime scene matched a handgun found in the accused's apartment — was subjective.  The examiner later added there was “no specific number of agreements required between two items for her to conclude that there was a match" and she formed her opinion because she believed a match was "within the limits of practical certainty."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Gordon's separate research on blood spatter analysis found the detail to which some experts testify is sometimes very specific, such as inferring what an accused's mental state might have been. n She points to a B.C. case from 2009 where the Crown used analysis of blood patterns in a crime scene to reconstruct the actions of the accused, arguing he had guilty intent because of the way blood was "projected" during the attack. "There are no studies testing or establishing an error rate for conclusions about an individual’s mental state based on bloodstain patterns," she writes in her research. "There's just no indication, in the science, that we can make those sorts of conclusions," she told CBC News. "

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STORY: "Analysis of crime-scene blood and bullets can be pivotal in court cases. But how reliable is it?," by CBC Reporter/Producer Georgie Smyth, published on November 8, 2026. "Georgie Smyth is a CBC Network Reporter and Producer in Vancouver. She's worked for BBC World News in London and for Nine News in Australia. She's focused on local, national and international stories that affect all Canadians." Thanks to Win Wahrer of Innocence Canada for bringing this story to our attention."

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SUB-HEADING: "Researcher questions extent of what forensic evidence reveals, says lawyers need to challenge experts in court."

GIST: "Forensic analysis has a reputation for being reliably accurate, an assumption that's been polished by many crime TV dramas where ballistics and blood-spatter teams uncover essential evidence to catch the perpetrator.

But that assumption has found its way into courtrooms, where the accuracy of forensic analysis is rarely questioned, according to new research.

Both ballistic and blood spatter analysis, which examine evidence from a crime scene, are grounded in science. But its practitioners regularly make conclusions in court that are far beyond what their own empirical evidence supports, says researcher Sara Gordon — while lawyers and judges don’t challenge those conclusions enough.

"They're admitted largely because they've always been admitted and people just sort of assume that they're reliable," says Gordon, an associate professor at Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia.

How Toronto police gather clues from guns seized off city streets

Qualified and admissible expert testimony on forensic evidence can provide "significant assistance" in understanding specific information in a case, a fact sheet from the Department of Justice says. Canada’s courts have allowed it to be included in cases for decades.

Using Canadian cases, Gordon examined these forensic and investigative techniques that informed evidence regularly admitted in court.

Her analysis of firearms evidence points to "significant methodological flaws" in the research that backs up ballistics as a discipline that may "underestimate error rates." She concludes that experts often don’t give courts the full story and give "a false impression" of the accuracy of their speciality.

Bullet proof?

To connect a bullet or casing found at a crime scene to a caliber of gun, ballistics examiners will compare other bullets or casings shot from test guns and examine them under a microscope to look for similarities.

Eventually a forensic scientist may end up in a courtroom testifying that the evidence found at a crime scene is or isn’t a match, citing research from their field to back up their conclusions.

Gordon says examiners will often testify that the error rate of the ballistics field is somewhere between one and two per cent. But the studies she examined for her research reported an error rate as high as 50 per cent.

She also says there are no set standards for the minimum number of similarities needed to match bullets.

"It's largely a subjective analysis," she said. 

WATCH | 'We've just accepted this evidence is reliable for so many years,' Gordon says:

Researcher Sara Gordon says lawyers have become 'accustomed' to treating ballistics and blood spatter analysis as reliable evidence, and that experts don't give a full account of how accurate the science is when testifying in court.

Her research, which follows similar audits of forensic evidence in the United States, cites a case in Ontario in 2021, where a firearms examiner conceded under cross-examination that her conclusion — that shell casings from a crime scene matched a handgun found in the accused's apartment — was subjective.

The examiner later added there was “no specific number of agreements required between two items for her to conclude that there was a match" and she formed her opinion because she believed a match was "within the limits of practical certainty."

A$AP Rocky's trial starts with clash over ballistics report

The issue came to a head in a Chicago courtroom in 2023, where a judge, moved by a lack of "objective forensic based reasons," banned the use of ballistics matching in a criminal case.

The judge then reviewed a dozen other cases that resulted in a wrongful conviction from flawed ballistics matching, labelling it a "wake-up call to courts operating as rubber stamps in blindly finding general acceptance" of this type of evidence.

Drawing from such decisions, Gordon argues that some ballistic experts shouldn't be testifying in cases where the science doesn't give them the ability to draw conclusions.

One senior forensic scientist who regularly testifies in court says being transparent about a discipline's limitations is key.

Darryl Barr, who examines weapons and tools linked to crimes for Bulletproof Forensic Consulting, maintains there is "a scientific basis for firearms examinations" and plenty of empirical evidence that supports experts' determinations — but he concedes they could do better at making that clearer in court.

Barr says he's reassured by the fact that virtually every country in the world uses forensic analysis as part of its judicial process, and adds that any scrutiny of his discipline is welcomed.

"Science improves through scrutiny and forensic science is not any different, obviously," he said. 

Part of a prosecution or defence counsel's role is to scrutinize each other’s evidence. But digging into the accuracy of the science of forensic evidence doesn’t happen often, says Gordon.

She thinks part of the reason is that society at large has come to think ballistics and blood spatter are as definitive as DNA evidence and can reveal crucial details in an investigation — in part due to crime shows like Law and Order and the many spin-offs of CSI.

For example — despite what a slick, sunglasses-wearing fictional detective might say — the science of blood spatter cannot indicate if a person was acting deliberately or not. 

Gordon's separate research on blood spatter analysis found the detail to which some experts testify is sometimes very specific, such as inferring what an accused's mental state might have been.

She points to a B.C. case from 2009 where the Crown used analysis of blood patterns in a crime scene to reconstruct the actions of the accused, arguing he had guilty intent because of the way blood was "projected" during the attack.

Investigators found presumed blood stains in garage years after alleged murder, court hears

"There are no studies testing or establishing an error rate for conclusions about an individual’s mental state based on bloodstain patterns," she writes in her research.

"There's just no indication, in the science, that we can make those sorts of conclusions," she told CBC News. 

'Frailties of the evidence'

The danger of lawyers not challenging expert witness testimony in court is recognized in case law, says Rebecca McConchie, president of the Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia.

So, too, is the risk of judges and juries not appreciating the "frailties of the evidence when assessing it," she said in a statement to CBC News.

"It is so important for people to keep an open mind when they hear about criminal justice issues or evidence held out as obvious proof of a person’s guilt," McConchie said. 

Ultimately, Gordon says, Canada has received far less attention in legal literature and she wants her studies to make the country's courts better at doing their job of determining guilt or innocence.

She says her work is about providing information about the evidence behind the evidence for lawyers and judges to be able to ask more questions — to "lay that out for them in a way that just makes them view the evidence a little bit more skeptically."

A spokesperson for the RCMP, which provides forensic services across Canada, said it was aware of the research and that it's still committed to using established scientific methodologies, quality assurance processes and professional standards in its work." 

