Monday, October 12, 2015

Bulletin: Steven Mark Chaney: Texas; Great development: Freed earlier today. He had spent 25 years in prison after the faulty 'science' of 'bite marks' sent him to prison for murder. "The driving force for Chaney’s conviction in the 1987 stabbing death of John and Sally Sweek was the testimony of forensic dentists. That testimony, some scientists now say, is among the shoddiest of junk science. During Chaney’s trial, prosecutors said he had murdered John Sweek to avoid paying a large debt to the drug dealer. Prosecutors at Chaney’s trial hired two forensic dentists who said they spent hours matching molds of Chaney’s teeth to bite marks on John Sweek’s arm. But in an affidavit, Hales, the chief dental consultant for the Dallas County medical examiner’s office, said what he told jurors back then has since been invalidated. “Conclusions that a particular individual is the biter and their dentition is a match when you are dealing with an open population are now understood to be scientifically unsound,” Hales said. The testimony was so believable that the jury believed it over nine witnesses who said that they had spent time with Chaney the day of the slayings and that he couldn’t have been at the Sweeks’ home when they were killed. At least one juror said after the trial that the bite evidence convinced her that he was guilty." Dallas News;









"Steven Mark Chaney is a free man after spending 25 years behind bars after the faulty science of bite marks sent him to prison for murder. Dentist Jim Hales told a Dallas County jury that there was a “1 to a million” chance that someone other than Chaney made the bite marks on John Sweek’s body. Now, Hales says the science used to convict Chaney has been discredited....Chaney’s attorneys, Julie Lesser, and the New York-based Innocence Project asked state District Judge Dominique Collins to release him based on the new bite mark evidence and allegations of prosecutor misconduct, including withholding evidence and eliciting false testimony. Chaney, a 59-year-old former construction worker, is asking for the courts to overturn his murder conviction. In Dallas County, more than 30 people have been exonerated for crimes they did not commit.........The DA’s office agreed Monday that the bite mark evidence was faulty. But future court hearings will be needed about the allegations of withheld evidence and more investigation required to determine actual evidence, Cummings said. Junk science: The driving force for Chaney’s conviction in the 1987 stabbing death of John and Sally Sweek was the testimony of forensic dentists. That testimony, some scientists now say, is among the shoddiest of junk science. During Chaney’s trial, prosecutors said he had murdered John Sweek to avoid paying a large debt to the drug dealer. Prosecutors at Chaney’s trial hired two forensic dentists who said they spent hours matching molds of Chaney’s teeth to bite marks on John Sweek’s arm. But in an affidavit, Hales, the chief dental consultant for the Dallas County medical examiner’s office, said what he told jurors back then has since been invalidated. “Conclusions that a particular individual is the biter and their dentition is a match when you are dealing with an open population are now understood to be scientifically unsound,” Hales said. The testimony was so believable that the jury believed it over nine witnesses who said that they had spent time with Chaney the day of the slayings and that he couldn’t have been at the Sweeks’ home when they were killed. At least one juror said after the trial that the bite evidence convinced her that he was guilty. The Texas Forensic Science Commission — the panel that oversees the use of science in the state’s courtrooms — is reviewing cases where bite analysis contributed to convictions to determine whether those cases warrant further investigation and whether such analysis might have led to wrongful imprisonments. The American Academy of Forensic Sciences conducted a study last year of forensic odontologists and concluded that the analysts could not even accurately determine which marks were bite marks. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences published a report that concluded that there was insufficient scientific basis to conclusively match bite marks. Texas lawmakers passed legislation in 2013 that allows courts to grant inmates relief from their convictions if advancements in science undermine the evidence used in their cases. Allegations of prosecutor misconduct: Chaney’s attorneys also argue that Dallas County prosecutors knowingly presented false evidence that blood had been found on the bottom of Chaney’s tennis shoe. They say prosecutors withheld notes from another expert who said there was no blood on Chaney’s shoes. They also say prosecutors elicited false testimony from a co-worker of Chaney’s, who initially told police that Chaney had asked him to be a “witness” to tell authorities that he had last been at the victims’ home a week before the murders. But at trial, the co-worker told the jury that Chaney had asked him to be an “alibi” witness."
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