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
Wednesday, November 4, 2026
November 4: Shaken Baby Syndrome: The American Bar Association is to be applauded for publishing Jules Epstein's excellent analysis of the groundbreaking Nieves decision .(New Jersey Supreme Court..."For anyone who litigates, defends, or judges in criminal prosecutions, Nieves is a must-read first because it details the genesis of SBS. That historical exegesis is also essential reading for anyone interested in science, “fit for the forum,” i.e., forensic science. Read carefully, it is a tale of unjustified extrapolation from a handful of studies—not all of which involved infants—to a conclusion among certain members of the medical community that this was solid science. This is reflected in the language the court uses to trace that history:For anyone who litigates, defends, or judges in criminal prosecutions, Nieves is a must-read first because it details the genesis of SBS. That historical exegesis is also essential reading for anyone interested in science, “fit for the forum,” i.e., forensic science. Read carefully, it is a tale of unjustified extrapolation from a handful of studies—not all of which involved infants—to a conclusion among certain members of the medical community that this was solid science. This is reflected in the language the court uses to trace that history:
Tuesday, November 3, 2026
November 3: Christa Pike: Death Row; Tennessee: Re the nightmarish, horribly botched, inhumanly painful attempt to execute Christa Pike: A message from this Canadian to the people of Tennessee, and to all Americans, from Harold Levy, Publisher of The Charles Smith Blog.. .Message to the people of Tennessee , and to all other American's: You too can make this botched execution the last execution ever in your country. Learn from us. We ended capital punishment in Canada after - and perhaps because of - the brutal botched execution of Arthur Lucas at Toronto's Don Jail, on December 11, 1962.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Re the nightmarish, horribly botched execution of Christa Pike. Message to the people of Tennessee, and to all other American's: You can help make this botched execution the last execution ever in your country. Learn from us. We ended capital punishment in Canada after - and perhaps because of - the brutal botched execution of Arthur Lucas at Toronto's Don Jail, on December 11, 1962. I was parading outside Toronto's Don Jail that night, reporting a vigil protesting the back to back execution of Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas for The Pro Team - the new student newspaper of the recently opened York University - and protesting out of my own antipathy for the death penalty, having no idea that something terrible had happened inside those walls - something which ultimately may have ended the death penalty in Canada. Author Robert L Hoshowsky described the botched back-to-back execution and its aftermath, in his book "The last to Die: Ronald Turpin, Arthur Lucas, and the end of capital punishment in Canada. (Link below): Per Hoshowsky: "What happened next is the stuff of nightmares. Turpin and Lucas never heard the end of the word salvation. The hangman sprung the trap, the platform falling beneath their feet with a deafening crash that echoed throughout the room as they plummeted to their deaths. No one who was at the hangings revealed what happened that night for many years, and newspapers at the time were not given the full story. "The hanging was bungled. Turpin died clean. But Lucas' head was torn off. It was hanging just by the sinews of the neck. There was blood all over the floor. The hangman had miscalculated his weight. What a way to die," said (Salvation Army Chaplain Cyril) Everitt in an interview published just before his own death many years later..... Toronto homicide detective Jim Crawford who attended the double hanging that cold December night. "Everybody was taken aback by the spray of blood that was literally like a water pipe had burst, and the walls were sprayed with blood." Howshowsky continues: " The Coroner's report made no mention of Lucas almost losing his head. Doubts about Lucas' conviction lingered even to 1976 - the year capital punishment was abolished. The botched death of Arthur Lucas may have marked the end of capital punishment in Canada;" In similar manner, I hope that the botched attempt to kill - the torturing of Christa Pike - will help end the death penalty in the USA>
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
--------------------------------------------
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;
Monday, November 2, 2026
November 2: (From our 'Gatekeepers of the world unite' department): Flawed firearm evidence, bloodstain pattern analysis, and drug detection dogs: (A Canadian perspective): University of British Columbia law professor Sara Gordon is arguing in a trio of periodical articles that Canadian courts have leaned too heavily on three long-accepted investigative techniques: firearms identification, bloodstain pattern analysis and drug-detection dogs - and her research finds the scientific support for each is weaker than the legal system has assumed, 'Forensic' (Editor-in-Chief Michelle Taylor) reports.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Just because a technique has been used in court for decades doesn’t mean we should take its reliability for granted, especially when someone’s liberty is at stake in a criminal trial,” said Gordon. “My hope is that this research will help judges and lawyers better understand the limitations of these techniques and ensure that forensic evidence is presented in a way that accurately reflects what the science can—and can’t—tell us.”