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/forensic-evidence-court-ballistics-blood-spatter-research-9.7401663

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;

November 10: Psychiatric Seclusion: A salute to Toronto Star Courts and Justice Reporter Jacques Gallant: The Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care locked Jake Gordon up alone for five years - but transferred him closer to his family home just week after the Star published footage of his life locked in custody at Waypoint. Reporter Gallant tells Jake Gordon's story as part of the Star's '20 years in isolation' series - an ongoing investigation into the use of psychiatric seclusion at Waypoint - noting that, "the Star's reporting has been met with calls for an independent review of Ontario's mental health system."... "The move to Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Whitby came just a month after a Star profile on Gordon’s case, featuring six-and-a-half hours of video surveillance footage provided by (Diane Worden) showing her son pacing alone while in seclusion in his tiny room at Waypoint last year. Worden had requested the video from Waypoint in the hopes of finding out how her son was able to cause a serious injury to his eye, but the incident was not captured in the footage. At the time of his transfer, Gordon had been out of seclusion for just over two months, having been released amid the Star’s ongoing investigation into Waypoint’s use of the practice. “It’s shocking how fast they made this happen,” Worden said."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Seclusion is meant to be the option of last resort, to be used for as brief a time as possible, to deal with a patient who poses an imminent risk of bodily harm to themselves or others. The Star’s investigation has revealed that Waypoint has been keeping seriously mentally ill patients in seclusion for years, and in the case of Camelott Hamblett, 20 years and counting. An independent assessment concluded in August that Waypoint is holding patients in conditions the United Nations has “deemed to constitute torture” in similar settings."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Everything that has happened for her son in such a short period of time is no coincidence, Worden said. She attributed the increased focus on her son's care this year to the Star’s investigation, the multiple experts who have come forward with their concerns, and the work of Gordon’s new lawyer, Anita Szigeti, who specializes in mental health law and represents a number of other men in seclusion at Waypoint. “It’s 100 per cent because of the public scrutiny,” Worden said. “You don’t go from five-and-a-half years in seclusion to all of a sudden you’re out and making cupcakes and two months later you’re being transferred to Ontario Shores.”

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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Oversight of Gordon’s time in seclusion called into question............."Unlike most of the other men in long-term seclusion at Waypoint, Gordon was not a forensic patient, meaning he hadn’t committed any crime. Rather, he was a civil patient, involuntarily detained under the Mental Health Act because he’s been found to pose a serious risk of bodily harm to himself and others. Worden is under no illusions: she does believe her son should remain in a hospital. But his case calls into question the independent oversight of the detention of civil patients, and whether there was a missed opportunity to get Gordon out of seclusion sooner. The Consent and Capacity Board (CCB) — whose three-member panels are made up of a medical professional, lawyer and layperson — is required to hold a review of a civil patient’s case after six months, and then every year afterward, to determine whether their involuntary status should be upheld; the patient can also ask for orders such as a transfer to another facility. Everything that has happened for her son in such a short period of time is no coincidence, Worden said. She attributed the increased focus on her son's care this year to the Star’s investigation, the multiple experts who have come forward with their concerns, and the work of Gordon’s new lawyer, Anita Szigeti, who specializes in mental health law and represents a number of other men in seclusion at Waypoint. It’s 100 per cent because of the public scrutiny,” Worden said. “You don’t go from five-and-a-half years in seclusion to all of a sudden you’re out and making cupcakes and two months later you’re being transferred to Ontario Shores.”

STORY:"This Ontario hospital locked Jake Gordon up alone for five years, It reansfered him just after the Star told his story," by Courts and Justice Reporter Jacques Gallant, published by The Toronto Star, on  Nov. 2, 2026.(Jacques Gallant is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering legal affairs and courts, after previously c overing federal politics. He has been part of reporting teams nominated for a National Newspaper Award and the Michener Award for public service journalism.)

SUB-HEADING: Jake Gordon has been transferred closer to his family just weeks after   the Star published footage of his life kept locked up in isolation at Waypoint Centre."

This story is part of 20 Years in Isolation, the Star’s ongoing investigation into the use of psychiatric seclusion at Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care. The Star’s reporting has been met with calls for an independent review of Ontario’s mental health system.

Diane Worden was happy but in shock when she got a call a few weeks ago from Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care about her son, Jake Gordon.

After more than five years detained in Ontario’s only maximum-security psychiatric hospital in Penetanguishene — almost entirely spent locked in isolation in his room — the 31-year-old man with treatment-resistant schizophrenia was being transferred immediately to a less secure hospital just a 15-minute drive from the family home.

The move to Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Whitby came just a month after a Star profile on Gordon’s case, featuring six-and-a-half hours of video surveillance footage provided by Worden showing her son pacing alone while in seclusion in his tiny room at Waypoint last year. Worden had requested the video from Waypoint in the hopes of finding out how her son was able to cause a serious injury to his eye, but the incident was not captured in the footage.

At the time of his transfer, Gordon had been out of seclusion for just over two months, having been released amid the Star’s ongoing investigation into Waypoint’s use of the practice.

“It’s shocking how fast they made this happen,” Worden said.

Seclusion is meant to be the option of last resort, to be used for as brief a time as possible, to deal with a patient who poses an imminent risk of bodily harm to themselves or others. The Star’s investigation has revealed that Waypoint has been keeping seriously mentally ill patients in seclusion for years, and in the case of Camelott Hamblett, 20 years and counting. An independent assessment concluded in August that Waypoint is holding patients in conditions the United Nations has “deemed to constitute torture” in similar settings.

Medication alone had failed to improve her son’s condition, Worden noted, as he had a poor response to many different drugs. But on the heels of the Star’s coverage this spring, Worden said her son started spending an increasing amount of time out of seclusion and out of restraints; he was being taken to the canteen and into the courtyard; he was seen by a dentist and an optometrist; he was being given access to music more often; and he was showering again.

He then improved to the point that he was released from seclusion in August, and is now well enough that he can be managed in a less secure facility.

She said Gordon — who had trouble walking and talking and would drool when Worden visited him at Waypoint — is doing significantly better. On a recent visit to Ontario Shores, Worden noted that he’s communicative and “very happy” to be there.

“He talked about the hope of getting out one day, getting a job, a nice place to live and seeing his family more often now that he is closer to home,” she said.

Everything that has happened for her son in such a short period of time is no coincidence, Worden said. She attributed the increased focus on her son's care this year to the Star’s investigation, the multiple experts who have come forward with their concerns, and the work of Gordon’s new lawyer, Anita Szigeti, who specializes in mental health law and represents a number of other men in seclusion at Waypoint.

“It’s 100 per cent because of the public scrutiny,” Worden said. “You don’t go from five-and-a-half years in seclusion to all of a sudden you’re out and making cupcakes and two months later you’re being transferred to Ontario Shores.”

For years, Worden made the drive to Waypoint — about five hours round trip — to visit her son as much as she could, when he would be permitted to briefly leave his room. While she did have her concerns about his care and would voice them to the hospital, she said she ultimately trusted that they were doing the right thing for Gordon.

Worden, who also serves as her son’s substitute decision-maker, worries about the damage that five years in isolation will have caused. She also continues to question whether seclusion for such a lengthy period of time was even necessary, pointing to Gordon’s voluminous medical records, which she said do not indicate risk or aggression from Gordon on a daily basis that would warrant him remaining locked up.

“They always told me it was because he was a harm to himself or to others,” she said. “Well, where is the harm?”

It was only when she came across the initial stories from the Star’s investigation in the spring, profiling the cases of Hamblett and other patientswho’ve been kept in locked seclusion at Waypoint, that she became alarmed.

“Obviously that trust was misguided,” she said."

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What to know about the Star's investigationSeclusion means locking a psychiatric patient up alone in a room.
Waypoint policies say it's a last resort, to be used for as brief a time as possible, with a patient who poses an imminent risk.
Waypoint has kept some patients in seclusion for years on end; for Camelott Hamblett, it's been 20 years.
Leading experts have described Waypoint's practices as “abusive” and unlike anything seen in other North American facilities.
Waypoint has refused to say how many patients are in long-term seclusion.
Waypoint says it is following a set of best practices called the Six Core Strategies to reduce seclusion.
The first of the six says the hospital CEO must be directly involved in the day-to-day use of seclusion.
Waypoint CEO Dr. Nadiya Sunderji has told the Star she will not do that, saying it would be inappropriate.
Warnings about “unethical” long-term seclusion at Waypoint and its predecessor, Oak Ridge, go back to at least 1984.
In 2019, a psychiatrist warned the Ford government the hospital's practices are "horrific" — but the Ministry of Health took no further action.
An independent report in the case of Andrew Azevedo found patients are being kept in conditions akin to the UN definition of torture.
In its decision on Azevedo's case, the Ontario Review Board found Waypoint routinely broke internal rules on seclusion. The board's decision amounted to an order: follow your own policies.
Waypoint patients describe being placed in seclusion as punishment, while not being told why they were being kept alone for months at a time.

