"The other last resorts are the Board of Pardons and Paroles (which almost never grants clemency) and the governor of the state of Texas, a man who seems poised to make a run to be the president of the United States. Perry thumbed his nose at modern arson science in the Willingham case. How will he approach modern forensic entomology, to say nothing of anatomy, histology, or forensic anthropology?"
MICHAEL HALL THE TEXAS MONTHLY;
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND: Larry Swearingen was sentenced to death in 2000 for the murder of Melissa Trotter in 1998. Melissa Trotter went missing on 8 December 1998. Larry Swearingen was arrested three days later, and has been incarcerated ever since. The body of Melissa Trotter was found in a forest on 2 January 1999. Larry Swearingen was tried for her murder, and sentenced to death. He maintains his innocence of the murder. Several forensic experts have provided statements and testimony that support his claim. One of these experts, Dr Joyce Carter, is the former Chief Medical Examiner of Harris County in Texas who performed the autopsy of Melissa Trotter and testified at Larry Swearingen’s trial that in her opinion, Melissa Trotter had died 25 days before her body was found. In an affidavit signed in 2007, Dr Carter stated that she had looked again at the case and changed her opinion. She concluded that Melissa Trotter’s body had been left in the forest within two weeks of it being found. If accurate, this would mean that the body was dumped at a time when Larry Swearingen was already in custody.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Just when you thought no one cared about the death penalty anymore, well, people started caring about the death penalty again—at least as far as presidential politics go," the Texas Monthly story by Michael Hall (July issue) begins, under the heading, "Rick Perry V. Forensic Science."
"Last week a lot of people were wondering if Gov. Rick Perry’s treatment of the Cameron Todd Willingham case, both before and after Willingham was executed, would affect his chances in a national election," the story continues.
"That case, of course, involved the science of fire. Soon Perry could get another chance to act on a death penalty case that involves science, this time the science of a decomposing body. How soon? Larry Swearingen is set to be executed August 18.
I’ve written about Swearingen before, in January 2009, as he approached his second execution date. It was stayed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals a day before he was to be strapped to the gurney. Swearingen’s main claim, as I wrote then, was that “six different physicians and scientists--forensic pathologists and entomologists—say there’s almost no way Swearingen could have done it”—that is, killed Melissa Trotter in 1998 in Montgomery County. The court allowed Swearingen’s lawyers a chance to file another federal writ of habeas corpus, but in November the court dismissed the petition, writing that there was plenty of other circumstantial evidence tying him to the murder, that all this science could have and should have been brought up at his trial, and that the scientists’ hypotheses are all inconsistent and contradictory anyway. Swearingen appealed but in April of this year the court upheld its dismissal.
So, on June 24, Montgomery County judge Fred Edwards gave Swearingen a new death date, his third (the first was in 2007). Even an optimist would say that Swearingen’s options are narrowing. On the state side, he has filed a remarkable sixth writ of habeas corpus with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which last turned him down in February 2010. This writ, though, has four additional scientists weighing in in Swearingen’s favor, giving him a total of ten who say he couldn’t have killed Trotter. On the federal side, Swearingen is mostly played out, though he will appeal to the US Supreme Court as a last resort.
The other last resorts are the Board of Pardons and Paroles (which almost never grants clemency) and the governor of the state of Texas, a man who seems poised to make a run to be the president of the United States. Perry thumbed his nose at modern arson science in the Willingham case. How will he approach modern forensic entomology, to say nothing of anatomy, histology, or forensic anthropology? “The difference is that the Willingham case involved bad forensics,” says Swearingen’s appellate attorney James Rytting. “In this case we have fantastic science, from multiple areas. All of it converges at the place where Swearingen is excluded from the universe of possible culprits. He’s innocent.”"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE STORY CAN BE FOUND AT:
http://www.texasmonthly.com/2011-07-01/webextra6.php
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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;