--------------------------------------------------------
STORY: "Canadian Law Expert Questions Ballistics, Bloodstain and Sniffer Dog Evidence," by 'Forensic' Editor-in-Chief Michelle Taylor, published on O October 26, 2026. (Michelle Taylor has worked on the Forensic brand since 2016. Well established in the industry, Michelle has attended dozens of scientific conferences and conducted interviews with key opinion leaders, including multiple Nobel Prize winners and award-winning forensic scientists. Michelle enjoys writing about investigative forensic genetic genealogy, novel psychoactive substances, next-generation sequencing, sexual assault kits and more. Michelle received her BA in journalism from Elon University in North Carolina)
GIST: "A University of British Columbia law professor is arguing that Canadian courts have leaned too heavily on three long-accepted investigative techniques: firearms identification, bloodstain pattern analysis and drug-detection dogs. Her research finds the scientific support for each is weaker than the legal system has assumed.
Sara Gordon, an associate professor at UBC's Peter A. Allard School of Law, examined how courts treat the evidence in three recently published papers. Gordon said she noticed a gap between advances in the scientific understanding of forensic evidence and the way courts handle it.
“Just because a technique has been used in court for decades doesn’t mean we should take its reliability for granted, especially when someone’s liberty is at stake in a criminal trial,” said Gordon. “My hope is that this research will help judges and lawyers better understand the limitations of these techniques and ensure that forensic evidence is presented in a way that accurately reflects what the science can—and can’t—tell us.”
Firearms evidence
Canadian courts have accepted ballistics evidence for more than a century. Gordon found that the research does not support the level of certainty with which examiners often testify. In practical testing, examiners misidentified bullets 37 percent of the time.
Her firearms paper focuses on Canada, where the evidence is still routinely admitted. In 2023, a Chicago court became the first in the United States to bar ballistics-matching evidence in a criminal case.
Bloodstain pattern analysis
Canadian courts have long treated bloodstain pattern analysis as a physical science. Gordon traced the discipline to a chemist who experimented in his basement and later helped establish its journal and early textbooks, which gave the field the outward markers of an established science. She said practitioners often cite concepts such as fluid dynamics with little or no formal training in physics.
Emerging studies point to significant error rates. In one, analysts correctly classified patterns about 70 percent of the time on rigid surfaces and 62 percent of the time on fabrics. Another found that different analysts frequently reached different conclusions on the same evidence, and additional research showed that what examiners were told about the case or scene could sway their conclusions.
Drug detection dogs
In Canada, police can use a sniffer dog to search when they have reasonable suspicion of a drug offense, a lower bar than most warrantless searches require. The Supreme Court of Canada has justified that on the grounds that such searches are minimally intrusive, narrowly targeted and highly accurate. Gordon's review of research published since the Court's 2013 rulings points the other way.
“They're not nearly as reliable as many courts seem to assume,” she said.
She cited an Australian study in which no drugs were found after nearly 75 percent of police dog alerts. Dogs can alert in the absence of drugs because of poor training, residual odors or even scents associated with some common baking ingredients. A handler can also unintentionally cue the animal, for example by slowing down or acting differently near a person he or she suspects. Searches that follow an alert can also cause fear, anxiety, anger and humiliation, Gordon noted, and may disproportionately affect racialized people.
Her proposed reforms include clearer standards for training, certification and performance monitoring of detection dogs, and applying the same standard used for other warrantless searches to sniffer dog searches.