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Oversight of Gordon’s time in seclusion called into question

Unlike most of the other men in long-term seclusion at Waypoint, Gordon was not a forensic patient, meaning he hadn’t committed any crime. Rather, he was a civil patient, involuntarily detained under the Mental Health Act because he’s been found to pose a serious risk of bodily harm to himself and others.

Worden is under no illusions: she does believe her son should remain in a hospital. But his case calls into question the independent oversight of the detention of civil patients, and whether there was a missed opportunity to get Gordon out of seclusion sooner.

The Consent and Capacity Board (CCB) — whose three-member panels are made up of a medical professional, lawyer and layperson — is required to hold a review of a civil patient’s case after six months, and then every year afterward, to determine whether their involuntary status should be upheld; the patient can also ask for orders such as a transfer to another facility.

Play Video

It’s unknown whether the board was ever presented with any evidence about Gordon’s seclusion status and whether any panel members expressed concern. That’s because while the board must provide its decision within a day of the hearing, it isn’t required under Ontario law to produce written reasons for that decision unless one of the parties — Gordon, his psychiatrist and the hospital — asks for them within 30 days of the hearing. No one ever did.

That’s in stark contrast to the Ontario Review Board, the independent body with oversight of forensic patients, which is required to produce written reasons after every hearing.

The chair of the CCB, Philip Squire, said in an email the board’s practices accord with the legislation: “The CCB is unable to comment on the practices of other administrative tribunals or their governing legislation.”


Gordon was represented by five different lawyers at six CCB hearings; it’s unclear how they came on board, though one possibility is they were arranged by legal aid after an order from the board.

When Szigeti was contacted by Gordon’s family and recently retained to be his lawyer, she found it “shocking and really disconcerting” that there were no records she could access to determine if his seclusion had been reviewed by the CCB. Notwithstanding what the law says, Szigeti has long been raising the need for the CCB to adopt a policy requiring the board to always produce written reasons for the mandatory hearings reviewing an individual’s involuntary status.


“There has to be some documentation somewhere as to what is happening with someone who is locked in a facility, and in this case locked in seclusion for more than five years,” Szigeti said.


“What is the purpose of having an oversight body tasked with mandatory hearings when there’s no record of what they did and why?”

Worden never went to her son’s hearings, which are held on Zoom, because she says his Waypoint social workers told her it was just to decide whether his involuntary status should be upheld — something she wasn’t looking to challenge anyway. She had no idea that the board would have had the power to transfer her son out of Waypoint.

She can’t help but think of other families who still don’t know.

“There are all these patients like Jake who are locked in there, and nobody can do anything about it because we don’t know the system,” Worden said. “They lock us out.”

The campus of the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Whitby.ontarioshores.ca

‘He’s just the old Jake’

Now that Gordon is back at Ontario Shores, his mother will be able to visit him daily. When he was at Waypoint, months would pass by before she could see him because she wasn’t comfortable driving the long distance in winter weather.

And for the first time in over five years, Gordon will be able to see his father, who has multiple sclerosis and is mostly bedridden. Given the proximity of Ontario Shores, Worden plans to find a way to transport her husband there to see their son.

“The hardest part of having him at Waypoint was either his dad would pass away or something bad would happen to Jake, and he would never be able to see his dad again,” Worden said. “Jake is always worried about him. The first thing he always says is: ‘How is Dad?’”

While seclusion is used for various lengths of time in practically all hospitals, including Ontario Shores, none have been known to keep patients locked up for years like Waypoint. At Ontario Shores, Gordon’s room has a big window with a view of Lake Ontario, as well as a bed with a pillow and blankets; at Waypoint, as seen on the surveillance footage, he only had a mat on the floor.


Overall, Worden is still taken aback by just how much progress has been made since her son was released from isolation, and she hopes to see that progress continue.

“He’s lost weight, he’s talkative, he’s smiling,” she said. “He’s just the old Jake that was there before he went to Waypoint.”

Read the 20 Years in Isolation series:

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Part 1: The story of Camelott Hamblett and why he's spent two decades locked in a room alone at this Ontario psychiatric hospital
Part 2: Why Waypoint is being called an ‘abusive’ outlier for keepingpatients in isolation for years at a time
Part 3: Why the Ontario Review Board kept Camelott Hamblett in seclusion for 20 years, without asking the right questions
Part 4: Their son has been ‘caged’ at Waypoint for nearly five years. Why public ‘shock and horror’ may mean new hope
Aug. 26: Waypoint’s use of isolation has been deemed akin to ‘torture’
Aug. 31: A psychiatrist warned Doug Ford’s government about Waypoint’s ‘horrific’ isolation. The province called one hospital exec — then did nothing
Sept. 5: Why video of Jake Gordon's life in isolation left his mom ‘absolutely, completely horrified’
Sept. 14: Waypoint is ordered to address ‘harm’ of keeping man in isolation for years
Sept. 22: Warnings about ‘unethical’ use of seclusion at Waypoint go back more than 40 years
Sept. 24: Waypoint is ordered to follow its own policies, which it routinely broke
Oct. 17: Patients describe months ‘trapped’ in locked isolation at Waypoint

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The entire story can be read at:

https://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/this-ontario-hospital-locked-jake-gordon-up-alone-for-five-years-it-transferred-him-just-after-the-star-told-his-story/article_5a2d2ed2-dbe3-4856-b03d-58191a52fec1.html

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;

November 9: Technology: (Misuse of confidential databases available to police) : Constable Elias Mouawad: Ontario's explosive police corruption probe 'Operation South' puts the spotlight on the prevalence of police abuse of confidential databases as Toronto Star Crime Reporter Wendy Gillis reports on this Toronto police officer who was caught snooping, which, says the Star, explains why his case is a warning to every officer with database access, noting that: "Mouawad was a bycatch of the bigger Project South investigation. He was caught on a wiretap running a licence plate search for Daljit Singh, his former boss at a security company, who assured it was for “nothing bad.” Unbeknownst to Mouawad, Singh was with Brian Da Costa, an accused drug trafficker and alleged co-conspirator of Const. Timothy Barnhardt, the veteran cop at the heart of the policing scandal. The subject of Mouawad’s search was linked to two past drug trafficking investigations, according to an agreed statement of facts read out at the officer’s trial. A lawyer for Singh, who is charged in relation to Mouawad’s computer search, declined to comment."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY:  "In spite of log-in screens warning officers against misuse each time they sign into a workstation, police officers across Ontario have for years illicitly mined the private information at their fingertips, abusing databases intended solely to help them solve crime. At disciplinary hearings, officers who snoop on romantic interests or query the status of a relative’s criminal record often face docked pay or a temporary demotion, even for scores of prohibited searches; a police tribunal is expected to soon hear the case of a Toronto officer who allegedly ran more than 100 prohibited queries in a 15-month span."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: " Critics say a “slap on the wrist” approach has let the problem fester, as seen by alarming Project South allegations that database information leaked by a Toronto cop facilitated shootings, extortions and a conspiracy to commit murder. “I didn’t think, in my opinion, that it was ever taken seriously,” said Gerry McNeilly, former director of Ontario’s police complaints watchdog. “I think we’ve seen the result of that now through Project South, because it obviously continued to mushroom.”

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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Criminal convictions for police database breaches happen, but cases are often egregious or involve additional offenses. In 2022, Toronto police Const. Trevor Gregory pleaded guilty to breach of trust for querying the address of an alleged African warlord then sending it to his son — who fatally shot the man at his London home the next day. The officer received a 12-month conditional sentence. Database abuse akin to Mouawad’s more often merits three to six days docked pay at the tribunal, Brauti said, or more if the information was disseminated."

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PASSAGE FOUR OF THE DAY: "At Mouawad’s trial, the prosecutor, Walker, asked the judge to issue a sentence that included two months of house arrest, saying the court mustsend an “unambiguous” message to police officers that leaking confidential database information will not be tolerated. Rhinelander ultimately sided with the defence, concluding his search was an “isolated lapse in judgment” and that his unique circumstances called for restraint. But she warned officers who abuse databases not to assume Mouawad’s fate would be theirs. In an era where access to digital information is “widespread and powerful,” the public must trust that sensitive information in police databases is secure, she said. “The message going forward should be clear,” she wrote. “Police officers who misuse their privileged access to confidential databases for purposes unrelated to their duties risk not only employment and disciplinary consequences but also criminal convictions.”

