Laurence Webb: Australia: Significant Development: 'Unprecedented' forensic disaster; This leading Australian DNA scientist has been 'sacked' - and 27 criminal convictions placed in doubt to date - West Australian Attorney General John Quigley says..."Mr Quigley said Laurence Webb, the senior forensic biologist with the state-run pathology centre Path West, had been dismissed for failing to follow established protocols. He said Mr Webb's dismissal cast doubt on the convictions of at least 27 people, including those involved in a number of high-profile murder cases. Mr Quigley said Mr Webb was sacked in August 2016 following an investigations by Path West, but the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) was not informed of the sacking until two days before Christmas. Mr Quigley, who became the state's Attorney-General two weeks ago, said he was only told on Monday this week. He described Mr Webb's sacking as a disaster that would have serious consequences.".Attorney-General Says... Leading DNA scientist sacked, 27 criminal convictions in doubt, WA Attorney-General says

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "This is as serious as it gets in the administration of criminal justice.  This is unprecedented ... it is a huge disaster for the administration of criminal justice in Western Australia. That this could happen and be kept from the ODPP (Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions) for so long is of grave concern."

STORY: "Leading Australian DNA Scientist Sacked, 27 Criminal Convictions in Doubt, WA Attorney-General Says," by reporter Graeme Powell, published  by ABC News on March 31, 2017. (Thanks to Forensics Magazine for drawing this story to our attention. HL);

GIST: "The sacking of WA's leading DNA scientist for breaching testing protocols is an "unprecedented disaster" in the state's criminal history, Attorney-General John Quigley says."

KEY POINTS: "Laurence Webb sacked last August after issuing DNA results without peer review;  27 criminals including murderers may be able to challenge convictions: Attorney-General; Evidence not compromised, no incorrect results given to police or ODPP: health service."

GIST: "The sacking of WA's leading DNA scientist for breaching testing protocols is an "unprecedented disaster" in the state's criminal history, Attorney-General John Quigley says." Mr Quigley said Laurence Webb, the senior forensic biologist with the state-run pathology centre Path West, had been dismissed for failing to follow established protocols. He said Mr Webb's dismissal cast doubt on the convictions of at least 27 people, including those involved in a number of high-profile murder cases. Mr Quigley said Mr Webb was sacked in August 2016 following an investigations by Path West, but the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) was not informed of the sacking until two days before Christmas. Mr Quigley, who became the state's Attorney-General two weeks ago, said he was only told on Monday this week. He described Mr Webb's sacking as a disaster that would have serious consequences. "This is as serious as it gets in the administration of criminal justice," he said. "This is unprecedented ... it is a huge disaster for the administration of criminal justice in Western Australia. "That this could happen and be kept from the ODPP for so long is of grave concern."  He said those convicted of murder "may be able to challenge their convictions" and 27 people convicted of a range of offences in a six-year period from 2008 to 2014 — cases that Mr Webb worked on — had been informed of the situation. "There are many questions to be asked about this and every one of the questions is a serious question with very serious consequences for Path West and some of its officers," Mr Quigley said. "Perhaps that Path West or somebody else can recover the situation by rerunning all the samples, I don't know. "But in matters that have already gone before the courts, convicted people may say 'we were denied the opportunity to cross examine the DNA expert who gave evidence at our trial because we did not know of this misconduct'." Lawyers have also expressed their concern. Former president of the Criminal Lawyers Association Anthony Eyers said he was shocked by the lack of oversight on the laboratory responsible for testing DNA evidence and on Mr Webb. "It's not only a reflection on him, it's a reflection of course on the culture in which he worked and the lack of oversight," he said.  "There really should have been a system is place which would have prevented this happening and someone effectively going rogue without supervision and without others knowing what was happening." Mr Eyers said Mr Webb's sacking would mean a review of all cases that relied heavily on DNA evidence. "DNA evidence can be crucial and essential in convincing a jury of the guilt of an accused person, so it needs very urgent examination," he said.""