Taken together, the papers urge judges to take a more active gatekeeping role, ensuring forensic evidence is reliable and that experts stay within what the science can support. Gordon also calls for greater scientific literacy among lawyers and judges.
STORY: "Canadian Law Expert Questions Ballistics, Bloodstain and Sniffer Dog Evidence," by 'Forensic' Editor-in-Chief Michelle Taylor, published on O October 26, 2026. (Michelle Taylor has worked on the Forensic brand since 2016. Well established in the industry, Michelle has attended dozens of scientific conferences and conducted interviews with key opinion leaders, including multiple Nobel Prize winners and award-winning forensic scientists. Michelle enjoys writing about investigative forensic genetic genealogy, novel psychoactive substances, next-generation sequencing, sexual assault kits and more. Michelle received her BA in journalism from Elon University in North Carolina)
GIST: "A University of British Columbia law professor is arguing that Canadian courts have leaned too heavily on three long-accepted investigative techniques: firearms identification, bloodstain pattern analysis and drug-detection dogs. Her research finds the scientific support for each is weaker than the legal system has assumed.
Sara Gordon, an associate professor at UBC's Peter A. Allard School of Law, examined how courts treat the evidence in three recently published papers. Gordon said she noticed a gap between advances in the scientific understanding of forensic evidence and the way courts handle it.
“Just because a technique has been used in court for decades doesn’t mean we should take its reliability for granted, especially when someone’s liberty is at stake in a criminal trial,” said Gordon. “My hope is that this research will help judges and lawyers better understand the limitations of these techniques and ensure that forensic evidence is presented in a way that accurately reflects what the science can—and can’t—tell us.”
Firearms evidence
Canadian courts have accepted ballistics evidence for more than a century. Gordon found that the research does not support the level of certainty with which examiners often testify. In practical testing, examiners misidentified bullets 37 percent of the time.
Her firearms paper focuses on Canada, where the evidence is still routinely admitted. In 2023, a Chicago court became the first in the United States to bar ballistics-matching evidence in a criminal case.
Bloodstain pattern analysis
Canadian courts have long treated bloodstain pattern analysis as a physical science. Gordon traced the discipline to a chemist who experimented in his basement and later helped establish its journal and early textbooks, which gave the field the outward markers of an established science. She said practitioners often cite concepts such as fluid dynamics with little or no formal training in physics.
Emerging studies point to significant error rates. In one, analysts correctly classified patterns about 70 percent of the time on rigid surfaces and 62 percent of the time on fabrics. Another found that different analysts frequently reached different conclusions on the same evidence, and additional research showed that what examiners were told about the case or scene could sway their conclusions.
Drug detection dogs
In Canada, police can use a sniffer dog to search when they have reasonable suspicion of a drug offense, a lower bar than most warrantless searches require. The Supreme Court of Canada has justified that on the grounds that such searches are minimally intrusive, narrowly targeted and highly accurate. Gordon's review of research published since the Court's 2013 rulings points the other way.
“They're not nearly as reliable as many courts seem to assume,” she said.
She cited an Australian study in which no drugs were found after nearly 75 percent of police dog alerts. Dogs can alert in the absence of drugs because of poor training, residual odors or even scents associated with some common baking ingredients. A handler can also unintentionally cue the animal, for example by slowing down or acting differently near a person he or she suspects. Searches that follow an alert can also cause fear, anxiety, anger and humiliation, Gordon noted, and may disproportionately affect racialized people.
Her proposed reforms include clearer standards for training, certification and performance monitoring of detection dogs, and applying the same standard used for other warrantless searches to sniffer dog searches.
Taken together, the papers urge judges to take a more active gatekeeping role, ensuring forensic evidence is reliable and that experts stay within what the science can support. Gordon also calls for greater scientific literacy among lawyers and judges.
