"THE COALITION'S AWARD TO GRANN HAS INSPIRED MYSELF AS PUBLISHER TO CREATE "THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG ANNUAL MEDIA AWARD" TO HONOUR AN AUTHOR WHO HAS DONE OUTSTANDING WORK IN EXPOSING A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE INVOLVING FAILURES OF FORENSIC PATHOLOGISTS OR FORENSIC PATHOLOGY. MY SELECTION FOR 2010 IS KEVIN MORGAN, AUTHOR OF "GUN ALLEY: MURDER, LIES AND FAILURE OF JUSTICE," WHO SINGLE-HANDEDLY FOUGHT FOR AND OBTAINED THE FORENSIC MATERIALS WHICH LED TO COLIN ROSS'S PARDON ALMOST NINETY YEARS AFTER HE WAS EXECUTED."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"GOVERNMENT ANALYST CHARLES PRICE, A CHEMIST BY OCCUPATION AND NOT A FORENSIC EXPERT, GAVE EVIDENCE THAT THE HAIRS "WERE DERIVED FROM THE SCALP OF ONE AND THE SAME PERSON". BUT AFTER THE HAIR SAMPLES WERE REDISCOVERED IN LONG-FORGOTTEN ARCHIVES BY METHODICAL RESEARCHER-TURNED-AUTHOR KEVIN MORGAN IN 1995, HE PUSHED FOR THEM TO BE RETESTED. MR MORGAN HAS SINCE WRITTEN A BOOK BASED ON THE CASE CALLED GUN ALLEY: MURDER, LIES AND FAILURE OF JUSTICE. THREE YEARS LATER, A MICROSCOPIC EXAMINATION BY DR BENTLEY ATCHISON, OF THE VICTORIAN INSTITUTE OF FORENSIC MEDICINE, SHOWED THE HAIRS WERE NOT FROM THE SAME SCALP. A SECOND TEST BY AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE FORENSIC EXPERT DR JAMES ROBERTSON, A WORLD AUTHORITY ON HAIR IDENTIFICATION, CONFIRMED THAT PRICE'S CONCLUSION WAS WRONG."
PHOTO RIGHT: CAMERON TODD WILLINGHAM; PHOTO LEFT; COLIN ROSS;
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND: (Wikipedia); Cameron Todd Willingham (January 9, 1968 – February 17, 2004), born in Carter County, Oklahoma, was sentenced to death by the state of Texas for murdering his three daughters—two year old Amber Louise Kuykendall, and one year old twins Karmon Diane Willingham and Kameron Marie Willingham— by setting his house on fire. The fire occurred on December 23, 1991 in Corsicana, Texas. Lighter fluid was kept on the front porch of Willingham’s house as evidenced by a melted container found there. Some of this fluid may have entered the front doorway of the house carried along by fire hose water. It was alleged this fluid was deliberately poured to start the fire and that Willingham chose this entrance way so as to impede rescue attempts. The prosecution also used other arson theories that have since been brought into question. In addition to the arson evidence, a jailhouse informant claimed Willingham confessed that he set the fire to hide his wife's physical abuse of the girls, although the girls showed no other injuries besides those caused by the fire. Neighbors also testified that Willingham did not try hard enough to save his children. They allege he "crouched down" in his front yard and watched the house burn for a period of time without attempting to enter the home or go to neighbors for help or request they call firefighters. He claimed that he tried to go back into the house but it was "too hot". As firefighters arrived, however, he rushed towards the garage and pushed his car away from the burning building, requesting firefighters do the same rather than put out the fire. After the fire, Willingham showed no emotion at the death of his children and spent the next day sorting through the debris, laughing and playing music. He expressed anger after finding his dartboard burned in the fire. Firefighters and other witnesses found him suspicious of how he reacted during and after the fire. Willingham was charged with murder on January 8, 1992. During his trial in August 1992, he was offered a life term in exchange for a guilty plea, which he turned down insisting he was innocent. After his conviction, he and his wife divorced. She later stated that she believed that Willingham was guilty. Prosecutors alleged this was part of a pattern of behavior intended to rid himself of his children. Willingham had a history of committing crimes, including burglary, grand larceny and car theft. There was also an incident when he beat his pregnant wife over the stomach with a telephone to induce a miscarriage. When asked if he had a final statement, Willingham said: "Yeah. The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man - convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do. From God's dust I came and to dust I will return - so the earth shall become my throne. I gotta go, road dog. I love you Gabby." However, his final words were directed at his ex-wife, Stacy Willingham. He turned to her and said "I hope you rot in hell, bitch" several times while attempting to extend his middle finger in an obscene gesture. His ex-wife did not show any reaction to this. He was executed by lethal injection on February 17, 2004. Subsequent to that date, persistent questions have been raised as to the accuracy of the forensic evidence used in the conviction, specifically, whether it can be proven that an accelerant (such as the lighter fluid mentioned above) was used to start the fatal fire. Fire investigator Gerald L. Hurst reviewed the case documents including the trial transcriptions and an hour-long videotape of the aftermath of the fire scene. Hurst said, "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire." Two days before the Forensic Science Commission was to question Beyler in a public forum, the governor replaced its chairman and two other members whose terms were up. That forced the commission to delay the hearing so new members could read up on the case, and no new date has been set. Perry has since replaced a third member of the commission.