Dr. Waney Squier: U.K. (Aftermath 6): A wonderfully refreshing point of view (which I share) from Stephen Watkins, director of public health for Stockport, who defends Dr. Squier in the context of the "duty" of scientific dissent. (A point which sadly has been utterly lost on the British General Medical Council. HL); "Our society is ever more intolerant of dissent, diminishingly at ease with itself, and increasingly of the belief that professional practice is improved by rigorous, unvarying compliance with evidence based consensus guidelines, which recognise no duty to treat the exceptional exceptionally. When a system of quality control came to be applied to expert witnesses, the BMA warned that this might be difficult to apply in circumstances of scientific dissent. The warning was not heeded, and so the expert witness Waney Squier—the main dissenter on shaken baby syndrome—was convicted of professional misconduct. She was apparently less than objective in some of her evidence. But I would confirm that, when you believe that innocent, grieving parents are being imprisoned for their bereavement because of scientific error, it’s not always possible to summon up the dispassion to which you might professionally aspire. I don’t know whether Squier is correct; nor do I care. People have a right to be wrong, and without it no other human freedom is meaningful. The duty of dissent in the face of what you perceive as injustice cannot be qualified by a need to carry out a risk assessment as to whether you might lose the debate. The existence of dissent is something a jury is entitled to know."

COMMENTARY: "The Waney Squier case shows that we still need an independent inquiry," by Stephen J. Watkins,  Published by the BMJ on March 31, 2016.

GIST: "In the first BMJ of this century I wrote an editorial criticising the conviction of Sally Clark for murdering her children.1 That conviction was based on the proposition that highly unusual coincidences don’t occur by chance—a mathematical fallacy disproved by every announcement of a lottery winner. It took years to secure Clark’s release, and her health was so badly damaged in the meantime that she died soon afterwards. At that time, medical experts on both sides were united on one point—that the legal system couldn’t deal properly with scientific controversy. This and other miscarriages of justice stopped when the expert witness Roy Meadow refused to give further evidence unless allowed to do so in a proper scientific way, describing uncertainty and the existence of dissent. Science doesn’t advance because scientists are right: it advances because every true scientist has at the core of her soul a passionate belief that she might be wrong. But the law deals in certainties. Faced with scientific dissent, it considers the dissenters to be misguided at best. Why else would people deny what everybody in their discipline knows to be true? After the miscarriages of justice surrounding cot death, the BMA called for a public inquiry headed by a doctor or scientist into the judicial system’s failure to cope with scientific controversy. That didn’t take place. No lessons were learnt. Sooner or later, more miscarriages of justice will result. These cases may share a desire to root out the evil of child murder, as well as a powerful consensus on the interpretation of evidence that is less certain than is widely believed, a few dissenters the prosecutors feel obliged to discredit, and a critique based significantly on knowledge from another discipline. Rather than the epidemiologists of the miscarriages of justice regarding cot deaths, shaken baby syndrome has engineers in place who challenge whether the necessary forces can be generated in the way described. Our society is ever more intolerant of dissent, diminishingly at ease with itself, and increasingly of the belief that professional practice is improved by rigorous, unvarying compliance with evidence based consensus guidelines, which recognise no duty to treat the exceptional exceptionally. When a system of quality control came to be applied to expert witnesses, the BMA warned that this might be difficult to apply in circumstances of scientific dissent. The warning was not heeded, and so the expert witness Waney Squier—the main dissenter on shaken baby syndrome—was convicted of professional misconduct. She was apparently less than objective in some of her evidence. But I would confirm that, when you believe that innocent, grieving parents are being imprisoned for their bereavement because of scientific error, it’s not always possible to summon up the dispassion to which you might professionally aspire. I don’t know whether Squier is correct; nor do I care. People have a right to be wrong, and without it no other human freedom is meaningful. The duty of dissent in the face of what you perceive as injustice cannot be qualified by a need to carry out a risk assessment as to whether you might lose the debate. The existence of dissent is something a jury is entitled to know."

The entire abstract can be found at:

http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1768

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

Bulletin: Daniel Dougherty: Philadelphia: On-going arson/murder trial: His defence lawyer asks the jury why did police wait 14 years to charge Daniel Dougherty with setting the 1985 fire that killed his two young sons? His answer? "They waited," (David) Fryman said, because they had doubt."..."Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy, who earlier conducted a mocking and sometimes shouting cross-examination of an expert defense witness, opened his argument with an apology to the jury. "If there's anything I did during the course of my presentation that offended you, I apologize," he said. Conroy soon was shouting again, attacking the testimony, motivation and character of nationally known consultant John Lentini, head of Scientific Fire Analysis LLC in Florida. He testified that extensive damage made it impossible to know where or how the fire began. The cause should have been classified "undetermined," he said. Conroy noted that Lentini testified he brought no bias to investigations. But the fire expert blanched when confronted with his testimony from a different trial, where he said he always at first assumed the cause of a fire to be accidental. "This is disgraceful," Conroy thundered, "this is lying, this is perjurious!" He called Lentini a "modern-day charlatan," an "alchemist" who was "fumbling like Elmer Fudd" and who would "whore himself and say anything" in exchange for a consultant's fee."

"Why, defense lawyer David Fryman asked a jury on Thursday, did police wait 14 years to charge Daniel Dougherty with setting the 1985 fire that killed his two young sons? Only hours after the Oxford Circle blaze, investigators had interviewed the witnesses and determined that the cause was arson. The case, supposedly, Fryman said, was murder - the horrendous killing of two little boys, in their bed, by their own father. Then why did they wait? They waited, Fryman said, because they had doubt. The 14-year delay in lodging charges occurred because authorities had a reasonable doubt - the same doubt that jurors should have, and for which they should find Dougherty not guilty, Fryman said. On Thursday, the arc of a contentious and emotional Common Pleas Court retrial neared its conclusion, as defense and prosecution argued their interpretations of the evidence in the 3-decade-old fire. After hearing closing arguments, the jury deliberated for 1 hour and 45 minutes. It resumes discussion on Friday..........Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy, who earlier conducted a mocking and sometimes shouting cross-examination of an expert defense witness, opened his argument with an apology to the jury. "If there's anything I did during the course of my presentation that offended you, I apologize," he said. Conroy soon was shouting again, attacking the testimony, motivation and character of nationally known consultant John Lentini, head of Scientific Fire Analysis LLC in Florida. He testified that extensive damage made it impossible to know where or how the fire began. The cause should have been classified "undetermined," he said. Conroy noted that Lentini testified he brought no bias to investigations. But the fire expert blanched when confronted with his testimony from a different trial, where he said he always at first assumed the cause of a fire to be accidental. "This is disgraceful," Conroy thundered, "this is lying, this is perjurious!" He called Lentini a "modern-day charlatan," an "alchemist" who was "fumbling like Elmer Fudd" and who would "whore himself and say anything" in exchange for a consultant's fee. The prosecution relied on Quinn's 1985 findings, and on fresh support of those determinations by consultant and former fire marshal Thomas Schneiders."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160401_Lawyer__Doubt_led_cops_to_wait_14_years_to_charge_arson.html

Bulletin: Rigoberto Avila: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals gives Texas death row inmate another chance to prove to an El Paso court what he’s been saying since 2000: that he did not kill the 19-month-old son of his girlfriend and that the child’s death was a tragic accident. "In 2001, El Paso County prosecutors argued that Avila became jealous while babysitting Nicholas and his older brother, and stomped the baby to death. Avila, who was 28 and a Navy veteran with no criminal history, adamantly denied he hurt the child. He said he came into the room to find the child not breathing after the older brother — a 4-year-old obsessed with TV wrestling — informed Avila he had held his hand over the baby’s mouth. But at the trial, prosecutors presented a doctor who contended that the 4-year-old could not have exacted such a toll unless he fell on the baby from a great height. The jury sentenced Avila to death. In 2013, new lawyers for Avila asked scientists to review the evidence in his case. The scientists, using new developments in biomechanical science, concluded that a child falling from no more than the height of a bed onto an infant could have fatal consequences." Reporter Brandi Grissom; Dallas News.

