POST: "Judge tells state to just test the damn DNA," by Houston, Texas lawyer and blogger extraordinaire Paul Kennedy, as published on his Blog "The Defence Rests."
GIST: "Jeff Gamso has been fighting the good fight for longer than I'm sure he cares to remember. As a blogger, his work is "can't miss" reading. And his calls to just test the damn DNA are loud and clear. On Wednesday in Montgomery County, of all places, a newly elected judge, Kelly Case, told the state to just test the damn DNA in Larry Swearingen's case. Mr. Swearingen was scheduled to be murdered by the state of Texas on February 27. Now that proposed execution date has been pushed back to allow DNA testing on evidence found near the crime scene. A motion to test the evidence, based on a 2011 statute, was filed by Barry Scheck and The Innocence Project. Judge Case has given both the state and Mr. Swearingen 60 days to file responses to Mr. Scheck's motion. Ironically enough, it was Judge Case's predecessor, Fred Edwards, who denied Mr. Swearingen's motion for new trial late last year. Mr. Swearingen's attorneys had filed a motion for new trial based upon newly discovered evidence regarding decomposition science. Mr. Edwards ruled that decomposition science was a novel scientific theory and needed to be proven reliable in a pretrial hearing before he would consider it. And that's where the irony comes in. As anyone who has tried a criminal case can attest, the general rule regarding scientific evidence in criminal trials is if it benefits the state, it's in; but, if it benefits the defense, it's out. Judges have had no problem allowing junk science into evidence when it's offered by the state - just take a look at the Cameron Willingham case."
The entire post can be found at:
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.
