COUNTDOWN: 12 days to Wrongful Conviction Day: (Thursday October 2, 2014); Quote from participating lawyer Sal Caramanna: "Wrongful convictions can be eradicated. It is a complex issue, but the question of attitude is not: all criminal justice participants need to step up and rise to the challenge. Defence counsel must fearlessly defend, relentlessly advocate and leave no stone unturned. Prosecutors must always be open to being wrong about their cases, to looking for exculpatory evidence and must never shy away from any lead that may undermine the prosecution theory. Judges must always be evenhanded, never letting the emotions and profile of a case skew their judgment."
STORY: "Lawyers ask judge to deny Jeffrey MacDonald's attempt at new trial," by reporter Drew Brooks, published by the Observer on September 12, 2014.
GIST: "In a response to the motion MacDonald's lawyers filed last month, U.S. attorneys argued a government report that discredits one of MacDonald's investigators is not new evidence and does not call into question the July judgment that denied MacDonald, a former Army captain, a new trial for the 1970 murders of his wife and two daughters on Fort Bragg. They said the report, which highlights the actions of former FBI investigator Michael Malone, should not change the outcome of the case. The Office of Inspector General of the Department of Justice released its report on the FBI Laboratory in July. It devotes an entire chapter to Malone, who "repeatedly created scientifically unsupportable lab reports and provided false, misleading, or inaccurate testimony at criminal trials.""
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/09/12/lawyers-ask-judge-to-deny-jeffrey-macdonalds-new-trial.html
For background on Wrongful Conviction Day see the following link:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2014/06/wrongful-convictions-day-aidwyc.html
Interested participants may sign up by contacting Win Wahrer of The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted at: winwahrer@aidwyc.org.
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;