The entire story can be found at:

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-31/sacking-of-was-leading-dna-scientist-27-criminal-cases-in-doubt/8403618

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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.

Motherisk; Hospital for Sick Children. Toronto. Flyers. (Part 2): The National Post's Chris Selley says Ontario’s stolen children are still getting a raw deal as the province deals with the Motherisk scandal........."Imagine cases where adoptions have gone through, perhaps several years ago. Imagine you haven’t seen your children in years; imagine they don’t even remember you; imagine you know they’re doing well with their adopted parents; imagine trying to decide what to do. The government stole your kid under false pretences; you’re grief-stricken, furious; but maybe your kid is in a wealthier or more stable environment than you can offer. It’s an impossible position that no one should ever be in. Motherisk has made a lot of headlines, but it doesn’t seem like the full horror of this situation has really pervaded the public consciousness."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "It’s pretty tough to overstate the gravity of what went on in this province’s children’s aid societies, in its courtrooms, and at the lucrative Motherisk lab at Sick Kids Hospital, since closed."

----------------------------

COMMENTARY:  The National Post's Chris Selley says Ontario’s stolen children are  still getting a raw deal as Ontario  deals with the  Motherisk scandal, by columnist Chris Selley, published by The National Post on March 30, 2017. (Chris Selley joined the Post in 2008 after leaving Maclean's, where he wrote on national affairs — as he did on Tart Cider, the blog on which he made a name for himself. He served as a member of the editorial board beginning in 2009, and is currently the Post's Toronto's City Hall columnist.)

GIST: "On Wednesday, Ontario’s Ministry of Education asked for these Motherisk Commission posters to be taken down from schools. That’s the question Ontario students were asked this week on posters in their schools. It was an outreach effort by the Motherisk Commission, which is examining hundreds of cases in which now-discredited hair tests for drug and alcohol abuse contributed to children being removed from their parents’ custody — in some cases forever. “Do you want to know if this testing was relied on in your case?” the poster asked. “If yes, we may be able to help and it’s completely confidential.” You can understand why parents of adopted children wouldn’t want their sons and daughters confronting such a document. These are discussions that need to happen on a family’s own terms. It could be upsetting if children weren’t adopted under those circumstances: Irwin Elman, Ontario’s Children and Youth Advocate, described a tearful child suddenly wondering “if she was a ‘crack baby’.” And it could be upsetting if children were adopted under those circumstances: the last thing they need is to be reminded of it every day. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Education asked for the posters to be yanked down. And that’s probably for the best. They certainly had no business in elementary schools, and according to the Ministry they weren’t supposed to be there. But I can see why the posters would have seemed like a good idea. The full scope of this disaster needs to be known and its effects on parents and children understood. It’s pretty tough to overstate the gravity of what went on in this province’s children’s aid societies, in its courtrooms, and at the lucrative Motherisk lab at Sick Kids Hospital, since closed. Consider the case of K, the appropriately Kafkaesque abbreviation of a five-year-old girl who was taken from her mother in September 2012, entirely on the basis of cocaine use detected at the Motherisk lab, which the mother denied. K has been in “legal limbo” ever since. She’s 10 now. The case took nearly two years to get to trial. The 16 trial days unfolded over eight months, during which the mother’s counsel never challenged the hair evidence. The judge in the case reserved her decision for an astonishing nine months, during which time K was moved from a foster home to a “foster placement with a view to adoption” without her parents or their counsel being notified. “This passage of time is not only entirely unacceptable, it is reprehensible and cannot be justified or excused on any credible basis,” Justice Grant A. Campbell of the Ontario Superior Court wrote in a scathing ruling in February. (He called the parents’ lawyers “incompetent.”) K remains a Crown ward. The parents have no access to her. And it all stems from a test that fell “woefully short of internationally recognized forensic standards,” according to Justice Susan Lang’s report to the Attorney-General last year. Now imagine dozens, scores, perhaps hundreds of similar cases. (The Commission expects to examine 2,000.) Imagine cases where adoptions have gone through, perhaps several years ago. Imagine you haven’t seen your children in years; imagine they don’t even remember you; imagine you know they’re doing well with their adopted parents; imagine trying to decide what to do. The government stole your kid under false pretences; you’re grief-stricken, furious; but maybe your kid is in a wealthier or more stable environment than you can offer. It’s an impossible position that no one should ever be in. Motherisk has made a lot of headlines, but it doesn’t seem like the full horror of this situation has really pervaded the public consciousness. Perhaps that’s because the people likeliest to run afoul of child protective services tend to be marginalized to begin with, and disproportionately aboriginal. Perhaps people reason people’s hair wouldn’t be tested in the first place if they were reasonably fit parents. But there’s not much worse that governments can do to people than take their children away."

