"A LAW PROFESSOR WHO TAUGHT A COURSE ON SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE TOLD FRISBIE IT SEEMED THE ONLY STANDARD USED BY PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES ALLOWING ROBBINS TO TESTIFY AS AN EXPERT "IS THAT IT BE INCRIMINATING TO THE DEFENDANT.""
STEVE WEINBERG; CENTRE FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY;
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Why were the courts so willing to accept Prof. Louise Robbins expert" testimony?
Some insight into this question can be gleaned in an article entitled "Anatomy of misconduct: There's much to learn when a trial goes wrong," by Steve Weinberg, which was published by The Centre for public Integrity;
"Not all questionable forensic evidence stems from lies, tied to pro-prosecution bias," Weinberg's article begins;
"So-called expert witnesses sometimes have weak credentials, or rely on hokum posing as science," it continues;
"Prosecutors around the nation used to retain the services of a University of North Carolina-Greensboro anthropology professor named Louise Robbins, who said she could match crime-scene footprints to the footwear of perpetrators. Few other forensic scientists endorsed the validity of Robbins' techniques. But prosecutors called on Robbins over and over, banking on the good will of the trial judge to certify her as an expert. Robbins helped convict defendants across the nation until her technique was shown to yield results that were no better than chance would have produced.
Robbins probably would have remained below the radar of most defense lawyers, legal scholars, journalists and general readers except for her involvement in an especially egregious case of prosecutorial zealotry. The case began in 1983, with the abduction of a 10-year-old girl from her comfortable home in DuPage County, part of the Chicago suburbs. When searchers found her body two days later, they saw she had been assaulted and murdered. Finally, more than a year later, prosecutors—under pressure from the girl's parents, elected officials and the citizenry at large—charged three men based on very questionable evidence. About a year after the arrests of Rolando Cruz, Alejandro Hernandez and Stephen Buckley, the trial began. Jurors found Cruz and Hernandez guilty, but deadlocked on Buckley. By the end of 1985, a career criminal named Brian Dugan had confessed to murdering the girl, acting by himself. He passed a lie detector test, and convinced numerous observers, including seasoned law enforcement officers, that he indeed abducted and murdered the victim. The prosecutors and the trial judge refused to believe Dugan, however. So Cruz and Hernandez sat on death row while their appeals proceeded. Buckley, meanwhile, wondered whether and when prosecutors would re-try him, based largely on Robbins' testimony about his shoes.
Chicago Sun-Times reporter Thomas Frisbie watched the case unfold. Like other observers, he thought Robbins' testimony against Buckley violated common sense, not to mention scientific principles. So he started contacting other anthropologists and forensic scientists in related fields. Every scientist Frisbie contacted demeaned her work. Robbins herself would not discuss the validity of her techniques in the Buckley case with Frisbie. A law professor who taught a course on scientific evidence told Frisbie it seemed the only standard used by prosecutors and judges allowing Robbins to testify as an expert "is that it be incriminating to the defendant."
DuPage County State's Attorney Jim Ryan finally announced during early 1987 that his office would not re-try Buckley, in large part because Robbins was suffering from a serious illness. "Apparently," Frisbie said, "Ryan could find no other expert who would support Robbins' conclusions." Robbins died later that year. Eventually, both Hernandez and Cruz would also be cleared.
The next year, an Illinois appellate court reversed the murder and sexual assault conviction of Dennis J. Ferguson. Robbins had been a prosecution witness. The appellate judges ordered a new trial for Ferguson largely because of their finding that Robbins' testimony was worthless. The judges added, however, that the prosecutor aggravated the situation by frequently misstating the evidence. The prosecutor iced that impermissible behavior with this passage from the closing argument: "You have to believe that they [prosecution witnesses] are all liars or fools, every one of them. And for you to find the defendant not guilty ... you have to believe he told you the truth. You have to feel his brothers told you the truth. And that all of the persons I just named are liars and fools. It is your decision." The appellate judges noted "For a prosecutor to inform a jury that in order to believe the defense witnesses the jury must find that each of the State's witnesses was lying is such a misstatement of law as to prejudice the defendant and deny him a fair trial."
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;