"Texas death row inmate Rigoberto Avila will get another chance to prove to an El Paso court what he’s been saying since 2000: that he did not kill the 19-month-old son of his girlfriend and that the child’s death was a tragic accident. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed this week that scientific developments Avila presented would contradict evidence El Paso County prosecutors used to obtain his conviction. Nearly three years after Avila requested a ruling, the state’s top criminal court has ordered a lower court to review scientific evidence that the inmate says shows he is innocent in the death of baby Nicholas Macias. Avila’s lawyers said they were “tremendously pleased” with the decision. “We remain confident that a full examination of the case will ultimately spare an innocent man from execution,” lawyers Robert Owen and Cathryn Crawford said in an emailed statement. In 2001, El Paso County prosecutors argued that Avila became jealous while babysitting Nicholas and his older brother, and stomped the baby to death. Avila, who was 28 and a Navy veteran with no criminal history, adamantly denied he hurt the child. He said he came into the room to find the child not breathing after the older brother — a 4-year-old obsessed with TV wrestling — informed Avila he had held his hand over the baby’s mouth. But at the trial, prosecutors presented a doctor who contended that the 4-year-old could not have exacted such a toll unless he fell on the baby from a great height. The jury sentenced Avila to death. In 2013, new lawyers for Avila asked scientists to review the evidence in his case. The scientists, using new developments in biomechanical science, concluded that a child falling from no more than the height of a bed onto an infant could have fatal consequences."
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2016/03/court-gives-death-row-inmate-who-claims-innocence-chance-to-prove-it-with-new-science.html/

See related Grits for Breakfast post at the link below;  "The indefatigable Brandi Grissom reported in the Dallas News this week (March 10) that the CCA agreed to let a case go forward which challenges "shaken baby syndrome" type evidence and may be the one that gets the Court of Criminal Appeals to finally interpret CCP 11.073, Texas new "junk science writ," as amended by the 2015 Legislature. If so, the court has chosen a case of first impression which addresses only changes in overall scientific understanding, not recantations of bad science testimony proffered by individual scientists, which was the issue raised in the cowardly Ex Parte Robbins decision recently where the court punted instead of interpreting the new law......... See the CCA's opinion authorizing the trial court to investigate this alleged junk science, past coverage from the Austin Chronicle, and a 2014 article in The Atlantic about the Avila case."

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2016/03/confronting-junk-science-and-judicial.html

Jack McCullough: Illinois; The passage of time, evidence, and prosecutor Richard Schmack's "difficult and unpopular" decision: The Mimesis Law Blog - a brilliant criminal justice Blog with very fine posters - presents 'Richard Schmack and the Maria Ridulph Case: When A Prosecutor Gets It."..." "On a snowy night in 1957, Maria Ridulph disappeared from a street near her house in the small town of Sycamore, Illinois. Her body was found a few months later. Over the next half-century, the case would travel from unsolved mystery to the oldest cold case conviction in the country to the epitome of a wrongful conviction. Jack McCullough was ultimately convicted of Ridolph’s murder. In a hearing scheduled for today (March 31, 2016), a judge is expected to overturn that conviction. The journey from that snowy night to this hearing has involved about every issue in the criminal justice system, from “noble cause corruption” to suggestive identification. But the most important issue in the case has been the behavior of DeKalb County State’s Attorney Richard Schmack. The hysteria of a high-profile criminal case and public sentiment against the defendant is enough to make an elected prosecutor run for the hills. Had Schmack done that, McCullough would have likely served the rest of his life sentence and no one would have been the wiser. Instead, Schmack put the ethics of being a prosecutor ahead of the politics of prosecuting and scored a win for the criminal justice system." (Must, Must Read HL);

POST: "Richard Schmack the Maria Ridulph Case: When A Prosecutor Gets It," published by Mimesis Law on March 29, 2016;

GIST: "On a snowy night in 1957, Maria Ridulph disappeared from a street near her house in the small town of Sycamore, Illinois. Her body was found a few months later. Over the next half-century, the case would travel from unsolved mystery to the oldest cold case conviction in the country to the epitome of a wrongful conviction. Jack McCullough was ultimately convicted of Ridolph’s murder. In a hearing scheduled for today, a judge is expected to overturn that conviction. The journey from that snowy night to this hearing has involved about every issue in the criminal justice system, from “noble cause corruption” to suggestive identification. But the most important issue in the case has been the behavior of DeKalb County State’s Attorney Richard Schmack. The hysteria of a high-profile criminal case and public sentiment against the defendant is enough to make an elected prosecutor run for the hills. Had Schmack done that, McCullough would have likely served the rest of his life sentence and no one would have been the wiser. Instead, Schmack put the ethics of being a prosecutor ahead of the politics of prosecuting and scored a win for the criminal justice system..........The investigation that had initially cleared McCullough was not considered the second time around, because the records were too old. Old records are to be expected when a murder is prosecuted over fifty years later....   Schmack’s extensive review of the evidence revealed that, while there was no rush to prosecute McCullough, there was certainly a rush to convict him. In consenting to McCullough’s petition for relief, Schmack made a difficult and unpopular decision. Maria’s family was expectedly unhappy with the decision. “He’s thrown out all of the evidence that’s been presented in court,” Mr. Ridulph said of the prosecutor. “It’s been a very trying day, and we feel helpless because we have no one representing the victim or us as victims in these proceedings because Richard Schmack, as the state’s attorney, is acting as the defense counsel.” And that statement says everything you need to know about Schmack. He was not representing the victims. Of course, he wasn’t representing McCullough either. He was representing the system he was elected to represent. Schmack takes this seriously, despite the fact he is going to suffer some blowback for making this decision. This is the opposite of noble cause corruption. Wrongful convictions, along with many of the other perceived cracks in the justice system, occur when prosecutors and law enforcement blindly pursue a result at the expense of the process. Schmack did the opposite. Instead of allowing public pressure and bias to force a result, Schlack reviewed McCullough’s conviction for the truth. He made a very unpopular decision. In today’s world, he may very well have ended his career as the elected State’s Attorney. This is unfortunate. A prosecutor like Schmack sets the bar high, which is where it should be.

The entire post can be found at:

"http://mimesislaw.com/fault-lines/richard-schmack-the-maria-ridulph-case-when-a-prosecutor-gets-it/8180#comment-211

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

Bulletin: Tommy Zeigler; Florida; His attorneys are asking for DNA testing — again, at a hearing proceeding today, reports the Orlando Sentinel

"Attorneys for Tommy Zeigler will argue today that additional DNA testing of bloodstains on the convicted murderer's shirt will exonerate him in the 1975 Christmas Eve slaying of Zeigler's family inside his Winter Garden furniture store. It's the second time Zeigler, who's been on death row for nearly two decades, is asking for the analysis in recent years. The Florida Supreme Court denied his last request in 2013. Prosecutors oppose the request."
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-tommy-zeigler-dna-evidence-hearing-20160330-story.html


See recent post of this Blog at the link below: Bulletin: Tommy Zeigler; Florida; Zeigler, 70, has been on death row for 40 years for two death sentences and will try to convince a judge this month to order more DNA testing. (Professor Alec) Klein said the ongoing battle over DNA testing is intriguing, but there are questions over the accusation that Zeigler shot himself to appear as a victim. He would have had to of shot himself with his non-dominant hand, given the angle of the bullet wound, and would have possibly had to pull the trigger with his thumb. Zeigler’s previous attempts for further DNA testing failed because the courts ruled new tests would provide no new conclusive evidence."...WFTV;
 http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2016/03/bulletin-tommy-zeigler-florida-zeigler.html

68th annual meeting of the AAFS (American Academy of Forensic Science) in Las Vegas: : Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith spill the beans in 'Intercept' on what the assembled forensic scientists did not talk about in an article entitled "Embattled Forensic Experts Respond to Scandals and Flawed Convictions." (Clue: "Today, there is no way to ensure that every potential wrongful conviction tied to faulty forensics will be identified or remedied." (Must Read. HL);"

STORY: "In Las Vegas, embattled experts respond to scandals and flawed convictions," by Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith, published by 'The Intercept' on March 25, 2016.