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STORY: "A Toronto rookie cop was caught snooping. Why his case is a warning to every officer with database access, by Crime and Police   Reporter Wendy Gillis, published by The Toronto Star, on November 9, 2026. (Reporter Wendy Gillis joined the Toronto Star staff in 2010 and has since been nominated multiple times for National Newspaper Awards. She previously worked for the StarPhoenix in Saskatoon, her hometown.)

SUB-HEADING: "Critics say the ‘slap on the wrist’ approach of handling most of these cases has let the problem fester."

PHOTO CAPTION: "Toronto police Const. Elias Mouawad pleaded guilty to conducting a single unlawful computer search on behalf of a friend. Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star

GIST: "As Elias Mouawad sat before the judge deciding his fate, his lawyer argued the rookie Toronto officer’s case would normally never even see the inside of a courtroom.

Were it not for the fact that he had been folded into the explosive police corruption probe Project South, the 25-year-old constable would be where most officers who leak confidential police database information end up, Peter Brauti argued earlier this fall. He’d be at the police disciplinary tribunal.

There, Mouawad’s misdeed usually results in docked pay.

That was part of the problem, as the prosecutor saw it. Considering the “lenient” penalties doled out by police tribunals, citizens might reasonably want the justice system to step in, Samuel Walker argued.

“The public would be justified in saying it might be necessary for the courts to send a message to the police service: That they need to deal with this more seriously,” Walker said.

“What they have been doing to date is not good enough.”

In spite of log-in screens warning officers against misuse each time they sign into a workstation, police officers across Ontario have for years illicitly mined the private information at their fingertips, abusing databases intended solely to help them solve crime.

At disciplinary hearings, officers who snoop on romantic interests or query the status of a relative’s criminal record often face docked pay or a temporary demotion, even for scores of prohibited searches; a police tribunal is expected to soon hear the case of a Toronto officer who allegedly ran more than 100 prohibited queries in a 15-month span.

Critics say a “slap on the wrist” approach has let the problem fester, as seen by alarming Project South allegations that database information leaked by a Toronto cop facilitated shootings, extortions and a conspiracy to commit murder.

“I didn’t think, in my opinion, that it was ever taken seriously,” said Gerry McNeilly, former director of Ontario’s police complaints watchdog. “I think we’ve seen the result of that now through Project South, because it obviously continued to mushroom.”

Toronto police have launched an anti-corruption project reviewing database access and abuse, and a province-wide review of database practices is ongoing. A police spokesperson said suspected misuse is taken seriously and investigated, with consequences determined by the extent of searches and whether confidential information was divulged.

But critics say harsher penalties for even lower level cases are needed to denounce more routine abuse, including police laying more criminal charges against their own.

Last month, the Ontario judge hearing Mouawad’s case weighed in.

“There was a time when conduct of this nature may have been addressed primarily through internal disciplinary proceedings or employment-related consequences,” Ontario Superior Court of Justice Catherine Rhinelander said. “That is no longer sufficient in every case.”

A bycatch in a bigger police scandal

Mouawad was a bycatch of the bigger Project South investigation. He was caught on a wiretap running a licence plate search for Daljit Singh, his former boss at a security company, who assured it was for “nothing bad.” Unbeknownst to Mouawad, Singh was with Brian Da Costa, an accused drug trafficker and alleged co-conspirator of Const. Timothy Barnhardt, the veteran cop at the heart of the policing scandal.

The subject of Mouawad’s search was linked to two past drug trafficking investigations, according to an agreed statement of facts read out at the officer’s trial. A lawyer for Singh, who is charged in relation to Mouawad’s computer search, declined to comment.

Mouawad wasn’t connected to the more serious Project South allegations and he said he didn’t know the other officers implicated. He did one lone search and wasn’t paid for the favour. After pleading guilty to one count of improperly searching a police database, Mouawad told court he “deeply” regretted his actions.

“Being criminally prosecuted for a single unauthorized check is already at the extreme end of the punishment spectrum,” Brauti said, asking the judge for a conditional discharge.

Criminal convictions for police database breaches happen, but cases are often egregious or involve additional offenses. In 2022, Toronto police Const. Trevor Gregory pleaded guilty to breach of trust for querying the address of an alleged African warlord then sending it to his son — who fatally shot the man at his London home the next day. The officer received a 12-month conditional sentence.

Database abuse akin to Mouawad’s more often merits three to six days docked pay at the tribunal, Brauti said, or more if the information was disseminated.

In spite of log-in screens warning officers against misuse each time they sign into a workstation, police officers across Ontario have for years illicitly mined the private information at their fingertips.R.J. Johnston/Toronto Star

Toronto officer accused doing 100+ unauthorized searches

A 2014 Toronto Star investigation found at least 25 officers misused internal databases in the previous five years, including an OPP officer who was docked 30 hours’ pay after conducting more than 550 unauthorized searches.


This summer, prosecutors withdrew a criminal charge against Const. Abbas Popal, a 25-year-old Toronto officer charged in March with one count of unauthorized use of a computer. According to Brauti, whose firm represented Popal, he is accused of conducting over 100 unauthorized searches.

Though the prosecutor said there were grounds to believe a criminal offence was committed, the police tribunal was “better suited to addressing this misconduct,” noting Popal hadn’t disseminated the information and there was no public interest in proceeding.

Popal is currently suspended with pay. His lawyer, Peter Ketcheson, told the Star allegations his client unlawfully accessed police databases have not been proven, and said the evidence “definitively” shows he did not disseminate any information from the alleged searches, or use it for improper purposes.

At Mouawad’s trial, the prosecutor, Walker, asked the judge to issue a sentence that included two months of house arrest, saying the court must send an “unambiguous” message to police officers that leaking confidential database information will not be tolerated.

Rhinelander ultimately sided with the defence, concluding his search was an “isolated lapse in judgment” and that his unique circumstances called for restraint.

But she warned officers who abuse databases not to assume Mouawad’s fate would be theirs. In an era where access to digital information is “widespread and powerful,” the public must trust that sensitive information in police databases is secure, she said.

“The message going forward should be clear,” she wrote. “Police officers who misuse their privileged access to confidential databases for purposes unrelated to their duties risk not only employment and disciplinary consequences but also criminal convictions.”

THE PROJECT SOUTH FILES

Toronto cops were dealing drugs to each other, corruption probe docs allege. ‘You got ... cocaine eyes’

‘A little slap on the wrist’

McNeilly, former director of Ontario’s recently renamed Law Enforcement Complaints Agency, said he took it seriously when his office received complaints from those who believed their personal information was leaked. But when he brought complaints to police, the searches were usually characterized as a “slip up,” not a privacy breach or security risk, he said.

“So we’re gonna give you a little slap on the wrist and say, ‘Don’t do it again,’” McNeilly told the Star.

Crimes of curiosity may not merit more than internal discipline, McNeilly said, but penalties should be harsher than a reprimand or a few days’ docked pay.

Danielle McNabb, a Brock University assistant professor who researches police accountability, said searches that involve harassment and stalking may also warrant criminal charges. In general, the justice system is better suited to exact consequences that “reflect the public’s view of how serious these abuses are” and act as deterrents, she said.

“Really showing police officers this is strictly forbidden — it will result in significant consequences,” she said.

Rooting out abuse a challenge

Toronto police spokesperson Stephanie Sayer said criminal charges are one way to address misuse but said misconduct hearings can result in significant penalties, including demotion or dismissal.

Clayton Campbell, president of the Toronto Police Association, defended the current accountability system and said “we cannot assume the egregious actions of a few members accurately reflect what happens across an entire organization.”

“We have thousands of members who access these databases professionally and treat the information therein with the utmost integrity,” Campbell said.

