PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in false confessions because of the disturbing number of exonerations in the USA, Canada and multiple other jurisdictions throughout the world, where, in the absence of incriminating forensic evidence the conviction is based on self-incrimination – and because of the growing body of scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects are to widely used interrogation methods such as the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’ As all too many of this Blog's post have shown, I also recognize that pressure for false confessions can take many forms, up to and including physical violence, even physical and mental torture.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog:
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QUOTE OF THE DAY: Judge to innocent man later exonerated because (among other abuses which tainted the case) police extorted a confession from him to the murder of his son:"On November 25, 2008, Judge Charles “Casey” Stengel denied Onsrud’s motion to withdraw his plea and sentenced him to 60 years in prison. “I’ve no remorse for you,” Judge Stengel said. "
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SECOND QUOTE OF THE DAY: "“It is hard to put into words the suffering that is at the heart of this case,” IIP Legal Director Lauren Kaeseberg said. “Nate was a young father who lost his infant son. Instead of being able to grieve this horrible tragedy, he found himself wrongfully accused of murder. For 19 years he was labeled a monster and for 13 years he suffered behind bars. Nothing can ever heal those wounds, but we are so glad Nate can finally move forward—exonerated—and without the constant threat of unfair prosecution.”
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "The investigators kept pushing, telling Onsrud he was a good father but that sometimes people just snap. “Just between dads,” one investigator said, “Just explain to me what, what went on that day to maybe cause that knee jerk reaction that you had.” Onsrud said that at times he would black out when he got angry and that it was possible that Dax’s head hit something when Onsrud was lowering him after playing airplane with him. Onsrud said, “I can see myself throw him down a little too hard, I mean, with my past and everything—it’s, it’s it’s …” An investigator filled in the missing words. “It’s possible.” Onsrud said. “It is very possible.” Onsrud was arrested on August 3, 2007, and charged with aggravated battery. Four days later, he was also charged with first-degree murder in Dax’s death. "
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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Nine years passed. The Illinois Innocence Project (IIP) began representing Onsrud in 2020 and asked to review the case files in the office of the Rock Island County State’s Attorney. In a motion for a new trial filed on June 22, 2020, Onsrud’s attorneys said they had learned that there was material in the prosecutor’s file that had not been disclosed to Onsrud at the time of his plea and that constituted new evidence of innocence. The filing did not identify this material or evidence. Rock Island County State’s Attorney Dora Villarreal joined in the motion to grant Onsrud a new trial. In a press release, she said that after the files were retrieved from storage, “it quickly became apparent that many documents were missing from such a very complex and serious case.” She said, “It was and still is our belief that several material documents belonging to this investigation were not disclosed by the assigned prosecutor to the defense.” The release did not describe the missing or non-disclosed material. Osborn had been terminated from the state’s attorney’s office in 2013 for failing to disclose evidence in another case, and Villarreal said she would conduct an audit of Osborn’s work."
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PASSAGE FOUR OF THE DAY: "Onsrud moved to dismiss the indictment on January 24, 2024. The motion said the state had failed to save the microscopic sectioning slides and tissue cuttings from Dax’s brain. In addition, the state had no records related to the identity of the neuropathologist who assisted Kalelkar and had said there was no evidence of trauma. “Without these items, Mr. Onsrud is unable to confront the State’s evidence, and his most fundamental constitutional rights are violated,” the motion said. “It is worth noting that this is not a strategic or tactical ploy; to the contrary, counsel for Mr. Onsrud has looked everywhere for these items of evidence because they are not only needed to defend this case, but they go to the heart of the matter and can affirmatively prove that Mr. Onsrud is actually innocent.”
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GIST: "At 6:21 p.m. on May 15, 2007, 20- year-old Nathaniel Onsrud called his girlfriend, Elizabeth Lancial, and said that their infant son, Dax Lancial, was bleeding from the nose and having trouble breathing. Elizabeth Lancial called 911, and EMS workers were sent to the couple’s house in Coal Valley, Illinois.
When EMS workers arrived, Dax was not breathing, and he died later that night at a local hospital.
Dax had been born 10 weeks premature, on January 2, 2007, with significant health impairments, including apnea and chronic lung disease. He wore a monitor to track the apnea and had to be fed through a nasogastric tube.
