GIST: "Friends and family of both Ed Graf and the two boys he was convicted of setting on fire nearly 30 years ago came to a McLennan County courtroom Friday for a hearing triggered by an exoneration push being made in the decades-old arson murder case. Retired State District Judge George Allen did not issue an immediate ruling after hearing testimony from two arson scientists who have newly reviewed the case. He scheduled another hearing for Jan. 24, where he is expected to announce his findings. The ultimate decision about Graf’s fate then will be left up to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.......... At Friday’s hearing, Graf’s attorney Walter M. Reaves Jr. sought to invalidate that theory by presenting testimony from two fire science experts who have newly reviewed the case. An application for writ of habeas corpus he filed in August is based on their findings, as well as that of two other experts. The person who gave the most testimony was Douglas J. Carpenter, who works at a Baltimore combustion science and engineering firm. He is considered one of the nation’s leading fire science experts, especially when it comes to reviewing evidence in old arson cases. Carpenter said he is convinced the fire that killed the boys was accidental. That conclusion is partly based on them having a high level of carbon monoxide in their blood. A blaze intentionally set with an accelerant would have quickly generated intense heat and flames, killing the boys before they could have inhaled so much of the toxic gas, he said.........The second expert who testified was Paul Bieber. He is the director of the Arson Research Project, housed at a California law school. It conducted a controlled experiment last year that used high-tech equipment to record the progress of fires set both with and without accelerant. The experiment was meant to determine whether investigators can reliably tell if an accelerant was used by visually examining burn patterns at a fire scene. The original investigator in Graf’s case pointed to such patterns as evidence the blaze was intentionally set. What the experiment showed, Bieber said, is that such visual inspection is wholly unreliable. The fire investigators who participated in the experiment correctly identified accelerant use only half of the time, he said. Bell questioned Bieber only briefly. After that, the district attorney’s office opted not to call to the stand an expert it hired to review the case. Bell declined to comment on that decision or the case in general after the hearing."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/186608271.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/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
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.
