Bulletin: Discredited bite-mark testimony: The Statesman examines the difficult task of tracking down cases involving Texans convicted of crimes based on outdated dental analysis that scientists now say is nonsense. Reporters Brandi Grissom and Jennifer Emily: "No one knows just how many more Steven Chaneys are sitting in Texas prisons — men and women convicted of crimes based on outdated dental analysis that scientists now say is nonsense."

"No one knows just how many more Steven Chaneys are sitting in Texas prisons — men and women convicted of crimes based on outdated dental analysis that scientists now say is nonsense. In some ways, Chaney was one of the lucky ones. He was released from prison two weeks ago after a Dallas County district judge agreed his murder conviction and life sentence in a 1987 double homicide were based on unreliable scientific conclusions about his teeth. He got a shot at freedom because defense lawyers and the Dallas County Conviction Integrity Unit identified his case and set about investigating the bite-mark evidence that had secured his conviction. The Dallas Morning News reports tracking down dozens — maybe hundreds — of other potentially innocent victims of junk science won’t be nearly as easy. There is no central repository of cases in which bite-mark testimony was key. There’s no database of dentists who testified about bite marks. And the cases are mostly decades old, and experts, defense lawyers and prosecutors have moved on or died.........The Associated Press reported in 2013 that at least 24 people had been exonerated in cases in which bite-mark evidence played a central role in the conviction. And even the American Board of Forensic Odontologists, the body that certifies dentists who analyze bite marks, has decided the evidence can’t be used to draw strong conclusions, such as in Chaney’s trial. “People had made statements about the validity of bite marks that were greatly exaggerated,” said Dr. Adam Freeman, a forensic odontologist and the incoming American Board of Forensic Odontologists president.  Chris Fabricant, director of strategic litigation at the New York-based Innocence Project, pointed to a study the forensic odontologists board conducted last year that concluded many of the dentists in the group couldn’t even identify which injuries were bite marks. “There is no basic or applied research that supports any claims that bite-mark experts routinely make,” Fabricant said. “It has no business in criminal court, period.”
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional/convictions-based-on-bite-marks-scrutinized-in-tex/npCkY/

See list of known Texas bite-mark cases (Set out in Innocence Project letter)
https://csidds.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/innocence-project-retroactive-case-identification-letter-1.pdf