Sharon Anderson, the coroner for Rock Island County, authorized Dr. Jose Acosta, a local pathologist, to perform an autopsy, which took place on May 16.
According to Anderson, Acosta said he found two subdural hematomas, a subgaleal petechia (bleeding between the scalp and the skull), and diffuse bleeding on the crown of the skull. But his autopsy report, dated July 25, 2007, did not mention any of these specific injuries. Instead, the report said Dax showed “blood and red soft blood clots” in the “subdural spaces over the parietal lobes.” (The parietal lobes are on the back of the brain.)
In the time between the autopsy and the report, Anderson had sought out other experts. Her notes said she talked with an unnamed doctor on May 17, who told her that “in premature babies, sometimes things are found that may not be from trauma.”
Anderson requested a second autopsy, retaining Dr. Mitra Kalelkar, a forensic pathologist with the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. Kalelkar performed her autopsy on May 18. Kalelkar’s initial findings said that there were no “initial signs of caused death,” although she said that she was still awaiting the results of several tests.
On May 22, Anderson emailed Kalelkar, stating that Anderson was “not comfortable with this case” and that “something doesn’t feel right.” She offered to send Kalelkar some articles she found online about subdural hemorrhages in infants.
Kalelkar quickly responded and said that a neuropathologist (whom she did not name) had cut into Dax’s brain and interpreted the findings to conclude that the hematomas were unrelated to trauma or abuse.
Kalelkar wrote: “I understand your concerns about the father’s story. Even if he played aeroplane with the infant, he did not grip the baby hard enough to cause any grip bruises. Given the lack of any serious injuries on the child, I would be hesitant to call this a homicide.”
On July 15, 2007, Kalelkar emailed Anderson and said that she had observed fibrin—a blood-clotting protein—in the subdural hematomas, which she said indicated that the bruising occurred while Dax was alive. She also wrote that the hemorrhages could be accidental or non-accidental.
On July 19, Kalelkar provided Anderson with a draft of her autopsy report. It said Dax had bruising and bleeding around his brain and noted the child’s premature birth, pneumonia, and chronic lung disease. Kalelkar said it was her opinion that Dax “died as a result of subdural hemorrhage due to blunt head trauma.”
Lieutenant Edward Hinderliter with the Coal Valley Police Department and Investigator Eric Holton with the Rock Island County Sheriff’s Department had previously interviewed Onsrud, and they brought him back for a second interview on August 2, 2007. Onsrud waived his Miranda rights and agreed to speak to the investigators.
Onsrud told the investigators that Dax had been wearing his apnea monitor during the afternoon, prior to the device’s alarm going off. The investigators said that wasn’t possible. They had the readouts of the device, which indicated that the monitor hadn’t been connected to the child between 4:57 a.m. and 6:19 p.m. They said Onsrud’s answer suggested deception.
“The whole thing is that it makes us question your credibility when the whole time you’re trying to maintain the fact that this child was on, on its monitor when it truly wasn’t and like I said, there is no law that you’re violating that because Dax wasn’t on it because they were going to take it off him anyhow, but you know it makes me wonder about the other things that you were telling us when you can’t be truthful about whether the monitor was on or not when you very well knew that we were going to download that monitor and get the information off of it,” an investigator said.
The investigators kept pushing, telling Onsrud he was a good father but that sometimes people just snap. “Just between dads,” one investigator said, “Just explain to me what, what went on that day to maybe cause that knee jerk reaction that you had.”
Onsrud said that at times he would black out when he got angry and that it was possible that Dax’s head hit something when Onsrud was lowering him after playing airplane with him.
Onsrud said, “I can see myself throw him down a little too hard, I mean, with my past and everything—it’s, it’s it’s …”
An investigator filled in the missing words. “It’s possible.”
Onsrud said. “It is very possible.”
Onsrud was arrested on August 3, 2007, and charged with aggravated battery. Four days later, he was also charged with first-degree murder in Dax’s death.
The state initially said it might seek the death penalty but later filed a notice declining that option.
Onsrud was represented by Matthew Durbin, an assistant public defender, and Margaret Osborn, an assistant state’s attorney, represented the state.