GIST: "It had been a long day at the 68th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Science.........The AAFS is the largest professional forensic science organization in the world. Its 6,500 members include doctors, engineers, and scientists of all stripes — practitioners who lend expertise and testimony to lawyers and law enforcement. Founded in 1948, its mission is to “elevate the standards and advance the cause of the forensic sciences.” Membership is governed by a strict code of ethics “to promote the highest quality of professional and personal conduct,” according to the AAFS’s published guidelines, and available “only to those persons of professional competence, integrity, and good moral character.”.........The DOJ review is just the beginning of a process that until now, has been almost completely overlooked — and was barely mentioned in Vegas. For all the talk of moving forward and embracing change, the AAFS conference spent precious little time addressing a different imperative — the need to look backward. Or, as lawyers like Fabricant call it, the “duty to correct.” Indeed, as errors and deficiencies in forensics are acknowledged, so too should be the cases in which those deficiencies and errors were allowed into evidence. Until the FBI’s recent inquiry into hair microscopy cases, such work was done in a scattershot way, mostly at the state level. The Texas Forensic Science Commission, for example, has facilitated a review of dozens of old arson convictions — a process jointly handled by the Innocence Project of Texas in partnership with the state’s fire marshal — and is now embarking on the bite mark case review. But the review of potential wrongful convictions is largely left to a patchwork of modestly funded innocence projects, law school innocence clinics, and to a small number of conviction integrity units within prosecutors’ offices. (If there is any glaring blind spot in the NAS report, it is likely the failure to address the impact that faulty forensics may have had on a large number of criminal cases. The report acknowledges the troubling way forensics are vetted by judges and lawyers for admission into evidence, but notes only that this demonstrates a “tremendous need for the forensic science community to improve.”) Generally, the criminal justice system favors finality — a virtue that has been reinforced in recent decades through legislation and expansion of certain legal doctrine, including the concept of “harmless error” — where mistakes during a criminal trial are acknowledged upon review, but ultimately shrugged off as not having impacted the outcome of the case. In short, it is a standard of expediency — and an example of the difference between law and science. Although science is founded on the principle of perpetual inquiry, the legal system prefers the proposition of one-and-done. The system is simply not designed to facilitate any meaningful wide-ranging review — and more often than not, state actors fight tooth and nail against reopening old cases. Today, there is no way to ensure that every potential wrongful conviction tied to faulty forensics will be identified or remedied. Take, for example, the experience of the defense attorney from the Twin Cities. Even in the face of glaring failures by the state’s crime lab, she said, some prosecutors refused to cooperate with her to reassess the cases impacted by the lab’s incompetence. Yet, the sheer power of forensic evidence makes such reviews crucial. As the AAFS conference came to a close, Fabricant shared the story of George Perrot, a man released from prison in February. Perrot spent more than two decades incarcerated for the 1985 rape of a 78-year-old Massachusetts woman. Although the woman repeatedly insisted to police that Perrot was not her assailant — he didn’t look at all like her attacker — the then-17-year-old was nonetheless convicted based largely on the testimony of an FBI hair examiner who said a single hair found in the victim’s bed was a match to Perrot. Perrot was sentenced to life in prison. If it weren’t for the FBI’s comprehensive hair microscopy case review, he would still be in prison. The power of forensic evidence in this case was enough to supersede the victim’s insistence that they had the wrong man, Fabricant pointed out. “I find that truly horrifying.”"

The entire story can be found at:

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/25/in-las-vegas-embattled-forensics-experts-respond-to-scandals-and-flawed-convictions/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

Bulletin: Daniel Dougherty: Philadelphia; Development; Associated Press reports that he will not take the stand in his retrial on murder charges in a fire that killed his two young sons three decades ago..."The Philadelphia Inquirer (http://goo.gl/FaJ2Pa ) reports that defense attorneys rested their case a consultant testified that it was impossible to tell where or how the Oxford Circle fire started. Dougherty has said he awoke to see the house ablaze, ran outside and then tried desperately to save his sons. Philadelphia investigators said the blaze was set in three places — a sofa, a love seat and under a dining room table."

"A Philadelphia man will not take the stand in his retrial on murder charges in a fire that killed his two young sons three decades ago. Fifty-six-year-old Daniel Dougherty was sentenced to death in the 1985 deaths of 4-year-old Daniel and 3-year-old John. He was granted a new trial after an appeals court said his lawyer was ineffective. The Philadelphia Inquirer (http://goo.gl/FaJ2Pa ) reports that defense attorneys rested their case a consultant testified that it was impossible to tell where or how the Oxford Circle fire started."
http://www.theeagle.com/news/nation/man-won-t-testify-in-retrial-in-fire-deaths-of/article_0337c9e2-45bb-5c19-b26f-dd31c591ff87.html

Commentary: MSNBC National Reporter Irin Carmon reacts to Donald Trumps infamous suggestion earlier today that women should be punished for seeking abortions by noting on the network that as anti-abortion groups distance themselves from his comments to MSNBC, women are already being prosecuted for having abortions; Witness Purvi Patel, Anna Yocca, Rennie Gibbs Jennie Lynn McCormack, and Jennifer Whalen who wasn't jailed for having an abortion herself. "In 2014, she began serving a 9-18 month sentence for ordering pills online so her sixteen year old daughter could end her pregnancy. The New York Times reported that the closest clinic to the Whalen family was about 75 miles away, and that she and her daughter worried about the travel and affording an abortion. The hospital where they went after Whalen’s daughter took the pills reported her to child protective authorities, and she was charged with a felony and three misdemeanors for violating the state’s abortion and medical regulations. In theory, the regulations that require that abortion be performed only by licensed medical personnel are put in place to protect women. In practice, women get prosecuted under them." (Must Read. HL);

COMMENTARY: "Women are already being prosecuted for having abortions," by Irin Carmon, published by MSNBC on March 30, 2016. (Irin Carmon is an Israeli-American journalist and commentator. She is a national reporter at MSNBC, covering women, politics, and culture for the website and on air.) Wikipedia

GIST: "Minutes after Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews earlier today that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women seeking abortions, many anti-abortion rights advocates immediately distanced themselves.  A Cruz campaign staffer tweeted, “Trump doesn’t understand the pro-life position because he’s not pro-life.” In swiftly-issued statement, Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said: “No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion. This is against the very nature of what we are about. We invite a woman who has gone down this route to consider paths to healing, not punishment.”  The anti-abortion movement has spent decades working to counter the accusation that it is anti-woman. Witness anti-abortion laws, like the one currently being considered by the Supreme Court, that put new restrictions on abortion providers in the name of protecting women’s health, as opposed to protecting fetal life. Advocates for banning abortion entirely have argued, extensively, that in the world they hope for, only abortion providers will be subject to criminal penalties.  But even under the status quo, where Roe v. Wade technically hasn’t been overturned, women are already being prosecuted and even convicted on suspicion of having abortions. Just ask Purvi Patel, who is appealing a 30-year prison sentence for her conviction for feticide in Indiana. Prosecutors said she had ordered abortion pills online and charged her with feticide, which had been initially touted as a way to prosecute people who attack pregnant women. The prosecutor in South Bend, Indiana who brought the case told MSNBC of prosecuting Patel under the feticide charge, “A more accurate title would be ‘unlawful termination of pregnancy.’”  Or ask Tennessee’s Anna Yocca, who at 24 weeks pregnant used a coat hanger to try to induce an abortion and later gave birth to a living child. Earlier this month, she pled not guilty to aggravated assault after having been initially charged with attempted murder. Or Rennie Gibbs, a Mississippi teenager who after a stillbirth was indicted for “depraved heart” murder for allegedly smoking crack during her pregnancy. Or Jennie Lynn McCormack, the Idaho woman who was initially prosecuted for violating the state’s 20 week abortion ban, until a federal court said it was unconstitutional. Jennifer Whalen of Pennsylvania wasn’t jailed for having an abortion herself. In 2014, she began serving a 9-18 month sentence for ordering pills online so her sixteen year old daughter could end her pregnancy......... Under current abortion law, women cannot be prosecuted for going to a legal abortion provider and ending their pregnancies lawfully, which depending on the state can involve multiple visits to a clinic, a required ultrasound, a ban on using insurance coverage, and state-mandated information that many doctors consider medically inaccurate. But as the cases of these women across the country show, women have been prosecuted under current restrictions on abortion, at times with major felonies. The underlying logic of the laws is that the embryo or fetus is worthy of legal protection to the point of prosecuting the pregnant woman. A few hours after the town hall, Trump abruptly backed away from his own comments, saying that in the world anti-abortion advocates would prefer, in which abortion is illegal, the doctor who would perform an illegal abortion would be prosecuted, not the woman. “The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. But a world in which abortion is banned entirely and women are themselves prosecuted for breaking that law is not so hard to imagine, after all."