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND: COLIN ROSS: "Hawthorn schoolgirl Alma Tirtschke was raped and strangled while in the city running errands for her mother. Her naked body was found by a bottle gatherer in Gun Alley, off Little Collins Street, on December 31, 1921. Ross, who ran a nearby wine bar, was arrested at his Maidstone home on January 12. After a short trial and two failed appeals, he was executed 115 days after the murder. Prosecutors claimed that Ross, 28, lured Alma into his wine saloon in the Eastern Arcade in Bourke Street, took her into a small room off the main bar, then plied her with alcohol before he raped and strangled her. The court was told Ross then put her body in a nearby laneway, where it was found the next morning. However, Ross was able to produce alibi witnesses who said they saw him at work and on the tram heading home at the time of the murder. The key evidence against him was given by two contradictory and unreliable "witnesses" — prostitute Ivy Matthews and career thief Sydney John Harding, who claimed Ross independently "confessed" to the murder. But the petition of mercy says the prosecution failed to tell the court that Harding was a known and repeated perjurer. The Crown was aware that his military record included convictions for making a false statement to a superior officer and giving false sworn answers on his attestation papers. The only forensic link came from hairs found on a blanket discovered at Ross' home, which were said to match hairs taken from the victim. Government analyst Charles Price, a chemist by occupation and not a forensic expert, gave evidence that the hairs "were derived from the scalp of one and the same person". But after the hair samples were rediscovered in long-forgotten archives by methodical researcher-turned-author Kevin Morgan in 1995, he pushed for them to be retested. Mr Morgan has since written a book based on the case called Gun Alley: Murder, Lies and Failure of Justice. Three years later, a microscopic examination by Dr Bentley Atchison, of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, showed the hairs were not from the same scalp. A second test by Australian Federal Police forensic expert Dr James Robertson, a world authority on hair identification, confirmed that Price's conclusion was wrong." The Age;
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog applauds the decision of the Texas Coalition Against the death penalty to confer David Grann with its "media award" for “in-depth investigation of the Cameron Todd Willingham case” with his New Yorker article “Trial by Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?” which “explored the case in its entirety and debunked all of the evidence used to convict/sentence Willingham to death.” The Coalition's award to Grann has inspired myself as publisher to create "The Charles Smith Blog Annual Media Award" to honour an author who has done outstanding work in exposing a miscarriage of justice involving failures of forensic pathologists or forensic pathology." My selection for this year is Kevin Morgan, author of "Gun Alley: Murder, Lies and Failure of Justice, who single-handedly fought for and obtained the forensic materials which led to Colin Ross's pardon almost ninety years after he was executed.
(Wikipedia informs us that: In 1993, Kevin Morgan, a former school-teacher became interested in Ross' case, and began to research the events surrounding the murder of Alma Tirtschke and execution of Colin Ross. He read handwritten notes in the bible Colin Ross had kept with him in prison, and which had been preserved by his family following his death. Morgan was moved by the simple notations in which Ross wrote of false witnesses, knowing that Ross had written these notes without expecting anyone else to read them. Morgan examined interview records and court transcripts and discovered information that had been kept from the court at the time, including the testimony of six reliable witnesses who placed Ross inside his saloon for the entire afternoon of Alma Tirtschke's murder. Furthermore, a cab driver, Joseph Graham, had heard screams coming from a building in Collins Street at 3.00pm, which was within the timeframe Ross was verified as having been in the saloon. Graham's interview had been disregarded by police and he had not been called to give evidence. Following Ross's arrest, Graham attempted to have his story told through a solicitor, but was not permitted to present his version of events in court. Morgan also noted that the witnesses against Ross were of dubious character and could have been motivated to present false testimony; John Harding's sentence was reduced after he stated that Ross had confessed to him in prison, and the prostitute, Ivy Matthews and fortune-teller, Julia Gibson had shared the reward money. A closer examination of the long testimony of Charles Price regarding the hair samples seemed to support Ross' innocence. Two years after he began researching the case, Kevin Morgan found a file in the Office of the Public Prosecutions, which contained the original hair samples, which had been thought lost. He began a legal fight for the right to submit the hair samples for DNA testing, finally winning the right in 1998. Dr. Bentley Atchison of the Victoria Institute of Forensic Medicine found that the hairs did not come from the same person, thereby disproving with certainty the most damning piece of evidence presented at Colin Ross' trial. His findings were confirmed by a second series of testing conducted by an independent agency. On 23 October 2006 the Victorian Attorney General Rob Hulls wrote to the Chief Justice, Marilyn Warren, with a 31-page petition asking her to consider a plea of mercy for Ross. The subsequent pardon, granted on 27 May 2008, is the first case in Victoria's legal history of a posthumous pardon.)
The only criteria for the award, is that the miscarriage of justice exposed by the author (who may have been published anywhere in the world) must involve failures of forensic pathologists or forensic pathology.
I would be pleased to receive recommendations for next year's Charles Smith Blog Annual Media Award at:
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;