---------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Gordon's papers are published in:
Prof. Gordon's papers are published in:
The Alberta Law Review: Police dogs:
The Canadian Bar Review: Blood pattern Analysis;
The Dalhousie Law Journal. Firearms evidence;
---------------------------------------------------------
The entire story 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;
Sunday, November 1, 2026
November 1: Jailhouse Snitches: 'Reason' Reporter Billy Binion interviews Pamela Colloff - an astute commentator on the US criminal justice system who is well known to the readers of this Blog - author of the best-selling book, 'Catch the Devil' noting that: "Catch the Devil, chronicles Skalnik's career helping prosecutors secure dozens of convictions—despite being a serial liar and criminal. His cartoonishly long rap sheet included elaborate frauds, multiple grand thefts, and sexual assault of a child; at various times, he passed himself off as a Southwest Airlines executive, a high-powered attorney, and a Vietnam War hero."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: July 14: Jailhouse informants: Paul Skaldic; Major (Welcome) development: Sarah Andrews reviews Pamela Collof's debut book in The Texas Chronicle, under the heading, "Catch the Devil Reveals a Criminal Justice System Caught Up in Its Own Delusions,"... "Both daunting and enraging, Catch the Devil burns down the illusory details of a “solved” murder case from the 1980s and wipes away the ash to reveal the sinister and self-serving criminal justice system beneath. Colloff is not under any delusion that her story will bring justice to Jim Dailey or fix the corrupt system that locked him up. To the reader, Colloff has just one thing to say: “This is happening, and you need to look at it.”
-----------------------------------------------------
INTERVIEW:" Source: Reason Magazine: Pamela Colloff on America's biggest jailhouse snitch."
INTERVIEWER: "BILLY BINION | FROM THE NOVEMBER 2026 ISSUE." (Billy Binion is a reporter at Reason, where he writes about criminal justice, civil liberties, and government accountability. He has been published in Newsweek, the San Francisco Chronicle, HuffPost, The Saturday Evening Post, and the Washington Examiner, among other publications. His work has been cited in The New York Times, The Atlantic, National Review, Fox News, Vice, and The Daily Beast. A story he broke exploring law enforcement misconduct in Louisiana was later the subject of a CBS Evening News broadcast. He is a frequent guest on podcasts, TV, and radio, including appearances on CNN, Blocked and Reported, NPR, 2WAY, and Newsweek's "The Debate" podcast."
BACKGROUND: "How Jailhouse Snitches Send Innocent People to Death Row" (Pamela Colloff discusses the dangers of incentivized testimony, the difficulty of overturning wrongful convictions, and how the justice system compounds its own errors. Billy Binion
-------------------------------------------------------
INTRO: "Paul Skalnik was one of the most prolific jailhouse snitches in American history. A new best-selling book, Catch the Devil, chronicles Skalnik's career helping prosecutors secure dozens of convictions—despite being a serial liar and criminal. His cartoonishly long rap sheet included elaborate frauds, multiple grand thefts, and sexual assault of a child; at various times, he passed himself off as a Southwest Airlines executive, a high-powered attorney, and a Vietnam War hero. In July, Reason's Billy Binion interviewed author Pamela Colloff, a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and reporter at ProPublica."
Q: How is it possible for someone with such an intense history of dishonesty to still earn the state's trust for decades?
A: I think you hit upon the big question of the book, right? Skalnik was a former police officer himself, so he sort of knew how the game worked. When he got to whatever county jail he ended up in, he could size up whoever it was that prosecutors most wanted a conviction against. And he would produce these incredible quote-unquote "confessions." And in return for his testimony about those confessions, he would usually be let free.
You can imagine how there were police and prosecutors who bought this. I think what becomes more difficult as he's used more widely in [Pinellas County,] Florida—where he helped send upward of 40 men to prison—at what point does someone say, "What are the odds that this guy in the jail has a better batting record than our best detectives?" No one ever says that.
Q: The book covers a lot of disturbing cases, but the one central to it is a murder case in Florida. Can you set the scene?