The entire commentary can be found at:

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/women-are-already-being-prosecuted-having-abortions

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

Bulletin: Daniel Dougherty; Philadelphia; Ongoing arson/murder retrial: Nationally known fire consultant testified for the defence "about the twin phenomena of flashover and full-room involvement, and how the latter can quickly cause so much destruction that it's impossible to determine where or how a fire began. That's what happened in this case, he said. The cause should have been listed as "undetermined." That Quinn thought he could identify not just one but three separate points of origin within the ruins, Lentini said, showed "a very poor understanding of what's possible in fire investigation."..."No one testified, in 2000 or at the current retrial, that they saw Dougherty strike a match or flick a lighter. No one said he disliked his children or talked about setting a fire. Dougherty's original trial attorney failed to challenge Quinn on the science, which ultimately led an appellate court to grant a retrial." Reporter Jeff Gammage. Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Philadelphia fire investigators had no scientific basis to conclude that a 1985 rowhouse fire in Oxford Circle was arson, a defense expert testified about the blaze that killed two boys and sent their father to death row for their murder. Nationally known fire consultant John Lentini said that when he heard that a city fire marshal, and then a second, had identified three separate points of origin for the fire, "I said, 'He must be magic, because it can't be done.' "The fire, he said Tuesday in Common Pleas Court, could have started from a smoldering cigarette. Lentini, head of Scientific Fire Analysis L.L.C. in Florida, testified on behalf of Daniel Dougherty, who has been imprisoned for 16 years after being convicted in 2000 of burning the home. Dougherty insists that he's innocent in the deaths of 3-year-old John and 4-year-old Daniel Jr., and that he's a victim of now-discredited ideas about how fires act, grow, and travel. The prosecution in Dougherty's court-ordered retrial has relied on the 1985 findings of Assistant Fire Marshal John Quinn, and on this week's support of those findings by consultant and former fire marshal Thomas Schneiders. Lentini, who has helped write national standards and texts for fire investigation, said they got it wrong. Since the 1990s, investigators have been lighting test fires -- such as could be started by a dropped cigarette -- that duplicate the type of damage and burn patterns found in the Carver Street home, he said. Quinn, who is too ill to testify, and Schneiders, who reviewed the case file, said the fire was set in three places -- a sofa, a love seat, and under a dining-room table. Lentini showed drawings and videos depicting a fire condition called full-room involvement -- in which a room becomes an inferno -- and said it could create the burn patterns that Quinn mistook for arson. The prosecution says Dougherty set the fire to get revenge on two women -- his girlfriend, Kathleen Schuler, who owned the home; and the mother of the boys, Kathleen Dippel, from whom he was separated. In anger over their rejections, he destroyed the house of one and the children of the other, prosecutors said. The defense contends that the cause of the fire could not be determined and that Quinn failed to recognize advancements in fire science and arson-detection in the 15 years between the blaze and Dougherty's first trial.........Lentini testified about the twin phenomena of flashover and full-room involvement, and how the latter can quickly cause so much destruction that it's impossible to determine where or how a fire began. That's what happened in this case, he said. The cause should have been listed as "undetermined." That Quinn thought he could identify not just one but three separate points of origin within the ruins, Lentini said, showed "a very poor understanding of what's possible in fire investigation." A Tucson test fire, set in a trailer home in 1992, showed that the lowest and deepest charring -- long considered the starting point of a fire -- actually occurred well away from the initial source. Additional tests showed the same. "This," Lentini said, "has shaken the fire-investigation community to its bones." Lentini said he has worked on or knows of 50 cases in which people have been wrongly accused or imprisoned based on flawed fire investigations. Around the country, inmates have challenged convictions they say are based on old, disproved science.........No one testified, in 2000 or at the current retrial, that they saw Dougherty strike a match or flick a lighter. No one said he disliked his children or talked about setting a fire. Dougherty's original trial attorney failed to challenge Quinn on the science, which ultimately led an appellate court to grant a retrial."

http://www.firehouse.com/news/12188495/expert-no-scientific-basis-for-arson-ruling-in-fatal-85-pa-blaze

Bulletin: Curtis Lovelace; Illinois; Prosecutors in Curtis Lovelace's first-degree murder case have filed paperwork opposing his request to receive free transcripts from his first trial held earlier this year..."The defense's motion for free transcripts as well as a motion to reduce bond will be heard at a May 6 hearing before Hardwick in Adams County Circuit Court."..... Herald-Whig.

"Prosecutors in Curtis Lovelace's first-degree murder case have filed paperwork opposing his request to receive free transcripts from his first trial held earlier this year. In a 13-page filing with the Adams County circuit clerk's office, Julia Wykoff, an assistant special prosecutor for the state, said there were several reasons why the state was opposed to Lovelace receiving the transcripts at no cost.

Wykoff said Lovelace has not been pronounced indigent by the court. In an affidavit of assets and liabilities filed March 8, Lovelace claimed to have assets of $179,000, including a home valued at $177,000 at 2025 Maine, and $188,200 in liabilities, most of which was a mortgage. Wykoff questioned how Lovelace could claim to be indigent but also tell the court that he would be able to post bond if it were lowered to $1 million from its current $5 million. "(The) defendant has, for all practical purposes, represented to the Court that he has assets in the amount of $100,000, which defies the sworn affidavit of assets and liabilities, attached to the defense's motion," Wykoff wrote. Wykoff also said that Lovelace has more than $10,000 available to him through an Internet fundraiser. Wykoff said the state would like Judge Bob Hardwick to rule on the issue of Lovelace's indigency before he determines if Lovelace should be able to get the state to pay for trial transcripts. Wykoff wrote that while the University of Chicago-based Exoneration Project is handling Lovelace's case for free, that didn't mean his new counsel "is without resources or funds to assist with the presentation of defenses in causes that the organizations (sic) opts to undertake." Jon Loevy, a lawyer with the Exoneration Project, wrote that Lovelace "has no more money to spend on any aspect of his defense.".........Loevy was unavailable for comment Tuesday. He entered his appearance on Lovelace's behalf along with his Exoneration Project co-worker, Tara Thompson, this month. Former Adams County Chief Public Defender Ed Downey also is helping defend Lovelace.  The defense's motion for free transcripts as well as a motion to reduce bond will be heard at a May 6 hearing before Hardwick in Adams County Circuit Court. Lovelace, 47, is accused of suffocating his first wife, Cory D. Lovelace, with a pillow on Feb. 14, 2006.

http://www.whig.com/article/20160330/ARTICLE/303309863

See previous post of this Blog at the link below: "Curtis Lovelace: Illinois: Second trial for former football star set to begin on July 25th hinges on a pivotal question: Is Curtis Lovelace responsible for his wife's untimely death - or, as the defence contends, did no crime occur because she died of natural causes from health problems caused by chronic alcoholism and bulimia. "Dr. Michael Baden, a pathologist with a national reputation, testified that it is his opinion Cory Lovelace died from suffocation with a pillow. But Dr. Shaku Teas, a forensic pathologist from the Chicago area who initially was contacted in March 2014 by police during the reinvestigation, said it's her opinion no crime occurred. "There is no (criminal) case here," Dr. Teas said, indicating that she would have found that Cory Lovelace died from chronic alcoholism."
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2016/03/curtis-lovelace-illinois-second-trial.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

Wrongful convictions of women in the U.S: A short, incisive Innocence Project video featuring Executive Director Maddie DeLone zeroes in on some of the distinct factors that contribute to the wrongful conviction of women in the U.S.

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- See more at: http://www.innocenceproject.org/news-events-exonerations/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-wrongful-conviction-of-women-in-the-u-s#sthash.EVcaRXGa.dpuf

VIDEO: Wrongful convictions of women in the U.S. produced by the Innocence Project on the occasion of Women's History Month.

GIST: Innocence Project Executive Director  Maddy DeLone discusses some of the distinct factors that contribute to the wrongful conviction of women in the U.S to the backdrop of some significant statistics: 63% of the  female exoneration cases involved a woman convicted of a crime that never occurred;  159 women in the U.S. were exonerated since 1989; 337 people were exonerated by DNA around the U.S. 50% of the female exonerees have  been convicted of physically harming, or killing a family member, loved one,  or child in their care;  37% of women exonerated because their convictions used false or misleading forensic evidence.