On September 23, 2008, two weeks before his trial was to begin in Rock Island County Circuit Court, Onsrud entered a guilty plea to first-degree murder. Osborn said that as part of the plea agreement, the state had agreed not to seek a sentence of life in prison and would also dismiss the battery charge.
Osborn said that Onsrud had admitted “that he shoved the baby onto the couch where the baby hit his head on the couch arm.”
She also said that an autopsy “revealed” that Dax died of blunt force trauma to the head and that a pathologist would have testified that the injury would require “momentum and velocity such as throwing of a baby.”
On November 21, 2008, Onsrud moved to withdraw his plea. Durbin said in the motion that Onsrud had been depressed at the time he pled guilty and had been taking Seroquel, an anti-psychotic medication that Onsrud believed might have interfered with his judgment. In addition, Onsrud said that “evidence he recently reviewed and had previously misinterpreted or overlooked has led him to believe that his plea of guilty was not based upon a solid understanding of the evidence against him.”
On November 25, 2008, Judge Charles “Casey” Stengel denied Onsrud’s motion to withdraw his plea and sentenced him to 60 years in prison. “I’ve no remorse for you,” Judge Stengel said.
The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the conviction on June 27, 2011.
Nine years passed.
The Illinois Innocence Project (IIP) began representing Onsrud in 2020 and asked to review the case files in the office of the Rock Island County State’s Attorney.
In a motion for a new trial filed on June 22, 2020, Onsrud’s attorneys said they had learned that there was material in the prosecutor’s file that had not been disclosed to Onsrud at the time of his plea and that constituted new evidence of innocence. The filing did not identify this material or evidence.
Rock Island County State’s Attorney Dora Villarreal joined in the motion to grant Onsrud a new trial. In a press release, she said that after the files were retrieved from storage, “it quickly became apparent that many documents were missing from such a very complex and serious case.” She said, “It was and still is our belief that several material documents belonging to this investigation were not disclosed by the assigned prosecutor to the defense.” The release did not describe the missing or non-disclosed material.
Osborn had been terminated from the state’s attorney’s office in 2013 for failing to disclose evidence in another case, and Villarreal said she would conduct an audit of Osborn’s work.
Judge Frank Fuhr granted the new trial motion on June 23, and Onsrud was released from prison. Villarreal noted that the charges against Onsrud had not been dismissed.
Separately, Villarreal filed an ethics complaint against Osborn with the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission, overseen by the Illinois Supreme Court. (The outcome of that complaint isn’t available.)
On February 8, 2023, the state filed an amended complaint against Onsrud, now charging him with felony child endangerment.
Onsrud moved to dismiss the indictment on January 24, 2024. The motion said the state had failed to save the microscopic sectioning slides and tissue cuttings from Dax’s brain. In addition, the state had no records related to the identity of the neuropathologist who assisted Kalelkar and had said there was no evidence of trauma.
“Without these items, Mr. Onsrud is unable to confront the State’s evidence, and his most fundamental constitutional rights are violated,” the motion said. “It is worth noting that this is not a strategic or tactical ploy; to the contrary, counsel for Mr. Onsrud has looked everywhere for these items of evidence because they are not only needed to defend this case, but they go to the heart of the matter and can affirmatively prove that Mr. Onsrud is actually innocent.”
The motion also included two new forensic reports, by Dr. Chandani DeZure, a pediatrician at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and by Dr. Michael Baden, the former chief medical examiner for New York City.
DeZure said in her report that the small hematomas found during Dax’s autopsy were not associated with his death. She also said that Onsrud’s statements about how he might have caused Dax’s injuries were not consistent with the autopsy findings.
Although Onsrud had given inconsistent statements to investigators about the use of the apnea monitor, DeZure said the lack of monitoring was a red herring. At the time of Dax’s death, her report noted, the child’s pediatrician had recommended that Onsrud and Lancial use the device less frequently.
Baden said in his report that Dax died of natural causes tied to lung disease, infection, and premature birth. He said that Kalelkar’s finding of fibrin streams was evidence that clots had developed days before Dax’s death and could not have started after the activities that Onsrud described during his interview. “The autopsy evidence shows that Mr. Onsrud confessed to a homicide that had not occurred,” he wrote.