A: There was a 14-year-old girl named Shelly Boggio who was found in a body of water. She'd been stabbed over 30 times, and the assumption was that she'd been sexually assaulted.
The investigation quickly narrows down to a man named Jack Pearcy, who had a long history of violence against women. He was the last person seen with Boggio. When he's interviewed by investigators, he realizes they know too much. So he pivots to saying that he had his housemate—Jim Dailey—with him that night, and that it was Jim who committed this crime. Jim did not have that kind of record, and there's no physical or forensic evidence tying him to the crime, or any motive whatsoever.
Skalnik is brought in very shortly before the trial starts. He is moved in the jail to be close to where Jim Dailey was. Within 24 hours, he says he has procured Dailey's confession—a total stranger who's awaiting trial. It was a story that really played upon jurors' sympathies. He talked about how Jim Dailey had supposedly told him about stabbing Shelly Boggio to death and how she'd been staring at him in this pleading way, but she wouldn't die. It's this horrific image, and he is sentenced to death.
Q: What makes you think Dailey is actually innocent?
A: There have been over 200 people in the U.S. who were sentenced to death who have since been exonerated. We know that jailhouse informants—who are notoriously unreliable—are a factor in 25 percent of those wrongful convictions.
As far as Jim's case, there's no there there. When you see a case with three jailhouse informants, no physical evidence, no motive, and your quote-unquote "eyewitness" is the main suspect in the case? There are a lot of questions.
Q: To me, the secondary theme was that when credible evidence may exonerate someone after a jury has rendered a verdict, it is depressingly difficult to get another chance.
A: I am obsessed with this idea that the system is built to compound its own errors. When new evidence comes out—and there's a lot of new evidence that comes out over the years that really points toward his innocence—you would think that would be enough. For some very good reasons, a jury verdict is sacrosanct. But what you see is that courts really look backward at precedent and jury verdicts rather than forward at new evidence.
Jim gets terrific attorneys in this case—too late. They do incredible work, and it doesn't matter. Too many judges have rubber-stamped this testimony by Paul Skalnik. There's no way for the courts to essentially say, "Hey, let's go back and look at this holistically and see if any of this makes sense." It was shocking to me to see that.
This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity."
Q: How is it possible for someone with such an intense history of dishonesty to still earn the state's trust for decades?
A: I think you hit upon the big question of the book, right? Skalnik was a former police officer himself, so he sort of knew how the game worked. When he got to whatever county jail he ended up in, he could size up whoever it was that prosecutors most wanted a conviction against. And he would produce these incredible quote-unquote "confessions." And in return for his testimony about those confessions, he would usually be let free.
You can imagine how there were police and prosecutors who bought this. I think what becomes more difficult as he's used more widely in [Pinellas County,] Florida—where he helped send upward of 40 men to prison—at what point does someone say, "What are the odds that this guy in the jail has a better batting record than our best detectives?" No one ever says that.
Q: The book covers a lot of disturbing cases, but the one central to it is a murder case in Florida. Can you set the scene?
A: There was a 14-year-old girl named Shelly Boggio who was found in a body of water. She'd been stabbed over 30 times, and the assumption was that she'd been sexually assaulted.
The investigation quickly narrows down to a man named Jack Pearcy, who had a long history of violence against women. He was the last person seen with Boggio. When he's interviewed by investigators, he realizes they know too much. So he pivots to saying that he had his housemate—Jim Dailey—with him that night, and that it was Jim who committed this crime. Jim did not have that kind of record, and there's no physical or forensic evidence tying him to the crime, or any motive whatsoever.
Skalnik is brought in very shortly before the trial starts. He is moved in the jail to be close to where Jim Dailey was. Within 24 hours, he says he has procured Dailey's confession—a total stranger who's awaiting trial. It was a story that really played upon jurors' sympathies. He talked about how Jim Dailey had supposedly told him about stabbing Shelly Boggio to death and how she'd been staring at him in this pleading way, but she wouldn't die. It's this horrific image, and he is sentenced to death.