The entire commentary can be found at:

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/full-comment/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/chris-selley-ontarios-stolen-children-still-getting-a-raw-deal-as-province-deals-with-motherisk-scandal

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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.

Motherisk: Hospital for Sick Children. Toronto; Flyers. (Part 1); Ontario government pulls 'flyers' aimed directly at public and high school children after outrage erupts - from parents and even Ontario's Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth - over possible harm caused by the flyers to province's children ..."One mother, who has three adopted children, was grocery shopping on Tuesday when she saw the flyer on the Facebook page of her child’s school in the Upper Canada District School Board. “It was like a punch in the stomach,” she said. “It was just this immediate thought of, ‘My kids are going to see this.’ Not only are my kids going to see this, but this was actually directed at my children. That’s the part of this that’s so disturbing. “The intent to go directly to kids who have had a really tough start, and have tried to find healing and permanency . . . all of this just exposes them in a way that’s completely unacceptable,” she said. Although she said she knows Motherisk testing was not done in her children’s cases, she still spent much of Tuesday evening having difficult conversations with her kids, who are aware that drugs and alcohol played a role in their histories and needed reassurance that Motherisk wasn’t involved."

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Motherisk Commission assumed the important responsibility of sorting out the damage caused to children, families and institutions by the flawed hair tests conducted at the Hospital for Sick Children Motherisk laboratory which led to innocent parents being brought under suspicion for drugs, shattered families, shattered futures and shattered reputations. The Commission was handicapped from the start as it was set up by the Ontario government to work behind without a public hearing component. Worse, objections were made at the outset that the Commissioner appointed by the government -  retired judge Judith  Beaman - had previously done  legal work for the hospital's controversial Suspected Child abuse and Neglect Unit,  and therefore could be perceived to have a conflict of interest.  Now, the Commission has committed an act of such ineptitude that the Government of Ontario has been forced to intervene.  How can the children, parents and families whose lives have been ripped apart by the Hospital For Sick Children's now defunct  lab have any confidence in the process that was supposedly - as much as possible in circumstances where some children have been permanently lost to their families through adoption - to set things straight? Ontario should go back to the drawing boards, and create a true public inquiry  which will hold public hearings, which will be transparent,  which will be unblemished by perceptions of conflict of interest - and which can be trusted to avoid distress  among children - those whom it should be protecting  - such as its own flyers has created.

Harold Levy; Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

-----------------------------

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“Were you taken from your parent by the Children’s Aid Society?” “Children’s Aid Societies used hair strand tests to see if parents were using drugs or alcohol. We know these tests were unreliable,” the flyer said. “Do you want to know if this testing was relied on in your case? If yes, we may be able to help and it’s completely confidential.”

Flyer produced by the Motherisk Commission, which the province established to probe thousands of child protection cases that relied on flawed hair drug tests from the Hospital for Sick Children’s Motherisk laboratory. It was distributed by deputy minister of education Bruce Rodrigues, with a letter to directors of education instructing them to share the flyer “through bulletin boards, newsletters, or other methods that are most likely to be seen by staff, parents and students.”

