PHOTO CAPTION: "Chris Fabricant of the Innocence Project, right, with Steven Mark Chaney during a hearing on the reliability of forensic bite analysis last month in Fort Worth, Tex. Mr. Chaney was freed from prison when such evidence in his case was repudiated."
GIST: Steven Mark Chaney, who was freed from prison in October
after 28 years, had to fight back tears as he watched forensic dentists
argue here, before the Texas Forensic Science Commission, whether bite patterns on the skin of murder, rape and child abuse victims can offer valid clues to the perpetrator’s identity. In
1987, he was sentenced to life on murder charges after a dental expert
testified that it was virtually certain that his teeth had caused marks
on an arm of the victim, a drug dealer who was stabbed to death. This
same expert has now repudiated his testimony as unfounded. Mr. Chaney is
one of more than a dozen people around the country who have been
released or exonerated in cases involving bite-mark testimony that was
later debunked. Now,
the Texas commission is seeking to develop guidelines on whether
bite-mark comparisons should have any role in the courtroom. Forensic
science more broadly is in turmoil as prosecutors, defense lawyers and
judges confront evidence that many long-used methods, like handwriting
analysis and microscopic hair comparisons, were based more on tradition
than science and do not hold up under scrutiny. Even fingerprint and
certain kinds of DNA matches are not quite as certain as many once
believed, scientists say. But no lingering technique is under stronger attack than the analysis of purported bite marks, a method first thrust into fame in the televised trial of Ted Bundy in 1979. The
Texas agency has won national praise for its examinations of the
reliability of all sorts of forensic methods and testimony. Initially it
responded to complaints about evidence in individual criminal cases. It
has moved on to also evaluate whole fields, like bite-mark matching. The commission’ recommendations, expected in February, will be the
first formal finding by any state or federal agency on the validity of
bite-mark evidence, said Chris Fabricant, the director of strategic
litigation at the Innocence Project.
He added that they might help speed up inquiries into hundreds more
convictions around the country as well as discourage dubious testimony
in the future.........Since
Mr. Chaney’s trial in 1987, studies have shown that dental experts
cannot reliably claim that a bite wound was caused by a particular
individual. They cannot even consistently agree on whether wounds were
caused by bites at all.
Put
under rigorous scrutiny, some forensic tools, including comparisons of
lead chemistry in bullets and the matching of aural voice prints, have
already been largely discarded. The accuracy of many supposed signs of arson, like burn patterns that seemed to be caused by a liquid, has also been disproved. This year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation admitted that examiners at its vaunted crime lab had for decades overstated the reliability of microscopic hair matches. As
the ability grows to collect ever more microscopic amounts of DNA, even
from door knobs, more of the specimens contain genetic material from
several people. Separating such mixtures is difficult, and in some
cases, experts now acknowledge, the sample can be matched to a suspect
with far less certainty than had been assumed. A report issued in 2009
by the National Academy of Sciences, “Strengthening Forensic Science in
the United States,” was a turning point. An expert panel warned of
enormous disparities around the country in the quality of crime
laboratories and said many methods had not been scientifically
validated. While
some technologies like DNA analysis and toxicology were rooted in sound
laboratory science, the report said, others involving interpretation of
“observed patterns” like fingerprints, writing samples, tool marks,
tire tracks, footprints, bite marks and hair specimens had never been
properly studied.........The commission had a rocky start after it was formed in 2005, in reaction to a scandal in the police crime laboratory
in Houston involving shoddy DNA testing and false forensic testimony
that forced the reappraisal of hundreds of convictions. Painful
questions were also being raised about the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004 for a murder conviction based on arson evidence that had been widely discredited well before he was put to death. The
commission started an investigation of the Willingham case, but its
work met resistance from state officials in 2009. The governor at that
time, Rick Perry, a Republican, replaced three commissioners,
interrupting the inquiries. Although the commission issued a report in 2011 calling
for more up-to-date training of fire investigators, the state’s
attorney general ruled that the commission did not have legal authority
to rule on evidence offered in cases before 2005. Since then, however, the commission, composed of seven scientists, a prosecutor and a defense lawyer, has won bipartisan praise......... “We’re
a hard-core law-and-order state, but we think you should convict people
who are guilty and not innocent,” Dr. Di Maio said. He added that he
had seen no evidence of political pressure in his years as commission
chairman. Within
Texas, the commission has so far identified about three dozen cases
that used bite-mark evidence, said Lynn R. Garcia, the body’s general
counsel. Once the commission recommends guidelines, any cases that
relied heavily on testimony considered invalid under the forthcoming
report may be reopened. Even
without official guidelines, a number of prisoners who were convicted
of murder and rape based on bite-mark testimony have been exonerated by
DNA tests or, like Mr. Chaney, were able to convince a court that the
evidence was bogus. In January, the Mississippi Supreme Court is to decide whether to reverse the conviction of Eddie Lee Howard Jr.,
who has been on death row for more than two decades. He was convicted
in the murder and rape of an 84-year-old woman largely because of
testimony of a forensic dentist whose claims that he could detect and
identify the source of faint bite marks have been widely condemned by
his colleagues in the field. In
the Texas commission hearing last month, Dr. David R. Senn of the
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio argued that
bite-mark evidence could still play a valuable if limited role in some
cases by, for example, pointing toward which of a few obvious suspects
was likely to be the offender, or excluding other suspects. But commission members also heard from researchers who showed that because of the malleability of human skin, the same teeth leave different marking patters with each bite. Other researchers presented a study
in which leading forensic dentists viewed photographs of skin wounds
and in most cases could not agree on whether the marks were even caused
by a bite."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/us/lives-in-balance-texas-leads-scrutiny-of-bite-mark-forensics.html?_r=1
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;