On May 6, 2025, Judge Fuhr denied Onsrud’s motion to dismiss. He said that there was no evidence of bad faith on the part of prosecutors, but that the state had the duty to preserve the tissue samples and brain sections. As a result, he granted a defense motion to exclude any evidence or testimony about subdural hematomas.
A month later, on June 17, 2025, the state moved to amend the indictment, seeking to replace “subdural hemorrhaging” with “head trauma.” Judge Fuhr denied the motion on November 19, 2025, calling it an “attempt to evade the substance of the court’s earlier ruling.”
In January 2026, the state said it was no longer pursuing a charge of felony child endangerment. Instead, prosecutors said they would charge Onsrud with misdemeanor child endangerment and misdemeanor battery, which they said were lesser included charges.
Onsrud again moved to dismiss the case. His attorneys said the statute of limitations had expired for these offenses and that the state could not specify how Onsrud endangered his son without using any evidence related to subdural hemorrhaging.
Judge Fuhr denied the second motion to dismiss on March 18, 2026.
Onsrud’s attorneys filed a motion to reconsider on April 15, 2026, asserting that Judge Fuhr had erred when ruling that the statute of limitations had not expired. The motion said that the nine years that Onsrud spent in prison between the appellate decision in 2011 and the granting of his new trial should have been included in the calculation, and it was far greater than the 18-month statute of limitations for misdemeanor child endangerment.
Judge Fuhr agreed with the motion and dismissed the case on June 23, 2026.
“It is hard to put into words the suffering that is at the heart of this case,” IIP Legal Director Lauren Kaeseberg said. “Nate was a young father who lost his infant son. Instead of being able to grieve this horrible tragedy, he found himself wrongfully accused of murder. For 19 years he was labeled a monster and for 13 years he suffered behind bars. Nothing can ever heal those wounds, but we are so glad Nate can finally move forward—exonerated—and without the constant threat of unfair prosecution.”
The entire entry can be read at:
When EMS workers arrived, Dax was not breathing, and he died later that night at a local hospital.
Dax had been born 10 weeks premature, on January 2, 2007, with significant health impairments, including apnea and chronic lung disease. He wore a monitor to track the apnea and had to be fed through a nasogastric tube.
Sharon Anderson, the coroner for Rock Island County, authorized Dr. Jose Acosta, a local pathologist, to perform an autopsy, which took place on May 16.
According to Anderson, Acosta said he found two subdural hematomas, a subgaleal petechia (bleeding between the scalp and the skull), and diffuse bleeding on the crown of the skull. But his autopsy report, dated July 25, 2007, did not mention any of these specific injuries. Instead, the report said Dax showed “blood and red soft blood clots” in the “subdural spaces over the parietal lobes.” (The parietal lobes are on the back of the brain.)
In the time between the autopsy and the report, Anderson had sought out other experts. Her notes said she talked with an unnamed doctor on May 17, who told her that “in premature babies, sometimes things are found that may not be from trauma.”
Anderson requested a second autopsy, retaining Dr. Mitra Kalelkar, a forensic pathologist with the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. Kalelkar performed her autopsy on May 18. Kalelkar’s initial findings said that there were no “initial signs of caused death,” although she said that she was still awaiting the results of several tests.
On May 22, Anderson emailed Kalelkar, stating that Anderson was “not comfortable with this case” and that “something doesn’t feel right.” She offered to send Kalelkar some articles she found online about subdural hemorrhages in infants.
Kalelkar quickly responded and said that a neuropathologist (whom she did not name) had cut into Dax’s brain and interpreted the findings to conclude that the hematomas were unrelated to trauma or abuse.
Kalelkar wrote: “I understand your concerns about the father’s story. Even if he played aeroplane with the infant, he did not grip the baby hard enough to cause any grip bruises. Given the lack of any serious injuries on the child, I would be hesitant to call this a homicide.”
On July 15, 2007, Kalelkar emailed Anderson and said that she had observed fibrin—a blood-clotting protein—in the subdural hematomas, which she said indicated that the bruising occurred while Dax was alive. She also wrote that the hemorrhages could be accidental or non-accidental.