------------------------------------------------

SECOND QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"We just don’t throw that information out there,” he told the Star. “On 100 levels, it’s potentially damaging.” 
 
Ontario’s Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth Irwin Elman

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STORY: "Education Ministry pulls controversial Motherisk flyers from schools, websites," by reporter Rachel Mendleson, published by The Toronto Star on March 30, 2017.

SUB-HEADING: "A flyer posted at the request of the Ministry of Education on elementary and high school bulletin boards and Facebook pages appealed directly to children: “Were you taken from your parent by the Children’s Aid Society?”

GIST: "A provincially mandated outreach campaign that was trying to use schools to find children affected by the Motherisk scandal triggered such outrage among students, teachers and advocates that the Ministry of Education pulled the plug on the effort. A flyer posted this week at the request of the Ministry of Education on elementary and high school bulletin boards and Facebook pages appealed directly to children, with the question: “Were you taken from your parent by the Children’s Aid Society?” “Children’s Aid Societies used hair strand tests to see if parents were using drugs or alcohol. We know these tests were unreliable,” the flyer said. “Do you want to know if this testing was relied on in your case? If yes, we may be able to help and it’s completely confidential.” The flyer was produced by the Motherisk Commission, which the province established to probe thousands of child protection cases that relied on flawed hair drug tests from the Hospital for Sick Children’s Motherisk laboratory. It was distributed by deputy minister of education Bruce Rodrigues, with a letter to directors of education instructing them to share the flyer “through bulletin boards, newsletters, or other methods that are most likely to be seen by staff, parents and students.” The commission was established on the recommendation of Justice Susan Lang, whose review of Motherisk, which followed a Star investigation, found the lab’s tests from 2005 to 2015 were “inadequate” and “unreliable” for use in child custody and court proceedings. The Hospital for Sick Children closed the Motherisk lab in April 2015.........Shortly after schools began to circulate the flyer this week, word travelled to Ontario’s Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth Irwin Elman, who tweeted on Tuesday evening that he was “stunned.” Concerned the flyer would incite fear among vulnerable children, who “don’t know their histories,” he said he immediately contacted the Motherisk Commission and the Ministry of Education, urging them to remove the poster. “We just don’t throw that information out there,” he told the Star. “On 100 levels, it’s potentially damaging.” Julie Despaties, executive director of the Toronto-based adoption support network Adopt4Life, said her organization was flooded with frantic messages from adoptive parents, prompting the group to send a letter to the Ministry of Education on Wednesday demanding action to remove the poster and warning of “emotional and psychological harm.” Despaties said parents feared their children could be bullied by schoolmates who knew they had been adopted, and were struggling with how to provide reassurance and answer the sensitive questions that may arise. One mother, who has three adopted children, was grocery shopping on Tuesday when she saw the flyer on the Facebook page of her child’s school in the Upper Canada District School Board. “It was like a punch in the stomach,” she said. “It was just this immediate thought of, ‘My kids are going to see this.’ Not only are my kids going to see this, but this was actually directed at my children. That’s the part of this that’s so disturbing. “The intent to go directly to kids who have had a really tough start, and have tried to find healing and permanency . . . all of this just exposes them in a way that’s completely unacceptable,” she said. Although she said she knows Motherisk testing was not done in her children’s cases, she still spent much of Tuesday evening having difficult conversations with her kids, who are aware that drugs and alcohol played a role in their histories and needed reassurance that Motherisk wasn’t involved......... Amid mounting pressure on Wednesday, Rodrigues reversed course, issuing a directive for the poster and Motherisk Commission materials to be “removed from all schools and social media immediately.” “We understand that some of our students may have been negatively affected by these posters,” the letter states, noting that the concerns had been raised by “students, parents and advocates” and that those concerns “have merit.” He also asked schools to make mental health and support staff aware that “some students may require additional support on this matter.”......... Before the ministry’s reversal on Wednesday, Bianchi said the commission had not intended the poster to be disseminated in elementary schools, but stood by its placement in high schools. She did not respond to requests for comment following the ministry’s decision. The commission is more than halfway through its two-year mandate to review cases and determine the weight given to Motherisk tests, which were used as evidence of parental substance abuse in decisions to remove children from their families. It has relied on Children's Aid Societies, Sick Kids, the electronic court filing system and affected individuals to find cases. In cases where the commission concludes the tests played a significant role — a finding it has reached in 33 of the more than 650 cases reviewed so far — it offers legal support to help families reconnect. It also offers counseling services."