The video can be found at:

 http://www.innocenceproject.org/news-events-exonerations/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-wrongful-conviction-of-women-in-the-u-s

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

Bulletin: (CBS News): Daniel Dougherty; Philadelphia; Continuing arson/murder retrial: "A nationally recognized fire investigator, hired by defendant Daniel Dougherty’s defense team, has told jurors at Dougherty’s murder retrial that the deadly fire in his home decades ago was not arson. He also clashed with the prosecutor."

"A nationally recognized fire investigator, hired by defendant Daniel Dougherty’s defense team, has told jurors at Dougherty’s murder retrial that the deadly fire in his home decades ago was not arson. He also clashed with the prosecutor.........Assistant DA Jude Conroy accused forensic scientist John Lentini of expectation bias because of his investigative methods, including that a fire is presumed accidental until proven intentional. While Lentini says the lead investigator in the 1985 Oxford Circle rowhome fire, in which three and four-year-old sons of defendant Daniel Dougherty died, had expectation bias once he decided it was intentionally set in 3 places. Lentini look incredulously to the jury and said, “that must be magic, it can’t be done.”

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/03/29/fire-investigator-disputes-official-report-in-retrial-of-man-convicted-in-arson-deaths-of-his-two-children/

See Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jeff Gammage' story on today's proceedings: " Philadelphia fire investigators had no scientific basis to conclude that a 1985 rowhouse fire in Oxford Circle was arson, a defense expert testified about the blaze that killed two boys and sent their father to death row for their murder. Nationally known fire consultant John Lentini said that when he heard that a city fire marshal, and then a second, had identified three separate points of origin for the fire, "I said, 'He must be magic, because it can't be done.' " The fire, he said Tuesday in Common Pleas Court, could have started from a smoldering cigarette. Lentini, head of Scientific Fire Analysis LLC in Florida, testified on behalf of Daniel Dougherty, imprisoned the last 16 years after being convicted in 2000 of burning the home.] Dougherty insists he's innocent in the deaths of 3-year-old John and 4-year-old Daniel Jr., that he's a victim of now-discredited ideas about how fires act, grow and travel. The prosecution in Dougherty's court-ordered retrial has relied on the 1985 findings of Assistant Fire Marshal John Quinn, and on this week's support of those findings by consultant and former fire marshal Thomas Schneiders. Lentini, who has helped write national standards and texts for fire investigation, said they got it wrong. Since the 1990s, investigators have been lighting test fires - such as could be started by a dropped cigarette - that duplicate the type of damage and burn patterns found in the Carver Street home. Quinn, who is too ill to testify, and Schneiders, who reviewed the case file, said the fire was set in three places - a sofa, a love seat, and under a dining-room table. Lentini showed drawings and videos depicting a fire condition called full-room involvement - in which a room becomes an inferno - and said it could create the burn patterns that Quinn mistook for arson. The prosecution says Dougherty set the fire to get revenge on two women - his girlfriend, Kathleen Schuler, who owned the home, and the mother of the boys, Kathleen Dippel, from whom he was separated. In anger over their rejections, he destroyed the house of one and the children of the other, prosecutors said. The defense contends that no arson occurred. Quinn failed to recognize advancements in fire science and arson-detection in the 15 years between the blaze and Dougherty's first trial, the defense contends. ........The prosecution rested its case on Tuesday, its witnesses having included Schuler and Dippel, who described Dougherty as a mean drunk who hit them if they objected to his drinking. Jurors were shown photo after photo of the charred interior of the home. They were shown a single black-and-white photo of the boys, lying where they were found in the same second-floor bed. No one testified, in 2000 or at the current retrial, that they saw Dougherty strike a match or flick a lighter. No one said he disliked his children or talked about setting a fire. Dougherty's original trial attorney failed to challenge Quinn on the science, which ultimately led an appellate court to grant a retrial. For most of the trial, Dougherty has kept his head low, taking notes as witnesses spoke. On Tuesday, as he was led from the courtroom during a recess, he turned to his relatives among the spectators and gave a thumbs-up."

 http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160330_Expert__No_scientific_basis_for_arson_ruling_in_fatal_1985_blaze.html

Susan Neill-Fraser: Australia; Crime author Robin Bowles says the key weakness in the case was the way a hypothetical scenario was presented as fact - and that, given the absence of motive, weapon and cause of death "probably not have been convicted and jailed for the murder of her partner Bob Chappell if she’d exercised her right to silence when questioned by police."..." “I was very surprised that Susan was so open and so willing to download and tell me her story so quickly,” she said of their jailhouse chat. “That’s part of her personality. She has difficulty not sharing with people. “We were about an hour into the meeting and I thought ‘I don’t believe this’. “I said ‘you know why you’re sitting here Susan?’ And her eyes lit up like I’d solved the case. “And I said, ‘It’s because you didn’t shut up. The police had nothing, they had no motive, no weapon, no cause of death, nothing’. “The more she spoke the more I realised the police had no case unless she assisted them with their inquiries.”

STORY: "Crime author Robin Bowles says Susan Neill-Fraser talked her way into jail," by Crime Editor David Killick, published by the Herald Sun on March 25, 2016.

GIST: "Susan Neill-Fraser would probably not have been convicted and jailed for the murder of her partner Bob Chappell if she’d exercised her right to silence when questioned by police, a leading crime author says. Robin Bowles interviewed Neill-Fraser in prison for her new book Jail Birds, which focuses on infamous cases involving female offenders. Neill-Fraser is serving 23 years for Mr Chappell’s murder after he disappeared from the couple’s yacht moored near Sandy Bay on Australia Day, 2009. His body has never been found and a determined group of supporters is campaigning for Ms Neill-Fraser’s conviction to be overturned. A bid to have her freed on the basis of new evidence is before the Supreme Court. Ms Bowles said it quickly became evident to her that without the evidence Neill-Fraser herself provided, there never would have been a murder prosecution. Ms Bowles says the key weakness in the case was the way a hypothetical scenario was presented as fact."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/crime-author-robin-bowles-says-susan-neillfraser-talked-her-way-into-jail/news-story/bf98baacbd40c7543636907c5268e024

See  earlier News.com story: "No body murder convictions prompt calls for shake up of Australia's legal system: "In 2010, Susan Blyth Neill-Fraser was jailed for life in Hobart for the murder of her de facto partner of 18 years, Bob Chappell. Chappell, 65, was about to retire as the Royal Hobart Hospital’s chief radiation physicist when he went missing from the couple’s yacht Four Winds while sailing off Hobart on Australia Day 2009. The judge said Neill-Fraser killed him for money. She was jailed for 26 years with an 18-year non-parole period. Chappell’s body has never been found and Neill-Fraser maintains her innocence. Criminal lawyer Barbara Etter — who represents Neill-Fraser — told news.com.au Australia’s legal system was in need of a shake up. She said “right to appeal” provisions were inconsistent in Australia and that an independent Criminal Cases Review Commission, similar to one in the UK, needed to be introduced. “New Innocence Projects are emerging here in Australia, but appealing a murder conviction, particularly after normal appeal avenues have failed, continues to be a David v Goliath battle,” Ms Etter said. In circumstances where appeals have been exhausted and “fresh and compelling evidence emerges”, the only way to get the matter back in court, in most cases, is to appeal to the executive under a petition for mercy. “That can be problematic and not as transparent,” Ms Etter said. NSW, “unlike South Australia and Tasmania”, does not have legislation that allows for a second or subsequent appeal where there is fresh and compelling evidence, according to Ms Etter. “It would seem that there would be benefit in having some consistency in the current appeal provisions throughout Australia,” she said. Ms Etter said there was a growing concern about miscarriage of justice cases because of an increase of exonerations in the US and public debate surrounding the US case of Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey, who featured on the Netflix docu-series Making a Murderer. She said Australia needed “to look at other mechanisms to enable those who may have been wrongfully convicted to get their matters back before the court in a reasonable time frame”."

