"WHEN THE LAWYERS INTERVIEWED THE JURORS AFTERWARDS, ALL REPORTED THAT THEY WOULD HAVE DECLARED DAVID "NOT GUILTY." PROSECUTORS HAD LITTLE CHOICE BUT TO ASK THAT ALL CHARGES BE DISMISSED. THE COURT DID JUST THAT."
LAWYER JOHN HENRY BROWNE;
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Just as Louise Robbins made an occasional foray into Canada with her pseudo-scientific "Cinderella" footprint evidence and Charles Smith ventured into Illinois to testify in a death penalty case, Cornelis van der Lugt attempted to bring his dubious earprint evidence by way of Europe into the U.S.A in the David Kunze case;
Fortunately, Mr. Kunze was represented by John Henry Browne, a lawyer who managed to stop the State's attempt to obtain a murder conviction by introducing so-called "expert" earprint evidence in its tracks.
As Browne points out on his website, David Kunze might still be serving a life sentence for Aggravated Murder at the Walla Walla penitentiary. (He was freed on March 22, 2001.)
Browne tells us that:
"David was convicted in 1997 after a judge ruled that a prosecution witness could tell the jury he thought an earprint at a murder scene matched the outline of David's ear. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.
David then asked John Henry Browne to handle his appeal. In the first earprint case in American legal history, John Henry Browne persuaded the Court of Appeals to reverse David's conviction and to grant him a new trial--this time without the earprint. See State v. David Kunze, 97 Wn. App. 832, 988 P.2d 977 (Div. II, 1999).
Weeks into David's second trial, prosecutorial misconduct forced a mistrial.
When the lawyers interviewed the jurors afterwards, all reported that they would have declared David "Not Guilty." Prosecutors had little choice but to ask that all charges be dismissed. The court did just that."
Next posting: The Kunze decision;
Harold Levy; hlevy15@gmail.com;