Extensive database use is part of what makes rooting out abuse challenging. Officers routinely search internal databases while responding to calls, conducting investigations and completing other duties, generating millions of system records, police say.

“Identifying instances of inappropriate access among this volume of activity is complex, which is why effective safeguards, monitoring and oversight are so important,” Sayer said.

In addition to stricter penalties, McNabb said police forces should focus on frequent and systematic auditing to get ahead of the problem to begin with.

“Police services need to do a better job at proactively dealing with this,” she said."

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/how-one-project-south-officer-s-case-became-a-referendum-on-how-harshly-we-should-treat-unlawful-database-searches/article_2fbafec2-bb84-4b82-9cc4-9920bacdb6bf.html

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;

November 9: Southern Justice? Jeremy Hutchinson, Mark Bowling and Mary Kate Mull, Take us into a very dark place, in their commentary 'When junk science decides guilt in the South," published by The Magnolia Tribune, (based in Flora, Mississippi) noting that: "Under modern evidentiary standards, scientific analysis should not reach a jury unless it rests on reliable methods and validations. Yet for decades, courts admitted forensic disciplines before their reliability had been established. For example, bite-mark analysis, microscopic hair comparison, and bloodstain interpretation was presented to juries as objective science, even though unbiased researchers had failed to validate their reliability. The consequences were devastating—innocent people were convicted, guilty people remained free, and public trust in the criminal justice system eroded. Those harms have been especially severe in the South because junk science did not operate in a vacuum. It operated alongside underfunded public-defense systems, elected coroners with limited medical training, and communities where Black defendants often faced judges, juries, prosecutors, police departments, and forensic witnesses shaped by the region’s racial past. A forensic claim that might have been challenged by a well-funded defense team could become nearly unanswerable for a poor defendant in a rural county. The clearest example is Mississippi."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The federal government has also acknowledged the consequences of placing too much faith in junk science. In 2015, after an extensive review of microscopic hair comparison testimony, the FBI admitted that its examiners had overstated forensic conclusions in the overwhelming majority of cases reviewed, including cases involving death sentences. These were not harmless technical errors. They helped convict real people. According to the Innocence Project, misapplied forensic science has contributed to more than half of its wrongful-conviction cases. In many of those cases, juries heard testimony that exceeded what science could actually prove. Experts offered conclusions with unwarranted certainty. But such opinions were based on techniques that had never been validated. In the South, those errors often reinforced patterns that were already familiar: poor defendants against the state, Black defendants before institutions built during or after segregation, and rural communities dependent on local officials whose authority was rarely questioned. Phony forensics gave the system a language of certainty. It allowed prosecutors to present weak cases as scientific fact, and it made racial and class bias harder to see because the prejudice arrived wearing the mask of expertise."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist is more than the story of two discredited experts. It is a warning about what happens when a legal system shaped by racial history grants scientific authority before science has earned it. In the South, the fight against junk science is also a fight against the legacy of racial discrimination in the courtroom. Every wrongful conviction based on unreliable forensics is a reminder that justice depends not only on finding the guilty, but on ensuring that the evidence used to convict is worthy of the trust placed in it."

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STORY: "When junk science decides guilt in the South," by Jeremy Hutchinson, Mark Bowling an  Mary Kate Mull," published  by the beautifully named Magnolia Tribune, on July 27, 2026. (Jeremy Hutchinson  is the former chair of the Arkansas Senate Judiciary Committee and is now the Director of Special Projects at Unify. US. Mark Bowling is a former Special Agent with the FBI. "Mary Kate Mull is a legal fellow at Unify. US."

GIST: States should adopt the federal standard for expert testimony and make reliability a threshold requirement, not a question left for jurors to sort out after unreliable science has been heard.

In an American courtroom, few words carry more weight than “the science shows.”

Jurors may question an eyewitness or a defendant’s explanation, but forensic evidence is different. When someone dubbed “an expert” testifies about forensic evidence, such testimony carries substantial weight. However, bite marks, hair comparisons, bloodstain patterns, and other analyses have turned out to be junk science – unvetted, inaccurate, and unreliable. When the State fails to act as gatekeepers, so-called ‘expert testimony’ is mistaken for scientific proof.

Under modern evidentiary standards, scientific analysis should not reach a jury unless it rests on reliable methods and validations. Yet for decades, courts admitted forensic disciplines before their reliability had been established. For example, bite-mark analysis, microscopic hair comparison, and bloodstain interpretation was presented to juries as objective science, even though unbiased researchers had failed to validate their reliability. The consequences were devastating—innocent people were convicted, guilty people remained free, and public trust in the criminal justice system eroded.

Those harms have been especially severe in the South because junk science did not operate in a vacuum. It operated alongside underfunded public-defense systems, elected coroners with limited medical training, and communities where Black defendants often faced judges, juries, prosecutors, police departments, and forensic witnesses shaped by the region’s racial past. A forensic claim that might have been challenged by a well-funded defense team could become nearly unanswerable for a poor defendant in a rural county.

The clearest example is Mississippi. In The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist, Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington write about how the state’s criminal justice system allowed forensic pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne and bite-mark analyst Dr. Michael West to become two of its most influential expert witnesses. For years, Hayne performed the bulk of Mississippi’s criminal autopsies, while West repeatedly testified, untruthfully as it turns out, that bite marks could identify suspects with remarkable precision.

Their influence mattered because Mississippi’s death-investigation system was not merely inefficient; it was historically tied to local politics. Like many Southern states, Mississippi relies heavily on county-level officials and informal arrangements rather than a consistently independent, professionally staffed medical examiner system. In such an environment, Hayne and West often testified as neutral experts, but in reality, they were peddling junk science as part of the prosecution’s team.

The human cost was enormous. Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, two Black men from rural Mississippi, were convicted in separate child-murder cases after testimony from Hayne and West link them to bite marks that later proved unreliable. Together, they spent decades in prison before DNA evidence exposed the truth: another man was responsible. Their cases show how junk science can do more than convict the innocent. It can protect the guilty by giving the legal system a false sense of certainty.

The tragedy is not only that two so-called experts got it wrong. It is that judges repeatedly allowed juries to hear testimony that lacked the scientific foundation Courts accepted their testimony with little scrutiny because it sounded scientific and because the defendants most harmed by it often lacked the money, status, and institutional trust needed to challenge it. In the South, where criminal punishment has long been entangled with racial politics, that failure carries particular weight.

The problem with junk science isn’t limited to Mississippi courtrooms. Just last month, the Louisiana Supreme court freed a man on death row who was convicted using bite mark analysis, finding that the evidence was “scientifically indefensible.” Across the country, courts admitted forensic evidence that had never undergone the rigorous testing expected of legitimate scientific disciplines. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences warned that many commonly used forensic methods lacked the necessary scientific support and called for major reforms. In 2016, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reached a similar conclusion, finding that feature-comparison disciplines like bite mark and hair comparison analyses, lacked “foundational validity.” Those findings raise an obvious question: if these methods weren’t trustworthy, why were juries allowed to consider them as scientific evidence at all?

The federal government has also acknowledged the consequences of placing too much faith in junk science. In 2015, after an extensive review of microscopic hair comparison testimony, the FBI admitted that its examiners had overstated forensic conclusions in the overwhelming majority of cases reviewed, including cases involving death sentences.

These were not harmless technical errors. They helped convict real people. According to the Innocence Project, misapplied forensic science has contributed to more than half of its wrongful-conviction cases. In many of those cases, juries heard testimony that exceeded what science could actually prove. Experts offered conclusions with unwarranted certainty. But such opinions were based on techniques that had never been validated.

In the South, those errors often reinforced patterns that were already familiar: poor defendants against the state, Black defendants before institutions built during or after segregation, and rural communities dependent on local officials whose authority was rarely questioned. Phony forensics gave the system a language of certainty. It allowed prosecutors to present weak cases as scientific fact, and it made racial and class bias harder to see because the prejudice arrived wearing the mask of expertise.