The entire story can be found at:

https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2017/03/30/education-ministry-pulls-controversial-motherisk-flyers-from-schools-websites.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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.

Chris Tapp: Idaho; Commentary: Greg Hampikian and Jennifer Cummins discuss the "Injustices multiplied" which have plagued Chris Tapp, who was finally released recently after spending more than 20 years behind bars...."Christopher Tapp was finally freed from prison after more than 20 years. Prosecutor Danny Clark has released a statement in which he attempts to explain the actions of his office in dropping all counts of rape against Mr. Tapp, but leaving in place the murder conviction (with a deadly-weapon enhancement). Clark’s statement unfortunately does not explain this split, which is peculiar since all of the same forensic evidence used to dismiss the rape charge equally demonstrate that Mr. Tapp had nothing to do with the murder of Miss Dodge. The DNA analysis requested by the Idaho Innocence Project has produced clear results that exclude Mr. Tapp from everything tested. The tests also exclude all of the other suspects that were part of the prosecution theory of the crime. More importantly, the scientific evidence tells a very clear story—one that was totally ignored by the prosecutor’s statement. Mr. Tapp is not on any of the evidence in this case, but one man is—in every single profile."

COMMENTARY: "Injustices multiplied' by  published by The Post-Register on March 26, 2017. (Greg Hampikian, Ph.D. is a professor of biology and criminal justice at Boise State University and director of the Idaho Innocence Project.  Jennifer Cummins, Esq., is an attorney with the Idaho Innocence Project.) Thanks to Forensic Magazine for bringing this article to our attention. HL);

