TV Alert: Tune into Episode 5 of El Jazeera's excellent series "The System" - "Parole: High risks, high stakes," premiering Sunday June 15 at 9E/6P; "Always controversial, the role of parole boards have again been called into question in recent years, and swift policy changes have followed. In this episode, we will examine the changing face of parole in Massachusetts and Connecticut and look at a few of the countless lives touched by these gatekeepers of justice: one man’s controversial journey through the Massachusetts department of corrections and another in Connecticut whose future will be decided with help from a new risk assessment tool."
POST: "Former death row inmate becomes "Exhibit A for how eyes can lie," by reporter Caroline Cooper, published by Al Jazeera America on June 11, 2014.
SUB-HEADING: "Kirk Bloodsworth, the first American death row inmate to be exonerated by DNA evidence, fights to reform eyewitness IDs."
GIST: Catching up with science; "Piles of studies have shown that eyewitness testimony is right only about half the time, nudged or contaminated by certain images and associations or the biases of police. And DNA exonerations have laid bare the central role of eyewitness error in false convictions. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to overhaul the system, leaving a handful of concerned states and police forces to tackle the problem. Later that year, for example, the New Jersey Supreme Court instructed judges to tell jurors all the factors that may have muddled the reliability of an eyewitness, and to point out the research that shows identifying someone of a different race is especially prone to inaccuracy. And in April, legislators in Bloodsworth’s home state of Maryland passed a bill, requiring witnesses to state how confident they are in their identification and the police to give witnesses the option of “none of the above.”"
The entire post can be found at:
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2014/6/11/former-death-rowinmatebecomesexhibitaforhoweyescanlie.html
See the home page for El Jazeera's excellent "The System" series, at:
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/ajam-presents-thesystem.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
I look forward to hearing from readers at:
hlevy15@gmail.com.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
