STORY: "Arson and 'junk science'," by reporter Paul Bieber, published in The Crime Report on April 3, 2012.
GIST: "U.S. Magistrate Michael Seng, U.S. District Court, Eastern Court of California, is expected soon to announce his ruling in an appeal of a case that is a textbook example of bad fire science leading to a wrongful conviction. His decision, and the testimony that led to it, will shine a light on a national travesty of justice, where arson evidence that has been discredited for 20 years has been used to misidentify accidental or undetermined fires as arson. The case involves a defendant named George Souliotes, who was sentenced to life without parole in 1997 for what now appears to have been an accidental fire. During hearings presided over by Seng, fire experts testified that the evidence used to gain his 1997 arson conviction was utterly unreliable and largely based on “junk science.”.........Nationwide, 5,405 people were in prison for arson in 2002, the latest year for which statistics are available, according to figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Corrections Reporting Program. Yet, in 2004, a dozen years after the fire investigation community acknowledged that arson must be proven by science, not mythology, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas for setting a fire that killed his three young children. His conviction, like so many others, was based on exactly this type of unreliable burn pattern analysis. Fire experts nationwide now agree that the fire that killed Willingham’s children and led to his execution was almost certainly accidental, not arson. Such “voodoo science” is so prevalent in old arson convictions that the Texas Forensic Science Commission recently recommended that all arson convictions in Texas be reviewed in order to determine which of the convictions are based on unreliable forensic evidence. This followed the passage of state resolutions supporting judicial review of arson cases in Arizona, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Texas is on the right path in reviewing all of its arson convictions in order to identify the small number of cases hidden amongst them where innocent people have been convicted of setting what were really just accidental fires. This review should serve as a model for other states to conduct their own arson case reviews. Without such a proactive review it is nearly impossible for the wrongfully convicted to have his day in court."
Paul Bieber is a criminal defense investigator for the San Mateo County (CA) Private Defender Program and the director of The Arson Research Project. His blog and more information about the research project can be found at www.Thearsonproject.org. He welcomes comments from readers.THE ENTIRE STORY CAN BE FOUND AT:
http://www.thecrimereport.org/viewpoints/2012-04-arson-and-junk-science
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
I am monitoring this case. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments.
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
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