There has been some progress. Courts are increasingly skeptical of opinion disguised as science. The 2023 amendments to Federal Rule of Evidence 702 reaffirmed that judges, not juries, must determine whether expert testimony satisfies reliability requirements before it is admitted. Yet too many states reject the federal approach. Mississippi is already considering changing court rules to embrace the federal approach. The state Supreme court is studying the matter. For there to be justice, the court should adopt the change as soon as possible and allow for appeals in cases where junk science and phony forensics were used.

Science deserves its privileged place in the courtroom, but only when it is truly scientific. The most important safeguard against junk science is not a better jury instruction or a stronger cross-examination. It is a judge willing to keep unreliable opinions out of the courtroom altogether. Expert testimony must be grounded in methods that have been rigorously tested, independently validated, and honestly presented to juries with their limitations fully acknowledged.

The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist is more than the story of two discredited experts. It is a warning about what happens when a legal system shaped by racial history grants scientific authority before science has earned it. In the South, the fight against junk science is also a fight against the legacy of racial discrimination in the courtroom. Every wrongful conviction based on unreliable forensics is a reminder that justice depends not only on finding the guilty, but on ensuring that the evidence used to convict is worthy of the trust placed in it.

The solution is simple. States should adopt the federal standard for expert testimony and make reliability a threshold requirement, not a question left for jurors to sort out after unreliable science has been heard. Federal Rule of Evidence 702 permits expert testimony only when it is the product of reliable principles and scientific methods rather than conjecture and opinion. States should adopt the federal approach so that evidence is not admitted because it sounds scientific; it is admitted because it is reliable."

The entire Commentary can be read at: 

https://magnoliatribune.com/2026/07/27/when-junk-science-decides-guilt-in-the-south/?fbclid=IwZnRzaAVWwfJkdm100DBoOGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YBZmRpZBZRGPuLiJHYMZ8xLhTMtmbBA2l6U3QIc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQKNjYyODU2ODM3OQABH8YcrsOlbIi400f67ohiDeyDuU944G8rlvtjpy7Vgsmr2CjsIkNEo-k_K2BZ_aem_ZAaV5V3Y1m89iWXR4ssuvA

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;

November 8: Forensic psychiatrist Martin Blinder: Obituary Writer Clay Risen's obituary on the forensic scientists recent death is aptly headed, "Martin Blinder Has Died. He Was Blamed for the ‘Twinkie Defense,' and sub-headed, "A forensic psychiatrist, he testified that consuming sugary foods could cause antisocial behavior. To his dismay, a catchphrase was born. He was 89." Who could believe that he would be haunted by for the rest of his life by a few out of context words, as a photo caption tells us: "Martin Blinder in 1983. He distanced himself from what reporters called the Twinkie defense, saying, “Dr. Blinder found the whole experience infuriating. “There never was a Twinkie defense,” he told The San Francisco Examiner in 1983. “Because it’s so preposterous, it’s made me the object of derision.” so preposterous, it’s made me the object of derision.”

 WIKIPEDIA ENTRY: "White's defense was that he suffered diminished capacity as a result of his depression, a symptom of which was a change in diet from healthy food to Twinkies and other sugary foods. Contrary to common belief, White's attorneys did not argue that the Twinkies were the cause of White's actions, but that their consumption was symptomatic of his underlying depression. The product itself was only mentioned in passing during the trial. White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter rather than first-degree murder, and served five years in prison."......"In stories covering the trial, satirist Paul Krassner had played up the angle of the Twinkie, and he would later claim credit for coining the term "Twinkie defense". The day after the verdict, columnist Herb Caen wrote in the San Francisco Chronicleabout the police support for White, himself a former policeman, and their "dislike of homosexuals" and mentioned "the Twinkie insanity defense" in passing.  News stories published after the trial, however, frequently reported the defense arguments inaccurately, claiming that the defense had presented junk food as the cause of White's depression and/or diminished capacity, instead of having been symptomatic of an existing depression.  Dan White committed suicide seven years later. As a result of negative publicity from the White case and others, the term diminished capacity was abolished in 1982 by Proposition 8 and the California legislature and was replaced by the term diminished actuality, referring not to the capacity to have a specific intent, but to whether the defendant actually had the required intent to commit the crime.  Additionally, California's statutory definitions of premeditation and malice required for murder were eliminated by the state's legislature, with the return to common law definitions. By this time, the "Twinkie defense" had become such a common term that one lawmaker had waved a Twinkie in the air while making his point during a debate."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkie_defense?shem=aimgspe,

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QUOTE  OF THE DAY: "Dr. Blinder remained a highly sought-after forensic psychiatrist long after the White case receded into history. But he never stopped trying to live down the moment that made him famous. If I found a cure for cancer,” he told the news website SF Gate in 2003, “they’d still say I was the guy who invented the ‘Twinkie defense.’”

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OBITUARY: "Martin Blinder Has Died. He Was Blamed for the ‘Twinkie Defense,' by Clay Risen, published by The New York Times, on November 6, 2026. Clay Risen is on the New York Times  'Obituary Desk.' As he describes his work: "I write about all manner of fascinating lives — a pioneering oyster farmer in Louisiana, a French pianist still recording albums in her 100s and one of the last victims of the Red Scare, to name a few. Obviously, the reason for writing an obituary is the recent death of its subject. But to me they are really about people’s lives, how they lived them and why they mattered. Each is a brick in a wall that together constitutes our shared history."

SUB-HEADING: "A forensic psychiatrist, he testified that consuming sugary foods could cause antisocial behavior. To his dismay, a catchphrase was born. He was 89."

PHOTO CAPTION: "Martin Blinder in 1983. He distanced himself from what reporters called the Twinkie defense, saying, “It’s so preposterous, it’s made me the object of derision.”

GEST: "This much was clear: On Nov. 27, 1978, a disgruntled San Francisco politician named Dan White walked into the office of Mayor George Moscone and shot him to death.

He then walked down the hall to find Harvey Milk, a member of the city’s board of supervisors and the first openly gay man elected to public office in California. Mr. White shot and killed him, too.

Mr. White was immediately arrested, and he confessed. But at his murder trial the next year, his lawyers claimed that his mental capacities had been diminished by stress and depression, a claim they supported by calling the forensic psychiatrist Martin Blinder to the stand.

Dr. Blinder testified for more than four hours. But it was a passing reference to junk food that earned him a place in history.

Mr. White was a fit, healthy man, Dr. Blinder said. But he struggled with depression, and when he was depressed, he turned to sugary foods to cope.

“Whenever he felt things were not going right, he would abandon his usual program of exercise and good nutrition, and start gorging himself on junk foods — Twinkies, Coca-Cola,” Dr. Blinder testified. “The more junk food he con­sumed, the worse he’d feel. The worse he’d feel, the more he’d gorge himself, and so on, in a vicious circle.”

And several studies, Dr. Blinder noted, showed that “high-sugar-content food with lots of preservatives can precipitate antisocial and even violent behavior.”

He never claimed that junk food like Twinkies had caused Mr. White’s diminished capacity; he offered a much more nuanced analysis. But after the jury found Mr. White guilty of voluntary manslaughter rather than first-degree murder, reporters looking for an explanation blamed Dr. Blinder and what came to be known as the Twinkie defense — namely, that eating too much junk food made a person temporarily irrational.

Dr. Blinder, a highly regarded forensic psychiatrist who spent the rest of his career trying to correct the record, died on Oct. 30 at his home in San Anselmo, Calif. He was 89.

His wife, Mary Mahima Daily Blinder, said the death was from pancreatic cancer.

The Twinkie defense became a pop-culture buzz phrase in the early 1980s, and a popular target for victims’ rights advocates, who saw it as evidence of a legal system run amok. In 1982, California voters abolished the diminished-capacity defense, and several states placed restrictions on the use of expert witnesses in felony trials.

Dr. Blinder found the whole experience infuriating.

“There never was a Twinkie defense,” he told The San Francisco Examiner in 1983. “Because it’s so preposterous, it’s made me the object of derision.”