On July 19, Kalelkar provided Anderson with a draft of her autopsy report. It said Dax had bruising and bleeding around his brain and noted the child’s premature birth, pneumonia, and chronic lung disease. Kalelkar said it was her opinion that Dax “died as a result of subdural hemorrhage due to blunt head trauma.”
Lieutenant Edward Hinderliter with the Coal Valley Police Department and Investigator Eric Holton with the Rock Island County Sheriff’s Department had previously interviewed Onsrud, and they brought him back for a second interview on August 2, 2007. Onsrud waived his Miranda rights and agreed to speak to the investigators.
Onsrud told the investigators that Dax had been wearing his apnea monitor during the afternoon, prior to the device’s alarm going off. The investigators said that wasn’t possible. They had the readouts of the device, which indicated that the monitor hadn’t been connected to the child between 4:57 a.m. and 6:19 p.m. They said Onsrud’s answer suggested deception.
“The whole thing is that it makes us question your credibility when the whole time you’re trying to maintain the fact that this child was on, on its monitor when it truly wasn’t and like I said, there is no law that you’re violating that because Dax wasn’t on it because they were going to take it off him anyhow, but you know it makes me wonder about the other things that you were telling us when you can’t be truthful about whether the monitor was on or not when you very well knew that we were going to download that monitor and get the information off of it,” an investigator said.
The investigators kept pushing, telling Onsrud he was a good father but that sometimes people just snap. “Just between dads,” one investigator said, “Just explain to me what, what went on that day to maybe cause that knee jerk reaction that you had.”
Onsrud said that at times he would black out when he got angry and that it was possible that Dax’s head hit something when Onsrud was lowering him after playing airplane with him.
Onsrud said, “I can see myself throw him down a little too hard, I mean, with my past and everything—it’s, it’s it’s …”
An investigator filled in the missing words. “It’s possible.”
Onsrud said. “It is very possible.”
Onsrud was arrested on August 3, 2007, and charged with aggravated battery. Four days later, he was also charged with first-degree murder in Dax’s death.
The state initially said it might seek the death penalty but later filed a notice declining that option.
Onsrud was represented by Matthew Durbin, an assistant public defender, and Margaret Osborn, an assistant state’s attorney, represented the state.
On September 23, 2008, two weeks before his trial was to begin in Rock Island County Circuit Court, Onsrud entered a guilty plea to first-degree murder. Osborn said that as part of the plea agreement, the state had agreed not to seek a sentence of life in prison and would also dismiss the battery charge.
Osborn said that Onsrud had admitted “that he shoved the baby onto the couch where the baby hit his head on the couch arm.”
She also said that an autopsy “revealed” that Dax died of blunt force trauma to the head and that a pathologist would have testified that the injury would require “momentum and velocity such as throwing of a baby.”
On November 21, 2008, Onsrud moved to withdraw his plea. Durbin said in the motion that Onsrud had been depressed at the time he pled guilty and had been taking Seroquel, an anti-psychotic medication that Onsrud believed might have interfered with his judgment. In addition, Onsrud said that “evidence he recently reviewed and had previously misinterpreted or overlooked has led him to believe that his plea of guilty was not based upon a solid understanding of the evidence against him.”
On November 25, 2008, Judge Charles “Casey” Stengel denied Onsrud’s motion to withdraw his plea and sentenced him to 60 years in prison. “I’ve no remorse for you,” Judge Stengel said.
The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the conviction on June 27, 2011.
Nine years passed.
The Illinois Innocence Project (IIP) began representing Onsrud in 2020 and asked to review the case files in the office of the Rock Island County State’s Attorney.
In a motion for a new trial filed on June 22, 2020, Onsrud’s attorneys said they had learned that there was material in the prosecutor’s file that had not been disclosed to Onsrud at the time of his plea and that constituted new evidence of innocence. The filing did not identify this material or evidence.
Rock Island County State’s Attorney Dora Villarreal joined in the motion to grant Onsrud a new trial. In a press release, she said that after the files were retrieved from storage, “it quickly became apparent that many documents were missing from such a very complex and serious case.” She said, “It was and still is our belief that several material documents belonging to this investigation were not disclosed by the assigned prosecutor to the defense.” The release did not describe the missing or non-disclosed material.