Q: What makes you think Dailey is actually innocent?
A: There have been over 200 people in the U.S. who were sentenced to death who have since been exonerated. We know that jailhouse informants—who are notoriously unreliable—are a factor in 25 percent of those wrongful convictions.
As far as Jim's case, there's no there there. When you see a case with three jailhouse informants, no physical evidence, no motive, and your quote-unquote "eyewitness" is the main suspect in the case? There are a lot of questions.
Q: To me, the secondary theme was that when credible evidence may exonerate someone after a jury has rendered a verdict, it is depressingly difficult to get another chance.
A: I am obsessed with this idea that the system is built to compound its own errors. When new evidence comes out—and there's a lot of new evidence that comes out over the years that really points toward his innocence—you would think that would be enough. For some very good reasons, a jury verdict is sacrosanct. But what you see is that courts really look backward at precedent and jury verdicts rather than forward at new evidence.
Jim gets terrific attorneys in this case—too late. They do incredible work, and it doesn't matter. Too many judges have rubber-stamped this testimony by Paul Skalnik. There's no way for the courts to essentially say, "Hey, let's go back and look at this holistically and see if any of this makes sense." It was shocking to me to see that.
This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity."
The entire interview can be read at:
https://share.google/1uifRh9hxnmoUUFjc
https://share.google/1uifRh9hxnmoUUFjc
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;
Saturday, October 31, 2026
October 31:Diamond Keen. St. Louis, Missouri: Shaken Baby Syndrome: Major (Welcome) Development: Yet another 'groundbreaking' SBS case; As the official court release tells us: "In recorded police interviews played at trial this week, Keen repeatedly denied dropping or abusing Emerald and told police she did not know how he could have gotten hurt. Keen’s lawyers presented testimony from medical experts to challenge autopsy findings that Emerald's injuries were the result of shaking and to explain how research into medical conclusions "shaken baby syndrome" have changed in recent years."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This important decision has just come to my attention. I will be keeping an eye out for further reports.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
-----------------------------------------------------------
STORY: "St. Louis woman acquitted of fatal child abuse charge," reported by The St. Louis City Circuit Court, on October 30, 2026.
GIST: "A St. Louis woman was acquitted at trial this week in the death of a 5-month-old boy in 2023.
Jurors on Thursday found Diamond Keen, 27, not guilty of one count of child abuse resulting in death. She was accused of causing severe head injuries that led to Emerald Johnson’s death in August 2023. Emerald’s mother had asked Keen to watch her baby because while she was recovering from a shoulder injury.
Keen was watching the baby for a friend in an apartment at 600 North Kingshighway for a couple of days when the boy was found in cardiac arrest and died at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Charges said an autopsy showed the baby suffered internal brain bleeding and died of closed head trauma resulting from being shaken.
Prosecutors argued that Keen caused the boy's injuries by shaking him. Keen told police Emerald was only out of her sight for 30 seconds, according to charges. Charges also said two other people had visited the apartment within four hours of Emerald’s death but that they told investigators the child seemed normal when they two hours before the child was hospitalized.
In recorded police interviews played at trial this week, Keen repeatedly denied dropping or abusing Emerald and told police she did not know how he could have gotten hurt.
Keen’s lawyers presented testimony from medical experts to challenge autopsy findings that Emerald's injuries were the result of shaking and to explain how research into medical conclusions "shaken baby syndrome" have changed in recent years.
Jurors on Thursday found Diamond Keen, 27, not guilty of one count of child abuse resulting in death. She was accused of causing severe head injuries that led to Emerald Johnson’s death in August 2023. Emerald’s mother had asked Keen to watch her baby because while she was recovering from a shoulder injury.
Keen was watching the baby for a friend in an apartment at 600 North Kingshighway for a couple of days when the boy was found in cardiac arrest and died at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Charges said an autopsy showed the baby suffered internal brain bleeding and died of closed head trauma resulting from being shaken.
