Jeffrey Havard: Radley Balko: Despite Evidence From Discredited Medical Examiner, Mississippi's Jeffrey Havard Nears Execution; Huff Post. By Radley Balko; Must Read.

COMMENTARY: "Despite evidence from discredited medical examiner, Mississippi's Jeffrey Havard nears execution," by Radley Balko, published in the Huffington Post on November 29, 2012. (As Radley Balko describes his impressive record as an investigative journalist who uses his skills to remedy miscarriages of justice: "My work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, and cited and excerpted by the Mississippi State Supreme Court. My reporting helped get a guy off death row and eventually freed, helped win a new trial and acquittal for a 13-year-old murder suspect, and led to the firing of a corrupt medical examiner in Mississippi. My reporting on the overuse of SWAT teams and police militarization has been profiled by the New York Times, National Journal, National Public Radio, and the Economist. My 2009 feature on forensics fraud in a Louisiana murder case won the Western Publication Association’s “Maggie Award” for reporting." I hope his journalistic skills, coupled with the efforts of  Jeffrey Havard's  legal team and his many supporters, will help save Jeffrey Havard's life and return his freedom.  Harold Levy. Publisher. The Charles Smith Blog.)

GIST:  "By the time Jeffrey Havard went to trial in 2002, Hayne's credibility issues were well known in the state's legal community and among his fellow medical examiners (although they yet to be reported in the media in any comprehensive way). Knowing of Hayne's issues, Havard's public defender asked the trial judge for funding so Havard could hire an independent medical examiner to evaluate Hayne's autopsy. The judge turned down the request. Havard was convicted and sentenced to death, almost entirely because of Hayne's testimony. Once Havard was convicted, his case was kicked up to the Mississippi Capital Post Conviction Office, a well-funded state legal defense agency that was started after several federal court decisions pretty much demanded it. That office hired former Alabama State Medical Examiner Jim Lauridson to review Hayne's autopsy in the Havard case. Lauridson found it lacking. He found that there was no physical evidence to state conclusively that Chloe Britt had been shaken to death instead of dying from hitting her head, as Havard claimed. He also explained that the small bruise near the girl's anus could have come from hospital staff inserting a rectal thermometer in the emergency room. Moreover, Lauridson found that anal dilation like that observed in Britt was common in infants  post-mortem. When Havard's attorneys took Lauridson's review to the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2006, however, the justices summarily dismissed it. In a ruling Franz Kafka and Joseph Heller could have conspired to write, the court found that Lauridson's opinions on Hayne's testimony did not qualify as new evidence. Rather, the justices said, it was evidence Havard should have produced at his initial trial. Of course, Havard couldn't have produced such evidence, because the trial court refused to give him funding to hire his own expert. Havard's attorneys then found some new and potentially exonerating evidence. At his initial trial, Rebecca Britt, Havard's ex-girlfriend and Chloe Britt's mother, testified that Havard paid little attention to the child. She couldn't recall him ever bathing Chloe or changing her diapers, she said. That testimony cast doubt on Havard's story that he dropped Chloe after bathing her. Havard's attorneys, however, discovered a videotape of Rebecca Britt's initial statement to police, in which she said that Havard loved the little girl, fed her and changed her. She didn't seem at all surprised at the time that he had bathed her the night of Chloe's death. In March, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger showed Hayne's autopsy report to renowned forensic pathologist Michael Baden. Like Lauridson, Baden found that Chloe Britt's injuries were consistent with "the baby being accidentally dropped and striking her head on the toilet tank as the father described." Like Lauridson, Baden also said there were many possible causes for the sort of anal bruise Hayne found, including constipation, diarrhea or friction from a diaper. Remarkably, even Hayne himself backed off from the testimony he gave at trial, conceding to Havard's legal team that a rectal thermometer could have caused the bruise (though he maintained that it wasn't likely). He also conceded that there was no anal tearing, and that what he had found in his autopsy was not necessarily conclusive of sexual assault. (Neither hospital staff nor Hayne found semen or any of Havard's DNA in or near the girl's rectum.) All of that still wasn't enough to convince the Mississippi Supreme Court. Earlier this year, the court again denied Havard's appeal. The justices ruled that Havard had failed to convince them that Rebecca Britt's statement shortly after the crime would have affected the jury's opinion. The court also dismissed Lauridson's statement about post-mortem anal dilation, because emergency room nurse initially discovered the dilation while Britt was still alive. But such dilation can start to set in before death if a child's brain function has already begun to slow down. When Chloe Britt arrived at the hospital, her symptoms suggested someone in that condition. At this point, Havard's legal team may have exhausted their options in the Mississippi courts. His case is now before U.S. District Court Judge Keith Starrett.

The entire commentary can be found at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/steven-hayne-jeffrey-havard_b_2213976.html

 PUBLISHER'S NOTE

I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

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.