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/no-body-murder-convictions-prompt-calls-for-shake-up-of-australias-legal-system/news-story/d19968b5c570d5e01a412663cba82215

See Robin Bowles bio: "In 1996 Robin read a newspaper report about the alleged suicide of Victorian country housewife Jennifer Tanner. Guessing there might be a book in the ‘story behind the news’, she closed her PR business for a year and wrote a best seller, Blind Justice, now in its eighth reprint. She has written a bestseller almost every year since. During her career as an investigative writer she also obtained a private investigator’s licence. Some of the cases she was involved in inspired her novels, The Curse of the Golden Yo-Yo and Mystery of the Missing Masterpiece. Widely recognised as Australia’s foremost true crime writer, Robin is also a national convenor of Sisters in Crime Australia. ‘Robin Bowles relentless investigation, including over 50 hours spent interviewing Bradley Murdoch, reveals not only the complexities of a case investigated over thousands of kilometres, but realities of people and places which are almost alien to those of us who hug the green shores around the dead centre and populate that landscape with our deepest fears and worst imaginings,’ Katrina Beard presenting the Davitt Award for true crime to Dead Centre, 2006."

 https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/1robinbowlesbooks

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

Bulletin: Daniel Dougherty: Philadelphia: Inquirer; Murder/arson retrial continues; Former Philadelphia Fire Marshal Thomas Schneiders said, among factors that proved investigators got it right in 1985 when they said the blaze that killed brothers Daniel Dougherty Jr., 4, and John Dougherty, 3, was deliberately set......... "On cross-examination, defense counsel David Fryman asked Schneiders if fire science had improved between the time of the fire and the first trial. "In some areas," Schneiders replied. He agreed that although more than 100 photos were taken at the fire scene, none was shot of the ceiling; and that Quinn never tested a stereo as a potential source of the fire, having already determined that the points of origin lay elsewhere. Schneiders agreed that the first-floor living room and dining room reached what's called "full-room involvement" - an inferno in which a fire in a room changes to a room on fire. He read, or had read to him by Fryman, sections from the current National Fire Protection Association guide for scientific investigation and analysis. It warns that in cases of full-room involvement, damage at the floor level can be extensive; and that "an area of extensive damage may simply mean there was a significant fuel package" - such as a piece of furniture - "at that location." In this case, the cause of the fire is crucial."

"A photo of a singed-but-standing box of Frosted Flakes helped reveal the 3-decade-old circumstances of a fatal rowhouse fire in Oxford Circle, a prosecution expert testified Monday. The box's condition and its position in the kitchen helped determine the fire's path, consultant and former Philadelphia Fire Marshal Thomas Schneiders said, among factors that proved investigators got it right in 1985 when they said the blaze that killed brothers Daniel Dougherty Jr., 4, and John Dougherty, 3, was deliberately set. Their father, Daniel Dougherty, was convicted and sentenced to death for murder and arson in 2000. Dougherty, 56, insists he's innocent, and hopes advances in fire science will vindicate him. On the sixth day of Dougherty's retrial in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, Schneiders said he based his conclusion of arson on old case-file photos, interviews conducted at the time of the fire, and his own visit to the Carver Street home. He fully supported the 1985 findings of Assistant Fire Marshal John Quinn, who said the fire was set in three places - a sofa, a love seat, and under a dining-room table. "A fire that was intentionally started," Schneiders said. "There was no accidental cause." The defense contends that Quinn had failed to recognize improvements in fire science and arson detection in the 15 years between the blaze and Dougherty's trial. The failure of Dougherty's original trial attorney to challenge Quinn on that point led directly to an appellate court granting a retrial.........On cross-examination, defense counsel David Fryman asked Schneiders if fire science had improved between the time of the fire and the first trial. "In some areas," Schneiders replied. He agreed that although more than 100 photos were taken at the fire scene, none was shot of the ceiling; and that Quinn never tested a stereo as a potential source of the fire, having already determined that the points of origin lay elsewhere. Schneiders agreed that the first-floor living room and dining room reached what's called "full-room involvement" - an inferno in which a fire in a room changes to a room on fire. He read, or had read to him by Fryman, sections from the current National Fire Protection Association guide for scientific investigation and analysis. It warns that in cases of full-room involvement, damage at the floor level can be extensive; and that "an area of extensive damage may simply mean there was a significant fuel package" - such as a piece of furniture - "at that location." In this case, the cause of the fire is crucial.  The defense expects to call its own expert to say the cause of the fire should have been classified "undetermined" and may have been accidental. Dougherty, his live-in girlfriend, and other visitors to the home were smokers. Dougherty said from the start that he awoke to a house ablaze, ran outside, then tried desperately to rescue his sons. His death sentence was vacated in 2012, becoming a life sentence. The prosecution is expected to rest on Tuesday, the defense to begin presenting its case."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160329_Consultant__Cereal_box_shows_fatal_Oxford_Circle_fire_was_set.html

 

 

Dr. Waney Squier; U.K. (Aftermath 5): The Telegraph's physician/medical journalist/author James Le Fanu: 'Doctor's Diary: "She has paid the ultimate price of the loss of her professional reputation for articulating the uncomfortable truth that the validity of prevailing scientific theories might be in error."..." "The plight of parents wrongly accused of injuring their children has been a recurring theme in this paper over the past 15 years. During this time the seemingly impregnable case against them that their child’s injuries are ‘characteristic’ of abusive trauma has become increasingly uncertain. This is particularly the case with Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) – the contention that the combination of bleeding under the skull, swelling of the brain and retinal haemorrhages can only be due to violent shaking. On the contrary it is now well documented that the same triad of injuries can follow (as the accused parents protesting their innocence have maintained) a low level fall from a bed or sofa or an episode of choking." (Must Read. HL;

COMMENTARY: 'Shaken baby expert paid price for voicing an uncomfortable truth.' by James  Le  Fanu, published by 'The Times' on March 28, 2106. (James Le Fanu (born 1950) is a British physician, medical journalist and author of several books.^[1] He is best known for his weekly columns in the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph. Wikipedia);

GIST: "The plight of parents wrongly accused of injuring their children has been a recurring theme in this paper over the past 15 years. During this time the seemingly impregnable case against them that their child’s injuries are ‘characteristic’ of abusive trauma has become increasingly uncertain. This is particularly the case with Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) – the contention that the combination of bleeding under the skull, swelling of the brain and retinal haemorrhages can only be due to violent shaking. On the contrary it is now well documented that the same triad  of injuries can follow (as the accused parents protesting their innocence have maintained) a low level fall from a bed or sofa or an episode of choking. ........She has paid the ultimate price of the loss of her professional reputation for articulating the uncomfortable truth that the validity of prevailing scientific theories might be in error.".........Many might thus be understandably perplexed that last Monday the General Medical Council (GMC) invoked its severest penalty of erasure from the medical register against Britain’s leading Paediatric Neuropathologist Dr Waney Squier, whose testimony in the courts has helped secure the exoneration of dozens of parents. The GMC’s decision is based on the findings of a medical tribunal that her testimony to the courts in six cases was “dogmatic and inflexible”, that she had selectively cited the findings of  studies to support her argument that injuries were not deliberately inflicted and that, the Tribunal said, "in your evidence to the courts and before this tribunal you demonstrated time and again that you would lie to support your own propositions, or to avoid conceding a point, showing little respect for your colleagues.".........it is now well documented that the same triad  of injuries can follow (as the accused parents protesting their innocence have maintained) a low level fall from a bed or sofa or an episode of choking.........Subsequently a group of 25 prominent lawyers, pathologists, paediatricians and neurologists rallied to her defence, asserting, in essence, that she is a victim of a campaign to discredit her. “The case of Dr Squier is indicative of a troubling pattern”, they argued in a letter to a national newspaper, “where the authorities inflict harsh penalties on those who fail to toe the establishment line.”

The entire commentary can be found at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wellbeing/health-advice/doctors-diary--shaken-baby-expert-paid-price-for-voicing-an-unco/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

The Reid technique of interrogation: From our 'believe it or not' department. The New Yorker has run an article asking " "Why Are Educators Learning How to Interrogate Their Students?" - in which it reports that " "A company that provides training to police officers and private-security personnel is now offering its services to schools."..."The training was led by Joseph Buckley, the president of John E. Reid and Associates, which is based in Chicago. Like the adult version of the Reid Technique, the school version involves three basic parts: an investigative component, in which you gather evidence; a behavioral analysis, in which you interview a suspect to determine whether he or she is lying; and a nine-step interrogation, a nonviolent but psychologically rigorous process that is designed, according to Reid’s workbook, “to obtain an admission of guilt.”.........Several times during the session, Buckley showed videos of interrogations involving serious crimes, such as murder, theft, and rape. None of the videos portrayed young people being questioned for typical school misbehavior, nor did any of the Reid teaching materials refer to “students” or “kids.” They were always “suspects” or “subjects.” Laura Nirider, a professor of law at Northwestern University and the project director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth, attended the same session as Schneider. She told me that about sixty people were there. “Everybody was on the edge of their seat: ‘So this is how we can learn to get the drop on little Billy for writing graffiti on the underside of the lunchroom table,’” she said." (Must, Must Read. HL);

STORY: "Why Are Educators Learning How to Interrogate Their Students?" by reporter Douglas Starr, published by the New Yorker on March 25, 2016;

SUB-HEADING: "A company that provides training to police officers and private-security personnel is now offering its services to schools."