GIST: "Christopher Tapp was finally freed from prison after more than 20 years. Prosecutor Danny Clark has released a statement in which he attempts to explain the actions of his office in dropping all counts of rape against Mr. Tapp, but leaving in place the murder conviction (with a deadly-weapon enhancement). Clark’s statement unfortunately does not explain this split, which is peculiar since all of the same forensic evidence used to dismiss the rape charge equally demonstrate that Mr. Tapp had nothing to do with the murder of Miss Dodge. The DNA analysis requested by the Idaho Innocence Project has produced clear results that exclude Mr. Tapp from everything tested. The tests also exclude all of the other suspects that were part of the prosecution theory of the crime. More importantly, the scientific evidence tells a very clear story—one that was totally ignored by the prosecutor’s statement. Mr. Tapp is not on any of the evidence in this case, but one man is—in every single profile. First of all, his semen was recovered from the victim’s body—before Mr. Tapp’s trial. We now know, through testing requested by the Chris’s legal team (and the victim’s mother), that the same man left a pubic hair on the victim’s face. In DNA analysis completed during the last year—requested by the government—we have also learned that the same single perpetrator contributed DNA to clothing the victim was wearing—both her sweatpants and her sweatshirt. Most recently, in conjunction with a request by the IIP, the prosecutor had key items of the prosecution’s theory tested using the most modern techniques available (including MVac). This is key, since the confession that was spoon-fed to Mr. Tapp (in exchange for an immunity agreement) had Mr. Tapp contacting the victim and her possessions in three places. He held down her hands, he stabbed her once through her shirt and wiped his hands on the shirt, and he moved her teddy bear. It was clear from the crime scene that she had been stabbed through her shirt, and that the teddy bear had been moved. Fortunately, the clothing and bear were preserved, and swabs from the victim’s hands had been taken but never tested. We agreed with the prosecution that these were the key items that should be analyzed with the most modern technology possible. These items would either show the truth of the prosecution’s theory, or finally put it to rest. When the results were known, they produced a clear picture of what happened. None of the state’s suspects (including Chris Tapp) were on any of the evidence, but in a remarkably clear set of results, the semen donor was consistently on all of them. We now know who moved Angie’s teddy bear, left DNA on her shirt, and restrained her—leaving his DNA on each hand. For 10 years, we have fought to demonstrate in open court that Mr. Tapp is innocent of murdering Angie Dodge. During that same time, the county continued to test evidence in this case (apparently looking for Mr. Tapp’s DNA). We had just received the final results, when Chris Tapp was offered a deal. He could be freed, without the delays of hearings, a new trial, and possible appeals by the county. Apparently, the prosecutor had realized the absurdity of Mr. Tapp’s rape conviction given all the DNA results, and agreed to drop the rape conviction. But those same results also clear Mr. Tapp of murder. The state tested Miss Dodge’s sweatpants, nightshirt, the pubic hair, her hands and the teddy bear—not just for evidence of rape, but because those are all the places they concluded the murderer had touched. There is nothing wrong with having an opinion about how a murder was committed, it is the first part of reasoning: hypothesis. But to ignore one’s own results, is to employ neither science nor common-sense. Could the paradox of Tapp’s murder conviction have anything to do with an exoneree’s right to sue? A right which Mr. Tapp had to surrender as part of his deal with the county. The courtroom is about the whole truth and nothing but the truth. A prosecutor’s obligation is to seek justice, not to uphold convictions. Indeed, the prosecutor has an ethical obligation to see that wrongful convictions are overturned, and Mr. Clark fulfilled that duty in dropping the rape charge against Mr. Tapp after 20 years. But the first lesson of logic is that half-truth is not truth. Justice for Chris Tapp is not simply finding him not-guilty of rape or murder. The DNA did not say that he was not-guilty of rape, it said he was not on any evidence—and another other man was. That man held down both of Angie Dodge’s hands, he left semen on her body and a pubic hair on her face, his DNA is on the shirt through which she was stabbed, and he moved her teddy bear. One man is on every piece of evidence in this case—not just the rape evidence. Rape and murder. Truth and nothing but the truth. You cannot remedy one injustice with another."

The entire commentary can be found at:

http://www.postregister.com/articles/community-events-obituaries-opinions/2017/03/26/guest-column-injustices-multiplied#

See Forensic Magazine at the link below: "Hampikian told Forensic Magazine in an interview today that the final Y-STR analysis from the semen matched every other DNA sample from the scene, including those on the stuffed animal, the clothing, and the fingers. That Y-STR profile did not match Tapp, or either of the other two persons of interest in the case in 1996. "It matched all the other evidence - it was an absolutely beautiful DNA case," said Hampikian. "All of their evidence is completely debunked. They obviously weren't interested in solving this.""

http://www.forensicmag.com/news/2017/03/idaho-man-cleared-rape-resentenced-1996-murder-released-prison?et_cid=5893077&et_rid=979655504&type=headline&et_cid=5893077&et_rid=979655504&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.forensicmag.com%2fnews%2f2017%2f03%2fidaho-man-cleared-rape-resentenced-1996-murder-released-prison%3fet_cid%3d5893077%26et_rid%3d%%subscriberid%%%26type%3dheadline
 
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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.

