ANNA SANDIFORD; FORENSIC SCIENTIST;
MARK CALENDER NOW: IMPORTANT JOINT NPR, FRONTLINE, PROPUBLICA INVESTIGATION OF CHILD DEATH CASES INVOLVING ABUSE, ASSAULT AND "SHAKEN-BABY SYNDROME." ASKS IF DEATH INVESTIGATORS ARE BEING PROPERLY TRAINED FOR CHILD CASES; FIRST OF THREE SEGMENTS ON "THE CHILD CASES" AIRS ON JUNE 28 AT 9.00 PM:
When a child dies under suspicious circumstances, abuse is often suspected. That's what happened in the case of six-month-old Isis Vas, whose death was deemed "a clear-cut and classic" case of child abuse, sending a man named Ernie Lopez to prison for 60 years. But now a Texas judge has moved to overturn Lopez's conviction, and new questions are being asked about the quality of expert testimony in this and many other similar cases. In this joint investigation with ProPublica and NPR, FRONTLINE correspondent A.C. Thompson unearths more than 20 child death cases in which people were jailed on medical evidence -- involving abuse, assault and "shaken-baby syndrome" -- that was later found unreliable or flat-out wrong. Are death investigators being properly trained for child cases? The Child Cases is the first of three magazine segments airing June 28 at 9 p.m. (check local listings);
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-child-cases/
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: As Anna Sandiford points a legal system that began developing many centuries ago is having trouble adjusting to modern technological developments. Her column involves a juror caught allegedly communicating with a defendant on Facebook. A recent column on this Blog focused Ontario Coroner Dr. Bonita Porter's decision to keep a video demonstrating the shocking manner in which a prisoner named Ashley Smith was forceably subdued by penitentiary guards from the jurors. She apparently was concerned that the video would end up on U-Tube. (So much for the public's participation in the proceedings); Another Charles Smith Blog column described how the Alberta judge presiding over forensic psychologist's Dr. Aubrey Levin's preliminary hearing chose to keep the public out of the court room - other than accredited local media - in order to prevent the foreign media from breaching a ban on reporting the evidence called at the hearing. There you have it; Jailing jurors for yapping on the Net while those who babble away to their friends and families without scrutiny go free; locking up jurors for entire trials to isolate them from the World Wide Web; keeping important video footage that sheds light on what goes on in our penitentiaries;locking the public out of the courtroom to enforce a press ban and barring segments of the media. All in an effort to come to grips with Internet technology. I don't disagree that these are serious problems within our criminal justice system. I do wonder however if draconic measures that take away from everyone's civil rights is the best solution. Get with it my Lords. Times have truly changed.
Harold Levy. Publisher. The Charles Smith Blog;
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"A juror on a drugs trial in Manchester, England, last year now faces jail time after she allagedly contacted and had a Facebook conversation with a Defendant," the Forensic Scientist post by Anna Sandiford published published on June 15, 2001 under the heading, "Perverting the course of justice – Facebook misuse," begins.
"The full article is here so I don’t intend to repeat it in full," the post continues.
"Just in brief though, the juror is alleged to have contacted the Defendant and the contact led the judge to discharge the jury in a 10-week drugs trial. The alleged contact occurred after the Defendant had already been acquitted but the jury was still in the process of reaching verdicts on other defendants.
The juror is also indicated to have conducted internet research on defendants, despite instructions from the judge to only decide the case on the evidence in court. Such instructions are now commonplace, partly because of the prevalence of members of the media reporting trial progress and issues around the trial that might not be known to jurors and also because of the risk of internet-based communications and access to knowldge outside that provided in the court room. Both the juror and the former Defendant now face up to two years in prison for contempt of court.
Reference is also made in the article above to a speech given last year by the English Lord Chief Justice in which he expressed concerns about technology and how it could be used by jurors to access information in relation to a case on which they were sitting. He indicated that “…in my view, if the jury system is to survive as the system for a fair trial in which we all believe and support, the misuse of the internet by jurors must stop.” He also acknowledges though that there are enormous challenges with this – how does the criminal justice system ‘police’ what jurors do via electronic technology during a trial?
Another of the Lord Chief Justice’s insights was that the way children now learn is very different from the past. Much of their schoolwork is “done by absorbing information from machines. They consult and refer to the internet. When they do so they are not listening. They do not, as we did, sit in class for 40 minutes listening to the masters and mistresses providing us with information. They are provided with information in written form, which they assimilate into their own technology.” He goes on to make a very valid point, one that I had not previously considered (possibly because I am old enough to have had to learn to do this at school and I have not recently had to sit and watch a class of 14 year olds try to learn). He said, “…what this form of education lacks is training in the ability to sit still and listen, and I emphasise, listen and think, I repeat, listen and think simultaneously, for prolonged periods. Yet that is an essential requirement for every juror.”
In essence it seems we may be heading towards an era (or are we already there?) in which jurors defy the judge’s directions about avoiding seeking information about the case on which they are sitting and in which at least some of the twelve people on the jury are incapable of concentrating on the issues at hand. I think that NZ’s approach to the court day may alleviate the latter in that there are morning and afternoon tea breaks in addition to the lunch break. But does this break-time provide jurors with more opportunity to access the digital world of information?
What is the answer? Will we end up in a world where jurors are required to be retained at court for the duration of a trial in rooms with signal-blocking technology and only an analogue telephone connection to the outside world? Or will putting jurors in prison for contempt of court be sufficient to stop the internet investigations that they apparently undertake? Or perhaps something else?""
The post can be found at:
http://sciblogs.co.nz/forensic-scientist/2011/06/15/perverting-the-course-of-justice-%E2%80%93-facebook-misuse/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 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. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