Martin George Blinder was born on Feb. 22, 1937, in the Bronx. His father, Harry, was a cardiologist, and his mother, Regina (Schwartz) Blinder, managed the home.

He graduated from Cornell in 1958 and received an M.D. from the Chicago Medical School in 1962.

Dr. Blinder settled in San Anselmo, north of San Francisco, where he practiced medicine and taught at nearby universities. He also got into politics: In 1972, he was elected to the Town Council, where he oversaw the passage of one of the country’s first restrictions on smoking in public places, and served as mayor from 1975 to 1976.

He was married three times. His first marriage, to Dorothy Braco, ended in divorce in 1976. His second wife, Elizabeth Doney, died by suicide in 1986.

In 2000, Ms. Braco attacked him in his home, stabbing him multiple times before fleeing. He managed to call 911 before collapsing from blood loss. Ms. Braco’s car was later found near the San Francisco entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge; her body washed up on the shore nearby.

He married Mary Mahima Daily in 2010. Along with her, Dr. Blinder is survived by two children, two grandchildren and a sister, Phoebe Blinder.

Dr. Blinder wrote several books for academic and popular audiences, including “Psychiatry in the Everyday Practice of Law” (1972) and “Lovers, Killers, Husbands and Wives” (1985), about the reasons people kill intimate partners.

Mr. White received parole in 1984 and died by suicide in 1985.

Dr. Blinder remained a highly sought-after forensic psychiatrist long after the White case receded into history. But he never stopped trying to live down the moment that made him famous.

“If I found a cure for cancer,” he told the news website SF Gate in 2003, “they’d still say I was the guy who invented the ‘Twinkie defense.’”

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

NYTimes: Martin Blinder Has Died. He Was Blamed for the ‘Twinkie Defense.’ 

The entire obituary can be read at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/06/us/martin-blinder-twinkie-defense-dead.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

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;

November 8: Fake (junk) Science: (National Public Radio): Transcript of Emily Kwong's enlightening interview with Chris Fabricant on the topic," Is your favourite crime show rooted in fake science: Fabricant: "FABRICANT: Over half of all known wrongful convictions are attributable to the use of junk science. KWONG: And Chris says that is a problem. Today on the show, the junk science keeping people in jail. We're diving into the forensic techniques that have been completely debunked, the ones that should be examined more carefully, and the systems that have kept them alive in criminal courts for so long. I'm Emily Kwong. And you're listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR."

PASSAGE  OF THE DAY: "KWONG: Of the methods we've described, have any fallen out of favor in a way that you're like, this is good? It's the method that's the problem. Or is it actually the whole field that's the problem? FABRICANT: I get asked that question a fair amount. People say that, you know, we're not using hair microscopy anymore, and we're not using bite marks, or what have you. And the reality is that we are, in that I get a call all the time from defense attorneys that are seeking to resist the introduction of those techniques. But new junk science emerges every day. Let's talk about ShotSpotter evidence, right? This is supposed to be a digital, acoustic, forensic technique that allows police officers to detect gunshots and separate those sounds from all other loud noises, and then direct police resources to the sound of gunshots. KWONG: Wow. FABRICANT: And that sounds reasonable, right? KWONG: Yeah. FABRICANT: But actually, it's worse than flipping a coin as to whether or not there are actual gunshots. You know, without real scientific scrutiny, the chance of a forensic technique being introduced at trial and being wrong or exaggerated is overwhelming.

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PRODUCTION: "National Public Radio (NPR) production: "Short Wave." 'Is your favourite crime show rooted in fake science?' Published on October 30, 2026. (Chris Fabricant is the director of strategic litigation (Joseph Flom Special Counsel) at the Innocence Project. In this role, he leads the Innocence Project’s strategic litigation department, whose attorneys develop and execute national litigation and public policy strategies to address the leading causes of wrongful conviction.  Chris is one of the United States’s leading experts on forensic sciences and scientific litigation. Prior to joining the Innocence Project, he was a longtime public defender and law professor. He frequently serves as a public speaker on law reform issues, and is widely published in both legal scholarship and in mainstream media. In his new book, Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System, Chris examines the role that faulty scientific evidence has in continuing and strengthening an unjust and racial biased criminal legal system."..."Emily Kwong is the founding reporter and now co-host for Short Wave - and she is also the host and co-creator of Inheriting."

GIST: "[MUSIC PLAYING]

ANNOUNCER: You're listening to Short Wave from NPR.

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[BACKGROUND CHATTER, DOG BARKING]

SPEAKER 1: I could speak volumes about Conrad Ecklie, but I have a crime scene to process, so you'll have to-- you'll have to excuse me. (Conrad Ecklie, for those who do not know, is a character in CSI "Crime Scene Investigation." I used to love that show!  HL); 

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EMILY KWONG: You've seen it. I've seen it-- crime scene investigators doing what they do best-- making perfect TV.

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SPEAKER 2: Kind of light.

SPEAKER 3: What, are you working for OSHA now? [SCOFFS] This is a Lady Macbeth.

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CHRIS FABRICANT: Forensic evidence in those shows is presented as conclusive, objective, infallible. They get the bad guy in a half hour and wrap it up.

KWONG: That's Chris Fabricant, the Director of Strategic Litigation at the Innocence Project. He started out as a public defender in New York City, in the Bronx. And he told us, in the early 2000s, forensic evidence came up all the time in court, the kind presented on TV and widely used by law enforcement in the real world.

FABRICANT: DNA evidence, blood-spatter evidence, what your listeners will think of as ballistics evidence, psychological evidence-- the heavier the cases are, the more forensics that are involved in the case.

KWONG: Over the years, Chris watched law enforcement and forensic experts present this evidence as a silver bullet.

FABRICANT: It's almost always admitted by the court, no matter how vigorous of a challenge beforehand. And it's almost always accepted by lay jurors as providing an objective, scientific truth that they wouldn't be able to glean for themselves.

KWONG: But then a watershed report came out in 2009 from the National Academy of Sciences.

FABRICANT: That examined 13 of the most commonly used forensic techniques and found the conclusions that were being accepted in criminal courts were scientifically indefensible.

KWONG: Chris has a simpler term for these techniques. He calls them "junk science." Anyway, later that year, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy created a subcommittee on forensic science to address problems and strengthen forensics overall. And then, a few years later, the Innocence Project partnered with criminal defense lawyers, the FBI, and the DOJ to review more than 2,000 criminal cases involving the debunked technique of microscopic hair analysis. It's progress. But as any true crime enthusiast will tell you, forensic science has not fallen by the wayside-- far from it.

FABRICANT: Over half of all known wrongful convictions are attributable to the use of junk science.

KWONG: And Chris says that is a problem. Today on the show, the junk science keeping people in jail. We're diving into the forensic techniques that have been completely debunked, the ones that should be examined more carefully, and the systems that have kept them alive in criminal courts for so long. I'm Emily Kwong. And you're listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.

KWONG: OK, Chris, I'm going to start us off with your words. You have called certain forensic techniques "junk science" and said they don't come from the world of science.

FABRICANT: Yes.

KWONG: So where do they come from?

FABRICANT: Forensic sciences are often created by law enforcement for law enforcement purposes, often to solve a particular crime. That's not the scientific method. That's expedient to get a conviction. And once a forensic technique has been admitted in a criminal court, it's forever thereafter accepted by other courts. Legal precedent reigns supreme in criminal law. The first time that something is introduced in court and accepted by court, there's a legal precedent is established. And it's very, very difficult to get any other court to exclude that evidence.

KWONG: So there's a lot of forensic science that appears in courtrooms as evidence in TV courtrooms, but also, some courtrooms around the country. There's so many different tools that have been used in this way. We can't cover all of them, so let's just focus on three.

FABRICANT: OK.

KWONG: I want to start with hair microscopy. What is that?