 

GIST: "About a year and a half ago, Jessica Schneider was handed a flyer by one of her colleagues in the child-advocacy community. It advertised a training session, offered under the auspices of the Illinois Principals Association (I.P.A.), in how to interrogate students. Specifically, teachers and school administrators would be taught an abbreviated version of the Reid Technique, which is used across the country by police officers, private-security personnel, insurance-fraud investigators, and other people for whom getting at the truth is part of the job. .........The training was led by Joseph Buckley, the president of John E. Reid and Associates, which is based in Chicago. Like the adult version of the Reid Technique, the school version involves three basic parts: an investigative component, in which you gather evidence; a behavioral analysis, in which you interview a suspect to determine whether he or she is lying; and a nine-step interrogation, a nonviolent but psychologically rigorous process that is designed, according to Reid’s workbook, “to obtain an admission of guilt.”.........Several times during the session, Buckley showed videos of interrogations involving serious crimes, such as murder, theft, and rape. None of the videos portrayed young people being questioned for typical school misbehavior, nor did any of the Reid teaching materials refer to “students” or “kids.” They were always “suspects” or “subjects.” Laura Nirider, a professor of law at Northwestern University and the project director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth, attended the same session as Schneider. She told me that about sixty people were there. “Everybody was on the edge of their seat: ‘So this is how we can learn to get the drop on little Billy for writing graffiti on the underside of the lunchroom table,’” she said. One vice-principal told Nirider that the first thing he does when he interrogates students is take away their cell phones, “so they can’t call their mothers.” The training included tricks to provoke a response that might indicate guilt. One was the punishment question: “What do you think should happen to the person who did this?” Schneider recorded in her notes that an innocent person will give a draconian answer, such as, “They should be suspended/expelled/fired.” A deceptive person will equivocate: “That depends on why they did it.” Another question involves baiting the subject with supposedly incriminating evidence. For example, you might falsely suggest that the school had surveillance cameras at the scene of the infraction and see how the student reacts. At one point in the workbook, the phrase “Handling tears” appears, with a blank space underneath for trainees to take down Buckley’s dictation. “Don’t stop,” Schneider wrote in her notes. “Tears are the beginning of a confession. Use congratulatory statement—‘Glad to see those tears, because it tells me that you’re sorry, aren’t you?’ ” Buckley’s only caveat during the session, according to Nirider and Schneider, was that children under the age of ten should not be interrogated. “It was pretty horrifying,” Schneider told me. "........“There’s been a real pendulum swing,” Naomi Goldstein, a professor of psychology at Drexel University and the director of the Juvenile Justice Research and Reform Lab, told me. Neither Buckley nor Schwartz agreed to be interviewed for this article. In an e-mail, Schwartz said that the I.P.A. has modified its workshop to take better account of the rights and vulnerabilities of young people, expanding the portion of the training that deals with what he called “non-interrogative interview techniques.” Buckley referred me to a ten-page letter that he wrote to Schneider in February. He emphasized that the technique is not coercive when used correctly, and that practitioners take “extreme caution” when questioning juveniles. Schneider said that this runs counter to what she observed and does nothing to alleviate her organization’s concerns. “What a lot of students need is a sense that there are adults in authority they can trust,” she said. Reid-style techniques, she added, can undermine that trust. “We don’t think this kind of training should be offered at all.”"

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-are-educators-learning-how-to-interrogate-their-students

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

Bulletin: Anna Yocca: Tennessee; Originally charged with attempted murder after allegedly trying to kill her 24-week-old fetus with a coat hanger, she has been indicted on a lesser charge of aggravated assault. Reuters.

"A Tennessee woman originally charged with attempted murder after trying to kill her 24-week-old fetus with a coat hanger has been indicted on a lesser charge of aggravated assault, officials said on Wednesday.........Yocca, who in December pleaded not guilty to the murder charge, did not enter a plea on the assault charge on Tuesday. The original indictment, handed down Dec. 1 by a Rutherford County grand jury, said Yocca "did unlawfully and intentionally with premeditation attempt to kill" the fetus. Yocca was charged with attempting in September to abort the fetus in a bathtub filled with water, Murfreesboro Police said. She began bleeding heavily, and her boyfriend took her to a hospital. The next hearing in the case was scheduled for March 29. Under Tennessee law, an abortion must be performed by a licensed physician and is restricted by viability, according to the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health policies. Tennessee has 14 abortion providers, none of which provides abortions after 16 weeks, according to the Tennesseean newspaper.

http://news.trust.org/item/20160316184042-8ofnh

See earlier post: "The coat hanger abortion is back, and that’s scary for all women. If a woman can be charged with attempted murder for trying to give herself an abortion, what stops police from investigating miscarriages? "The coat hanger is just the beginning; To be sure, it's shocking to see a new case of a "coat hanger abortion" — the symbol of pre–Roe v. Wade America, when women died or were maimed by the thousands every year because they were that desperate to end their unwanted pregnancies. "I never thought I would hear of a coat hanger abortion in my medical life,"" writes OB-GYN Jen Gunter. "But here's the most alarming part of Yocca's case: Abortion is still legal in America. Yocca is being prosecuted as if it weren't. She is being charged with attempted first-degree murder. That's a dangerous legal precedent for all pregnant women."

 http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2015/12/anna-yocca-tennessee-coat-hanger.html

Nausheen Rahman: New York; Purvi Patel: Indiana; Bei Bei Shuai: Indiana; Eesha Pandit (Salon) discusses the case of a Staten Island woman charged with the murder of her newborn in which "nobody is asking the right questions about it."..." This phenomenon occurs across the spectrum — so many of us face the shame, silence and isolation trifecta. Those who become pregnant out of wedlock, those who want an abortion but are told it is a sin, those who become pregnant and are drug-dependent, those who are LGBTQ, those who want an abortion and can’t get one because they are too poor, too far away from a clinic, or too ashamed. Those who need mental health support. Those who feel backed into a corner with no way out. This is a conversation to be had in our diverse communities, hardly any of which are immune to perpetuating shame and silence. This is a conversation that should certainly include reproductive rights, since we know that the legalization of abortion in 1973 precipitated a significant drop in the numbers of infanticide in the U.S."

 
STORY: "The conversation we need to have about infanticide," by reporter Eesha Pandit, published by 'Salon' on March 26, 2016.

SUB-HEADING: "A Staten Island woman is charged with the murder of her newborn, but nobody is asking the right questions about it."

GIST: "The chronology of events reeks of desperation and disconnection. Twenty-eight-year-old Nausheen Rahman gave birth to a baby girl, alone, in her family’s Staten Island condo. The accounts of what happened next are contested. She’s been charged with the murder of her newborn, a baby girl, and then disposing of the body in a trash can outside the home where she lives with her parents and two younger brothers. Her family claim that they didn’t know Ms. Rahman was pregnant. The Staten Island assistant district attorney, Jane Grinberg, made the case that this was a violent, horrific act for which Ms. Rahman should be punished. Because she has relatives outside the United States, Judge Raja Rajeswari ordered that Ms. Rahman be held at Rikers Island Jail without bail. She will remain there while she awaits trial. If the prosecution’s case is true, what would cause a woman like Nausheen Rahman to do what she did? If the events are not what they say, and Ms. Rahman didn’t kill her baby, then what happened, and why? The facts as presented by the prosecution thus far bear striking similarity to the case of Purvi Patel in Indiana. Patel, a 33-year-old Indian American woman, lived with her parents and grandparents, took care of them and worked at the family store. Last year, she became the first woman in the United States to be convicted and sent to prison for feticide. She asserts that she had a miscarriage. Asian American women are certainly targets for bias, and, consequently, prosecution. In 2011, Indiana prosecutors charged Bei Bei Shuai with attempted feticide and murder. Ms. Shuai, a Chinese immigrant, attempted suicide unsuccessfully, and then delivered a baby that died soon after birth. She wasn’t offered mental health care, or community support. Instead, she was held without bail for over a year. In the face of more prison time, Ms. Shuai accepted a plea deal to a lesser charge.......... This phenomenon occurs across the spectrum — so many of us face the shame, silence and isolation trifecta. Those who become pregnant out of wedlock, those who want an abortion but are told it is a sin, those who become pregnant and are drug-dependent, those who are LGBTQ, those who want an abortion and can’t get one because they are too poor, too far away from a clinic, or too ashamed. Those who need mental health support. Those who feel backed into a corner with no way out. This is a conversation to be had in our diverse communities, hardly any of which are immune to perpetuating shame and silence. This is a conversation that should certainly include reproductive rights, since we know that the legalization of abortion in 1973 precipitated a significant drop in the numbers of infanticide in the U.S."