Prosecutors argued that Keen caused the boy's injuries by shaking him. Keen told police Emerald was only out of her sight for 30 seconds, according to charges. Charges also said two other people had visited the apartment within four hours of Emerald’s death but that they told investigators the child seemed normal when they two hours before the child was hospitalized.
In recorded police interviews played at trial this week, Keen repeatedly denied dropping or abusing Emerald and told police she did not know how he could have gotten hurt.
Keen’s lawyers presented testimony from medical experts to challenge autopsy findings that Emerald's injuries were the result of shaking and to explain how research into medical conclusions "shaken baby syndrome" have changed in recent years.
The entire report 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
October 31: Scott Watson: New Zealand: From our 'Defending the Indefensible?' department. Prosecutors attempting to justify flawed police 'identification' practices have have met with severe challenges from justices presiding over his appeal, which is confined to the central identification issue, as the appeal draws to a close, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) Senior reporter Ellen O'Dwyer reports, noting that: "The justices questioned Baker on Watson's lawyers' argument that police pressured Wallace to identify Watson in an interview in early January, 1998. "It was inappropriate wasn't it?" Justice Joe Williams asked. "I've never in all the trials I did read an interview like that," Williams said."
BACKGROUND: I often check out Martyn Bradbury's Blog ' The Daily Blog' - when reporting a New Zealand case, as his posts are interesting and insightful, and he doesn't hesitate to call the proverbial ' spade' a spade - as is his recent Blog which is called "The Scott Watson Miscarriage of Justice' (October 22, 2026) -Scott Watson's appeal being heard in Supreme Court) and provides excellent background information:
"Scott Watson’s appeal being heard in Supreme Court: Scott Watson’s defence lawyers argue police pressured and “primed” a key witness to identify Watson as the man he saw on a yacht in the early hours of New Years’ Day. The argument came as Watson’s appeal of his double-murder conviction is being heard in the Supreme Court. Watson was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the Marlborough Sounds and has now been behind bars for 27 years. The Blenheim friends, aged 21 and 17, were last seen stepping off a water taxi onto a stranger’s yacht in Endeavour Inlet the early hours of 1 January, 1998, after a New Year’s Eve party at Furneaux Lodge. Their bodies have never been found. Watson was found guilty of the murders in 1999 after an 11-week jury trial involving about 500 witnesses. He appealed his convictions after the trial but the application was dismissed. He made another two applications that were unsuccessful before a 2017 bid for a royal pardon was granted, with the case heard by the Court of Appeal in 2024. Watson’s appeal focuses on one key point – the photo identification process used in the original trial The 1998 murder of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the Marlborough Sounds is one of NZ most notorious double homicides and one of our most questionable convictions. There have always been enormous question marks over this case and it is right for the Supreme Court to review it because this could be a cruel miscarriage of justice. For me it never sat right that boat people saw a double masted Ketch and not the single masted boat Watson had. The convenient finding of hairs belonging to Olivia used to frame Scott Watson. The use of prison narks to frame Watson and most disturbingly, the fact that Police OffIcers involved in the Scott Watson case later went on to develop interview programs for the NZ Police that were found to be incredibly unsafe and produced false confessions. There’s an election on, the economy is melting down and we have run away climate change to worry about, but if Scott Watson is not guilty, we have kept an innocent man in jail for 27 years for two murders he didn’t commit. We need to give a damn about that."
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Another key issue that came up in the hearing was the photo police used of Watson in Montage B. Watson had his eyes half-closed in this photograph, and his lawyers said yesterday it unfairly stood out and led to Wallace and others identifying him. Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann put to Baker that this was "quite an extraordinary photograph", and asked him whether it was acceptable for police to choose a photo that most closely matches witness descriptions. Baker replied that he thought it was acceptable, but the other photos in the montage needed to have other similar characteristics. He said it didn't have the effect of substantially leading people to choose Watson, because about half of the 53 people shown the photo in montage b chose Watson."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Watson's Court of Appeal bid sought to overturn his convictions on the question of reliability of DNA evidence of two blonde hairs found on Watson's boat, as well as the photo montage evidence. The Supreme Court is only considering the question of whether a miscarriage of justice arose from the decision of the original trial judge to admit Wallace's photo ID evidence. Tuesday's concludes the Supreme Court appeal hearing, with the justices reserving their decision."
