"The California Supreme Court Thursday threw out the conviction of a
man found guilty of killing his wife after jurors heard bite-mark
testimony that was later recanted. A unanimous high court cited a
new state law inspired by William Richards' murder case in its ruling.
The law says expert opinion that the same expert later repudiates is
false evidence. The dentist who provided the bite-mark testimony
in Richards' case later took it back, the Supreme Court said. Since the
testimony was instrumental in Richards' conviction, the conviction must
be thrown out. Richards was convicted in 1997 in the strangling of
his wife, Pamela, after the dentist testified that a mark on her hand
was consistent with the defendant's teeth. The dentist later said the injury might not even be a bite mark. A
San Bernardino County judge overturned Richards' conviction, but a
state appeals court reinstated it. In a 4-3 decision in 2012, the State
Supreme Court sided with the appeals court, saying a change in expert
testimony does not necessarily make it false and thus possible grounds
to vacate a conviction. The testimony must be shown to be "objectively
untrue," the majority said. The ruling prompted the new state law. "We're
thrilled that Bill's decades-long incarceration for a crime he did not
commit will soon come to an end," Richards' attorney, Jan Stiglitz, said
in an emailed statement. "We also hope that this decision will pave the
way for other victims of 'junk science' to find a path to freedom."... The California Supreme Court said in its ruling the case against Richards was based on contested circumstantial evidence. "Accordingly,
with the exception of the bite mark evidence, the defense had a
substantial response to much of the prosecution's evidence against
petitioner," Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said. "Under these unique
circumstances, it is reasonably probable that the false evidence ... at
petitioner's 1997 jury trial affected the outcome of that proceeding."
See Blogger Mike Bowers post on CSIDDS - Forensics in focus - with a link to the entire decision - at the link below; (California Supreme Court deterines advances of forensic science sufficient to vacate conviction: "Any new filing of murder charges by the DA against Richards will bring a litany of CSI high value evidence against Richard being guilty. In fact it forms a road to his actual innocence.A jury would have to consider some of the following; DNA from an unknown make have been recovered from the murder weapon; DNA from an unknown male was found under the victim’s fingernails. The Supreme Court court noted that the bite mark evidence had been “clearly repudiated” and that “new technological advances undermined” the bite mark evidence presented at trial; The crime scene evidence collection was either faulty or not complete which resulted in significant evidence being abandoned or lost at the outset of the San Bernardino Sheriff’s investigation. The Supreme Court also said that the defense had presented strong evidence opposing Richard’s guilt at his 4th trial where he was convicted except for the bitemark evidence.
https://csidds.com/2016/05/27/california-supreme-court-determines-advances-of-forensic-science-sufficient-to-vacate-conviction/
