Michael West; Steven Hayne; Eddie Lee Howard; Mississippi; Radley Balko charges that State Attorney General Jim Hood defends discredited forensic experts while harassing defense attorneys instead..."Hood is widely expected to run for governor next year. As one of the only Democrats holding statewide office in the deep south (and a fairly popular one at that), he’s expected to get a lot of support from the national party once he announces. So far in his political career, Hood has found success in the south by countering his close (and at time scandalous) relationship with the plaintiff’s bar and high-profile fights with prominent businesses with an unapologetic embrace of law-and-order policies, including a particular enthusiasm for the death penalty. It will be interesting to see if he continues to pull it off. The landscape on criminal justice is shifting. Hood’s efforts to undermine the rights of criminal defendants and his utter disinterest in the forensics crisis unfolding right under his nose may came back to haunt him." The Washington Post;

POST: 'Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood defends discredited forensic experts, harasses defense attorneys instead,' by Radley Balko, posted on his Blog 'The Watch' published by the Washington Post, on August 25, 2016. (Radley Balko blogs about criminal justice, the drug war and civil liberties for The Washington Post. He is the author of the book "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces.")

GIST;  "Yesterday (Wednesday August 24), I posted about a crazy deposition from last April in which longtime Mississippi forensic expert Michael West went wildly off the rails. West was profane, belligerent, and openly contemptuous of the fact that anyone would dare question his expertise. The remarkable thing is that this was a deposition for a post-conviction hearing in a death penalty case. And in that case, West is the star witness. His testimony was the only physical evidence putting defendant Eddie Lee Howard at the crime scene. Once in post-conviction, these cases are handled by the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office. You might think that the Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood would be embarrassed by West’s antics. The actions from his office after the deposition indicate that that you’d be wrong." The deposition occurred on April 16. On April 25th, in anticipation of the evidentiary hearing that followed in May (that hearing went down about the same way as the deposition — the judge has yet to rule on the matter), Tucker Carrington of the Mississippi Innocence Project sent a letter to assistant attorney general Jason Davis. In it, Carrington again pointed out that since Howard’s trials West has been widely discredited. He pointed out that in the deposition itself, West contradicted his testimony at trial. And he pointed out West’s wholesale failure to take any of this seriously — he failed to prepare for the deposition, his failed to produce the appropriate documents and records, and he of course showed an appalling lack of professionalism and reverence, particularly given that a man’s life is at stake. Carrington again requested that the AG’s office drop the charges. The next day, Davis and Hood filed a motion requesting a hearing to assess the competency of Howard’s legal team. It’s an astonishingly brazen reaction. Faced with an embarrassing performance in which the state’s already-discredited primary witness in a death penalty case came completely unhinged, Hood chose instead to attack the credibility of Eddie Lee Howard’s lawyers.........The irony here is that while Hood claims to be so concerned about the qualifications of capital defense attorneys, he has shown zero interest in ensuring that expert witness who testify for the state in Mississippi’s courts are credible and qualified. That’s what that deposition last April was all about.

For his entire tenure as attorney general, Hood has steadfastly defended Steven Hayne, the controversial medical examiner who did 80-90 percent of the state’s autopsies for nearly 20 years. (Hayne and West were collaborators. Hayne often referred cases to West, while West often assisted Hayne with his autopsies.) That’s probably at least in part because Hood frequently used Hayne back when he worked in a DA’s office. When Mississippi’s public safety commissioner effectively fired Hayne several years ago, Hood led an effort to resurrect an antiquated law to bring Hayne back.  As for Michael West, Hood did finally admit in 2011 that West had credibility problems. He even told a local TV station that he was conducting an investigation. A few months later, the assistant attorney general Hood allegedly assigned to head up that investigation was asked what he had found. He replied that to that point, he had done a Westlaw search on West’s name — the legal equivalent of typing West’s name into Google. Five years later, we’ve heard nothing from Hood or his office about what that investigation has turned up. And this is an attorney general who is anything but publicity-shy. Instead, Hood’s office is still aggressively fighting to preserve convictions won with West’s testimony. In most cases, Hood’s office now argues that defendants are procedurally barred from raising questions about West’s expertise. In these cases, Hood and his subordinates don’t even try to argue that West is credible. They don’t dispute that West’s testimony was fraudulent. Instead, they that the defendant has already attempted to challenge West’s credibility either at trial, during an appeal, or in post-conviction — and lost. By publicly acknowledging that West is not a credible witness, Hood has admitted that the Mississippi’s courts were wrong to allow and uphold West’s testimony. But he’s willing to keep people in prison based on the fact that years ago, he and his predecessors persuaded Mississippi’s courts to approve that testimony — to issue those wrong decisions — and the law now prevents those same defendants from raising that issue again. Hood is essentially arguing that Mississippi keep people in prison — or in Howard’s case, that Mississippi execute someone — on a technicality......... Hood is widely expected to run for governor next year. As one of the only Democrats holding statewide office in the deep south (and a fairly popular one at that), he’s expected to get a lot of support from the national party once he announces. So far in his political career, Hood has found success in the south by countering his close (and at time scandalous) relationship with the plaintiff’s bar and high-profile fights with prominent businesses with an unapologetic embrace of law-and-order policies, including a particular enthusiasm for the death penalty. It will be interesting to see if he continues to pull it off. The landscape on criminal justice is shifting. Hood’s efforts to undermine the rights of criminal defendants and his utter disinterest in the forensics crisis unfolding right under his nose may came back to haunt him."
The entire post can be found at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/08/25/mississippi-attorney-general-jim-hood-defends-discredited-forensic-experts-harasses-defense-attorneys-instead/?utm_term=.dfe3f198623e&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1
 
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
 
I am monitoring this case. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments.
  
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;