Annie Dookhan: Massachusetts; End Game: (White Elephant case); NBC story reflects a drug lab scandal of unprecedented magnitude..."The reliance on forensic science in the criminal justice system has improved policing and prosecutions, but the misuse of science has also fueled wrongful convictions, researchers say. Drug labs play a distinct role in that machinery. Lab scandals have undermined thousands of convictions in eight states in the past decade, according to data maintained by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Critics say forensic chemists feel a duty to help prosecutors rather than remain neutral. And they point out that many labs — including Hinton when Dookhan worked there — lack professional accreditation or proper protocols to prevent and detect misconduct. Some of her superiors have lost their jobs for failing to notice or report her misdeeds. "This drug lab scandal is another example of why the criminal justice system needs to reform its approach to forensic science," said Dan Gelb, a Boston attorney who helped write an amicus brief on the Dookhan case for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "Labs shouldn't be an extension of law enforcement."

In the years since I started publishing this Blog I have become increasingly disturbed by the 'white elephant' in the room: Sheer, unadulterated, willful   misconduct in the criminal justice system - much  of it involving forensic evidence - committed by lab technicians,  pathologists, police officers, prosecutors and others.  Think Annie Dookhan; Think Sonia Farak; Think David Kofoed; Think Charles Smith; Think Ken Anderson; Think Gene Morrison.  I have therefore decided to run this image of a white elephant at the top of every applicable post henceforth, to draw our reader's attention to   what I see as a major problem in all too many criminal justice system's - my own included.  Harold Levy; Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
"Reformers have for years recommended that all forensic labs be independent from law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies' and this is a key reform promoted by The Justice Project (2008). But fixing these problems is only half the answer' because half of the wrongful convictions attributed to misleading forensic evidence involved deliberate forensic fraud' evidence tampering' and/or perjury.
From "The Elephant in the Crime Lab," by co-authored by Sheila Berry and Larry Ytuarte; Forensic Examiner; Spring, 2009; http://www.t-mlaw.com/blog/post/the-elephant-in-the-crime-lab/

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "It's absolutely stunning. I have never seen anything like it....It's unbelievable to me that it could have even happened. And then when you look at the scope of the number of cases that may be dismissed or vacated, there are no words for it."

SUZANNE BELL:  Professor at West Virginia University who serves on the National Commission of Forensic Science.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECOND QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"It's a soup-to-nuts indictment of the war on drugs...These scandals happen around the country because our war on drugs is based on cutting corners."

MATTHEW SEGAL: Legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, whose lawsuit led to the supreme court's ruling.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THIRD QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"This drug lab scandal is another example of why the criminal justice system needs to reform its approach to forensic science.  Labs shouldn't be an extension of law enforcement."

 DAN GELB: Boston attorney who helped write an amicus brief on the Dookhan case for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

STORY: "‘Stunning’ Drug Lab Scandal Could Overturn 23,000 Convictions," by Jon Schuppe, published by NBC News on March 28, 2017.

PHOTO CAPTION:  "Annie Dookhan was arrested outside her home in Franklin, Massachusetts, in 2012."

PHOTO CAPTION:  "A special drug lab session handled motions by drug defendants whose cases were handled by chemist Annie Dookhan."

PHOTO CAPTION:   "The William A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute, which houses the Massachusetts state drug lab."

PHOTO CAPTION:  "Former Massachusetts state chemist Annie Dookhan before entering a guilty plea in November 2013."
 