Osborn had been terminated from the state’s attorney’s office in 2013 for failing to disclose evidence in another case, and Villarreal said she would conduct an audit of Osborn’s work.
Judge Frank Fuhr granted the new trial motion on June 23, and Onsrud was released from prison. Villarreal noted that the charges against Onsrud had not been dismissed.
Separately, Villarreal filed an ethics complaint against Osborn with the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission, overseen by the Illinois Supreme Court. (The outcome of that complaint isn’t available.)
On February 8, 2023, the state filed an amended complaint against Onsrud, now charging him with felony child endangerment.
Onsrud moved to dismiss the indictment on January 24, 2024. The motion said the state had failed to save the microscopic sectioning slides and tissue cuttings from Dax’s brain. In addition, the state had no records related to the identity of the neuropathologist who assisted Kalelkar and had said there was no evidence of trauma.
“Without these items, Mr. Onsrud is unable to confront the State’s evidence, and his most fundamental constitutional rights are violated,” the motion said. “It is worth noting that this is not a strategic or tactical ploy; to the contrary, counsel for Mr. Onsrud has looked everywhere for these items of evidence because they are not only needed to defend this case, but they go to the heart of the matter and can affirmatively prove that Mr. Onsrud is actually innocent.”
The motion also included two new forensic reports, by Dr. Chandani DeZure, a pediatrician at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and by Dr. Michael Baden, the former chief medical examiner for New York City.
DeZure said in her report that the small hematomas found during Dax’s autopsy were not associated with his death. She also said that Onsrud’s statements about how he might have caused Dax’s injuries were not consistent with the autopsy findings.
Although Onsrud had given inconsistent statements to investigators about the use of the apnea monitor, DeZure said the lack of monitoring was a red herring. At the time of Dax’s death, her report noted, the child’s pediatrician had recommended that Onsrud and Lancial use the device less frequently.
Baden said in his report that Dax died of natural causes tied to lung disease, infection, and premature birth. He said that Kalelkar’s finding of fibrin streams was evidence that clots had developed days before Dax’s death and could not have started after the activities that Onsrud described during his interview. “The autopsy evidence shows that Mr. Onsrud confessed to a homicide that had not occurred,” he wrote.
On May 6, 2025, Judge Fuhr denied Onsrud’s motion to dismiss. He said that there was no evidence of bad faith on the part of prosecutors, but that the state had the duty to preserve the tissue samples and brain sections. As a result, he granted a defense motion to exclude any evidence or testimony about subdural hematomas.
A month later, on June 17, 2025, the state moved to amend the indictment, seeking to replace “subdural hemorrhaging” with “head trauma.” Judge Fuhr denied the motion on November 19, 2025, calling it an “attempt to evade the substance of the court’s earlier ruling.”
In January 2026, the state said it was no longer pursuing a charge of felony child endangerment. Instead, prosecutors said they would charge Onsrud with misdemeanor child endangerment and misdemeanor battery, which they said were lesser included charges.
Onsrud again moved to dismiss the case. His attorneys said the statute of limitations had expired for these offenses and that the state could not specify how Onsrud endangered his son without using any evidence related to subdural hemorrhaging.
Judge Fuhr denied the second motion to dismiss on March 18, 2026.
Onsrud’s attorneys filed a motion to reconsider on April 15, 2026, asserting that Judge Fuhr had erred when ruling that the statute of limitations had not expired. The motion said that the nine years that Onsrud spent in prison between the appellate decision in 2011 and the granting of his new trial should have been included in the calculation, and it was far greater than the 18-month statute of limitations for misdemeanor child endangerment.
Judge Fuhr agreed with the motion and dismissed the case on June 23, 2026.
“It is hard to put into words the suffering that is at the heart of this case,” IIP Legal Director Lauren Kaeseberg said. “Nate was a young father who lost his infant son. Instead of being able to grieve this horrible tragedy, he found himself wrongfully accused of murder. For 19 years he was labeled a monster and for 13 years he suffered behind bars. Nothing can ever heal those wounds, but we are so glad Nate can finally move forward—exonerated—and without the constant threat of unfair prosecution.”
The entire entry 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;