The entire story can be  found at:

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/23/the_conversation_we_need_to_have_about_infanticide/

See India West report on her indictment: "New York woman who dumped newborn in trash indicted."..."The actions of this defendant are so horrendous and so reprehensible that it shocks one’s conscience,” Jane Grinberg, an assistant district attorney, said at the March 14 court hearing, according to the Times report. Grinberg said that Rahman had seen a doctor about her pregnancy, but that she kept it a secret from her parents. (Defence lawyer) Rosas said he doubted the prosecution’s version of events. Neighbors around the Honey Bee Condominiums on Staten Island, where Rahman lived with her parents and two younger brothers, said they had no idea she was pregnant. She often wore traditional clothes from India, they said, and the fabrics hung loose around her frame, reported the Times, adding that Judge Raja Rajeswari ordered her to held without bail. Rahman’s arraignment is scheduled for March 30."

http://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/new-york-woman-who-dumped-newborn-in-trash-indicted/article_6a3957c4-f2c0-11e5-9ba7-5fee22b11eb8.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

Bulletin: Dr. Waney Squier: U.K. (Aftermath 4); Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith responds in 'The Guardian' to the head of the British General Medical Council's defence of its actions that "the decision had nothing to do with the legitimacy of shaken baby syndrome (SBS), but rather “her competence and conduct in presenting her evidence to the courts”....The response: "With respect, he is just wrong. At the hearing, Dr Squier was specifically forbidden from contesting the central issue at stake – whether SBS is a legitimate diagnosis. Along with an increasing number of others close to the subject, I believe it to be an unproven hypothesis, not science. So does one of the people who came up with the theory 50 years ago, a doctor now horrified at how it is being abused. If we are right, then the people who mislead the court (albeit perhaps unintentionally) are those who purvey an unproven theory as fact. And what is the greater ill – that Dr Squier should prevent people from losing their children or being sent to prison based on a hypothesis, or that other doctors should condemn a slew of innocent people (often, in the US where I practice, sending them to death row)?" (Must Read. HL);

"Niall Dickson, chief executive of the General Medical Council, disputes our conclusion that, in striking off Dr Waney Squier, the GMC acted as a latter-day inquisition (Letters, 22 March). He begins by saying that the decision had nothing to do with the legitimacy of shaken baby syndrome (SBS), but rather “her competence and conduct in presenting her evidence to the courts”. With respect, he is just wrong. At the hearing, Dr Squier was specifically forbidden from contesting the central issue at stake – whether SBS is a legitimate diagnosis. Along with an increasing number of others close to the subject, I believe it to be an unproven hypothesis, not science. So does one of the people who came up with the theory 50 years ago, a doctor now horrified at how it is being abused. If we are right, then the people who mislead the court (albeit perhaps unintentionally) are those who purvey an unproven theory as fact. And what is the greater ill – that Dr Squier should prevent people from losing their children or being sent to prison based on a hypothesis, or that other doctors should condemn a slew of innocent people (often, in the US where I practice, sending them to death row)? It is illogical to condemn Dr Squier for “cherrypicking” facts that are inconsistent with an unproven theory: if there are findings that call SBS into question, then that obviously casts doubt on the theory. And it is equally unrealistic to accuse her of lacking sufficient expertise in SBS: the very nature of forensic science (if it is science at all) is that experts do not spend their time training in anti-science. The charity where I work (Reprieve) has recently identified more than 100 people had been executed in the US based, in part, upon the application of a forensic pseudo-science that has belatedly been renounced by its main proponent, the FBI. Over Easter, it is worth pausing to question whether any of the dead prisoners will be resurrected. One day, I suspect we will accept that SBS is also pseudo-science. With Dr Squier now struck off, and all other experts afraid of entering a British courtroom, Mr Dickson must ponder how many parents and carers will be unjustly condemned in the meantime."
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/25/science-shaken-baby-syndrome

Kenlissa Jones. (Georgia): Purvi Patel. (Indiana): The Nation article reports that as abortion restrictions in the U.S. ramp up, more women are weighing taking matters into their own hands; "Last week, a group of legal experts who have spent the last year reviewing the legal landscape of self-induced abortion in the United States hosted a webinar to share what they’ve learned about the risks and opportunities associated with abortions that happen outside the healthcare system. It’s a topic that has been in the news a lot in recent years, including the case of Purvi Patel, the Indiana woman who was convicted of feticide in connection with an alleged self-induced abortion and is now serving 20 years in prison. Last year, Kenlissia Jones in Georgia was arrested and charged with murder for her use of the drug misoprostol to terminate her pregnancy. The charge was eventually dropped, but a misdemeanor charge of possession of a dangerous drug was not. There have been 17 known arrests or convictions connected to at-home abortions, according to the newly launched Self-Induced Abortion (SIA) Legal Team. The team has identified 40 laws nationwide—including fetal homicide, chemical endangerment, accomplice liability—that are potentially broken when someone terminates a pregnancy with help from a doula, babysitter, or someone else in a support role. The newly formed team is made up of self-described movement lawyers from Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at Berkeley Law, Reproductive Health Technologies Project, Law Students for Reproductive Rights, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, and other organizations. The group sees stopping the criminalization of self-induced abortion as one of its goals and said this week that it will represent those in legal trouble or connect those in need with a trusted attorney."

STORY: "As Abortion Restrictions Ramp Up, More Women Weigh Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands," by reporter Dani McClain Twitter, published by The Nation on March 21, 2016.

SUB-HEADING:  "Finding ways to support those who choose to self-induce abortion does not mean abandoning the fight to preserve access in clinics and hospitals."

GIST: "A recent New York Times op-ed reported that last year there were 700,000 Google searches for how to self-induce abortion. Compare this number to the 1 million legal abortions estimated to take place each year. The connection between the attack on abortion rights and a spike in the number of people turning to the Internet for answers is clear: The state with the highest rate of searches was Mississippi, which has one remaining clinic as the result of laws passed in the state to limit access to abortion. In 2011, online searches for how to accomplish a do-it-yourself abortion jumped 40 percent, according to the Times. That same year, 92 provisions restricting access were enacted nationwide. Last week, a group of legal experts who have spent the last year reviewing the legal landscape of self-induced abortion in the United States hosted a webinar to share what they’ve learned about the risks and opportunities associated with abortions that happen outside the healthcare system. It’s a topic that has been in the news a lot in recent years, including the case of Purvi Patel, the Indiana woman who was convicted of feticide in connection with an alleged self-induced abortion and is now serving 20 years in prison. Last year, Kenlissia Jones in Georgia was arrested and charged with murder for her use of the drug misoprostol to terminate her pregnancy. The charge was eventually dropped, but a misdemeanor charge of possession of a dangerous drug was not. There have been 17 known arrests or convictions connected to at-home abortions, according to the newly launched Self-Induced Abortion (SIA) Legal Team. The team has identified 40 laws nationwide—including fetal homicide, chemical endangerment, accomplice liability—that are potentially broken when someone terminates a pregnancy with help from a doula, babysitter, or someone else in a support role.

The newly formed team is made up of self-described movement lawyers from Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at Berkeley Law, Reproductive Health Technologies Project, Law Students for Reproductive Rights, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, and other organizations. The group sees stopping the criminalization of self-induced abortion as one of its goals and said this week that it will represent those in legal trouble or connect those in need with a trusted attorney."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.thenation.com/article/as-abortion-restrictions-ramp-up-more-women-weigh-taking-matters-into-their-own-hands/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.