FABRICANT: Hair microscopy is a discredited technique that was used to match suspects to hairs found at crime scenes, fundamentally. So a hair was found in a probative place at a crime scene. A suspect is developed. You pluck some hairs from the suspect, and you examine the questioned hair and the known hair side by side under a microscope and declare a match. But it was dressed up as very sciencey by the FBI, primarily. They claimed that there was a match. Often, they would make a probabilistic statement, like that it's very, very likely that it came from this suspect, or something along those lines. But what they didn't know, in reality, was, it could be 1 in 10 people might also match that hair, or 1 in 10 million, right?

KWONG: Whoa.

FABRICANT: They really had no idea. And it was-- it took nearly 70 wrongful convictions-- 70-- before the FBI and the Department of Justice came to the Innocence Project and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and admitted that their agents had been overstating the significance of this evidence.



KWONG: And comparing bite marks, I suppose, made by people's teeth has also been used as evidence. What do you think about that?

FABRICANT: Bite marks are garbage. They should never have been used.

KWONG: Tell me how you really feel. OK.

FABRICANT: There's nothing probative that could ever come from a so-called bite mark comparison. Eyeballing an injury and determining that it's a so-called bite mark, the research shows, and anecdotally, from wrongful convictions, forensic dentists are no better than you and me at diagnosing an injury as an adult human bite mark. And beyond that is that these dentists were taking photographs of these injuries at a moment in time. A decomposing body changes hour to hour, day to day, week to week. So a so-called match, you know, could be a match one day and not--

KWONG: Yeah.

FABRICANT: --match the next.

KWONG: One of the most widespread techniques that the FBI has also supported is blood spatter analysis. And what's interesting about this one-- I did a little reading-- ProPublica has a really good article about it-- that this method was created by a scientist, someone with a chemistry degree who--

FABRICANT: Right.

KWONG: --kind of got into forensics. What do you think of blood spatter work in forensics today?

FABRICANT: Well, there is a there-there with blood spatter evidence, if it's done by an expert who understands trigonometry, understands the effect of gravity on blood spatter, and understands fluid dynamics, which is an area of research that's highly technical and highly scientific, and beyond the ken, certainly, of your average crime scene technician. So if it's done in a way that it can be relatively rigorous and modest in what it can and cannot say, it could be used. The trouble is, blood spatter evidence is often used by under-trained police officers who don't have a background in mathematics or real science. And it's used to explain an entire crime scene, how everything unfolded, and way overstated and has led to wrongful conviction.

KWONG: Yeah. I want to talk about the people who are presenting this evidence. You describe them as they're forensic experts. And they're presented as having significant backgrounds in science. And that's a key part of why juries should believe them. What do you think about the people who are the ones taking the stand to share this evidence in trial?

FABRICANT: Well, forensic experts, I should say, are well-intentioned, smart, dedicated, well-trained in their fields, and are trying to do the right thing. You know, they believe that they're participating in a civic responsibility. Troublingly, many of them look at themselves as crime-fighters or crime-solvers, which is, of course, not a scientist's role, which is to provide objective, scientific information. The trouble with most forensic experts and in their fields, is that there are less formal training. They don't have degrees in science. And they're not required to have degrees in science. And they've accepted at face value the overstated and exaggerated claims that their mentors have taught them.

KWONG: Of the methods we've described, have any fallen out of favor in a way that you're like, this is good? It's the method that's the problem. Or is it actually the whole field that's the problem?

FABRICANT: I get asked that question a fair amount. People say that, you know, we're not using hair microscopy anymore, and we're not using bite marks, or what have you. And the reality is that we are, in that I get a call all the time from defense attorneys that are seeking to resist the introduction of those techniques. But new junk science emerges every day. Let's talk about ShotSpotter evidence, right? This is supposed to be a digital, acoustic, forensic technique that allows police officers to detect gunshots and separate those sounds from all other loud noises, and then direct police resources to the sound of gunshots.

KWONG: Wow.

FABRICANT: And that sounds reasonable, right?

KWONG: Yeah.

FABRICANT: But actually, it's worse than flipping a coin as to whether or not there are actual gunshots. You know, without real scientific scrutiny, the chance of a forensic technique being introduced at trial and being wrong or exaggerated is overwhelming.

KWONG: What you're describing, the way that forensic science is widely used in courtrooms across the country, of course, has consequences. Your colleagues and you have found that when this happens, it leads to false convictions. How often is that happening, and to whom?

FABRICANT: Well, the "to whom" question is overwhelmingly poor people and disproportionately Black and Brown people. That's true with everything about the criminal legal system in the United States. This is happening all over. Before I got to the Innocence Project, I had never litigated a capital case. And I naively assumed that in capital litigation, that the science would be much more rigorous, that the evidence would be much more rigorously tested, that the evidence would be more carefully scrutinized, that courts would exclude unreliable evidence because the stakes are literally life and death. But what I have found is the opposite-- the higher profile, the higher the stakes, the more capital litigation that I've done, the more junk science that I've seen.

KWONG: Yeah. And I understand that's in part because of something called the CSI effect, where jurors are biased towards forensic evidence because of TV, because of how science is portrayed on CSI or Dexter.

FABRICANT: So there are two versions, or two points of view, on the CSI effect. There's a prosecutor's point of view, and there's the defense attorney's. Prosecutors argue that CSI effect requires them to introduce scientific evidence, because all these crime shows always have scientific evidence, and that jurors are going to expect scientific evidence. And if they don't get it, they won't get their convictions.

KWONG: Wow.

FABRICANT: And what the defense attorneys will tell you is that the CSI effect makes jurors credulous about any scientific evidence that's presented, because as we talked about earlier, crime television and regular news presents forensic science as infallible.

KWONG: Yeah.

FABRICANT: Always catches the bad guy--

KWONG: Interesting.

FABRICANT: --right?

KWONG: What a pickle.

FABRICANT: I've got an easy solution.

KWONG: What is it?

FABRICANT: Well, one is that we need to have something like the FDA for forensics. We have to have a government agency that's testing the validity and reliability of forensic techniques before they're ever introduced to make life-and-liberty decisions. And the other thing, the easiest free fix that you could have is to blind the experts from biasing information.

KWONG: To make them more like scientists, where there's--

FABRICANT: Right.

KWONG: --double-blind studies involving the participants.

FABRICANT: Right. Every other area of science goes through--

KWONG: Yeah.

FABRICANT: --hoops to avoid bias improperly influencing a subjective decision. Nothing like that is done in forensics.

KWONG: And you're saying that forensic experts, whoever's presenting this evidence should be far more explicit about the uncertainty involved.

FABRICANT: 100%. That's a good way to put it. You know, I mean, much of these techniques and much of this testimony is presented as though there is no error rate, literally. No such thing. The other is the limitations, you know, appropriate limitation as to what, you know, a, quote unquote, "match" means. You know, it's that bullet was fired by that gun, that fingerprint was left by that person, and that shoeprint could only have been made by that shoe, and on and on, called individualization testimony. Does this mean that there couldn't be somebody else in the universe who might also match this? If you eliminate the possibility of mistake and you make claims of individualization, when the science doesn't support that, you invite wrongful conviction.

KWONG: Chris, if I may, it doesn't sound like you're saying, science should not be allowed in the courtroom at all. You want good science to be allowed in the courtroom.

FABRICANT: Absolutely.

KWONG: And what you're advocating for is that before the trial happens, there is far higher standards for what is allowed into that courtroom.

FABRICANT: Yes. I mean, we have to have upstream fixes on it. You have to have a separate entity determining what an error rate for the field is, and what the personal error rate for the examiner is, and the validity of the technique outside of the courtroom. Because once you get in the courtroom, the gloves are off.

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KWONG: Well, Chris, thank you so much for sharing a slice of your world with us. I know you're, by day, a lawyer, but you've thought deeply about how science shows up in your world. And I thank you so much for your time.

FABRICANT: Thank you for having me.

KWONG: Chris's book is called Junk Science and the American Justice System. This episode was produced by Hannah Chinn. It was edited by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez, and fact-checked by Tyler Jones. The audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley. I'm Emily Kwong. Thank you for listening to Short Wave from NPR."

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The entire transcript can be read at:

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-6012302

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;