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STORY: 'Photos only a part of 'overwhelming' case against Scott Watson', Crown says, RNZ (Senior Reporter Ellen O'Dwyer covers Wellington issues, stories about the Capital, and its people - as well as stories on a national scale, including social issues, health and justice.)
GIST: "Crown lawyers in the Supreme Court today say a photo montage at the heart of Scott Watson's appeal is only one piece of evidence in an "overwhelming" case against him.
Watson is appealing his conviction for the murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in Marlborough Sounds on New Years' Day in 1998.
His lawyers argue the evidence of water taxi driver Guy Wallace - used in the original trial - who picked out Watson in "Photo Montage B" as the man seen boarding a boat with the young pair, is inadmissible.
Crown lawyer Madeleine Laracy said the Crown always relied on a "large volume of evidence" - not just a photo montage.
"This was and is an overwhelming case."
Laracy referred to the Court of Appeal's judgment in 2024 - which rejected a previous bid by Watson to quash his convictions.
The Court of Appeal had found there were just too many factors pointing to Watson, Laracy said.
"If Mr Watson was not the man on the Naiad, then the lone man, like Mr Watson, happened to be alone, happened to have a yacht, happened to have moored his yacht out from the jetty, happened to be in the same age range, late twenties or early thirties, happened to have an appearance that was so like Mr Watson's as to mislead Mr Wallace into thinking it was the same man."
Crown lawyer Stuart Baker said Wallace's evidence did not solely rely on picking him out of a photo montage.
"This was not a case of a fleeting glance by Mr Wallace, rather Mr Wallace observed the male at the lodge for some time throughout the evening, both in the main bar and the garden bar."
Baker said Wallace gave descriptions of the "lone man", prior to going to the wharf, including who was on the naiad, where exactly they went, what was said, and a description of rafted boats in the bay, where the three people disembarked.
The justices questioned Baker on Watson's lawyers' argument that police pressured Wallace to identify Watson in an interview in early January, 1998.
"It was inappropriate wasn't it?" Justice Joe Williams asked.
"I've never in all the trials I did read an interview like that," Williams said.
Baker replied: "I accept that the officer...that the questioning was challenging, and was at a level that quite clearly wouldn't be dealt with at the present day."
Baker said Wallace didn't succumb to pressure at the time to identify Watson, and ended up identifying him due to other reliable factors.
Another key issue that came up in the hearing was the photo police used of Watson in Montage B.
Watson had his eyes half-closed in this photograph, and his lawyers said yesterday it unfairly stood out and led to Wallace and others identifying him.
Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann put to Baker that this was "quite an extraordinary photograph", and asked him whether it was acceptable for police to choose a photo that most closely matches witness descriptions.
Baker replied that he thought it was acceptable, but the other photos in the montage needed to have other similar characteristics.
He said it didn't have the effect of substantially leading people to choose Watson, because about half of the 53 people shown the photo in montage b chose Watson.
Laracy said a major point in the Crown's case at the original trial was motive.
"The motive is a long-harboured intention to kill a woman," she said, and in her address she referred to witnesses who had pointed to such comments expressed in different words and different places.
"It [That motive] is suffused throughout this Crown case, and the way it is held together, it's a very important aspect of the Crown's case for identity."
Watson's Court of Appeal bid sought to overturn his convictions on the question of reliability of DNA evidence of two blonde hairs found on Watson's boat, as well as the photo montage evidence.
The Supreme Court is only considering the question of whether a miscarriage of justice arose from the decision of the original trial judge to admit Wallace's photo ID evidence.
Tuesday's concludes the Supreme Court appeal hearing, with the justices reserving their decision.
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;
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