GIST: In the annals of wrongful convictions, there is nothing that comes close in size to the epic drug-lab scandal that is entering its dramatic final act in Massachusetts. About 23,000 people convicted of low-level drug crimes are expected to have their cases wiped away next month en masse, the result of a five-year court fight over the work of a rogue chemist. "It's absolutely stunning. I have never seen anything like it," said Suzanne Bell, a professor at West Virginia University who serves on the National Commission of Forensic Science. "It's unbelievable to me that it could have even happened. And then when you look at the scope of the number of cases that may be dismissed or vacated, there are no words for it." ......... The prosecutors didn't want the scandal to end like this. They fought for a way to preserve the convictions, and leave it to the defendants to challenge them. Civil rights groups and defense lawyers argued for all the cases to be dropped, saying that was the only way to ensure justice. The state's high court chose its own solution, ruling in January that district attorneys should focus on a small subset of cases it wanted to retry, and drop the rest.   It has taken five years to get to this point, longer than it took to discover, prosecute and punish the chemist, Annie Dookhan. She worked at the William A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Boston for nearly a decade before her misconduct was exposed in 2012. She admitted to tampering with evidence, forging test results and lying about it. She served three years in prison and was released last year. By then, most of the people Dookhan helped convict — most of whom pleaded guilty to low-level drug offenses based on her now-discredited work — had finished their sentences. Is not entirely clear why Dookhan, a Trinidadian immigrant mother, felt compelled to change test results on such a massive scale. She was by far the lab's most prolific analyst, a record that impressed her supervisors but also worried her co-workers — a red flag that went overlooked for years. She seemed driven to stand out, even if it mean lying, former colleagues have said. She also maintained friendly relationships with prosecutors, even though her role was to remain objective. Many likely did commit the offenses, but many did not, defense lawyers say. All of them are now burdened with dubious convictions that have made it difficult to find jobs and housing or to obtain student loans, the lawyers say. Some defendants were convicted of more serious crimes, and the drug convictions were used to stiffen their sentences. Non-citizens have been threatened with deportation. Civil rights advocates say the case has exposed the folly of aggressive enforcement of low-rung drug offenders, many of whom are addicts in need of treatment. "It's a soup-to-nuts indictment of the war on drugs," said Matthew Segal, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, whose lawsuit led to the supreme court's ruling. "These scandals happen around the country because our war on drugs is based on cutting corners."   The reliance on forensic science in the criminal justice system has improved policing and prosecutions, but the misuse of science has also fueled wrongful convictions, researchers say. Drug labs play a distinct role in that machinery. Lab scandals have undermined thousands of convictions in eight states in the past decade, according to data maintained by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Critics say forensic chemists feel a duty to help prosecutors rather than remain neutral. And they point out that many labs — including Hinton when Dookhan worked there — lack professional accreditation or proper protocols to prevent and detect misconduct. Some of her superiors have lost their jobs for failing to notice or report her misdeeds. "This drug lab scandal is another example of why the criminal justice system needs to reform its approach to forensic science," said Dan Gelb, a Boston attorney who helped write an amicus brief on the Dookhan case for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "Labs shouldn't be an extension of law enforcement."  Because of the system's reliance on plea bargains to keep cases moving, defendants often don't have a chance to challenge results from drug labs, Bell added. That's become a big point of discussion at the National Commission of Forensic Science, she said. But the commission, which was formed by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2013, is facing an uncertain future, with no clear message from the Trump administration if its work will continued to be funded, Bell said. The Dookhan case awakened Massachusetts to the crisis, Bell said. But the end of the Dookhan saga will not bring the end to Massachusetts' problems. That's because it is dealing with a second scandal, at a second lab, this one the result of a chemist who admitted to doing drugs — including an array of substances submitted as evidence — while on the job. Thousands of convictions in that case are now in doubt."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/stunning-drug-lab-scandal-could-upend-23-000-convictions-n739626

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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.

Bobby Moore; Texas; Of mice and men and the State of Texas's unscientific lust to kill - even the intellectually disabled; Texas used outdated medical standards in deciding which intellectually disabled people must be spared the death penalty, the U.S. Supreme Court rules: "Writing for the majority in the 5-to-3 decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Texas had failed to keep up with current medical consensus, relied too heavily on I.Q. scores and took account of factors rooted in stereotypes. “Texas cannot satisfactorily explain why it applies current medical standards for diagnosing intellectual disability in other contexts, yet clings to superseded standards when an individual’s life is at stake,” Justice Ginsburg wrote..."Reporter Adam Liptak; New York Times;

STORY: "Texas Used Wrong Standard in Death Penalty Cases, Justices Rule," by reporter Adam Liptak, published by The New York Times on March 28, 2017.

PHOTO CAPTION: "The case concerned Bobby J. Moore, who has been on death row in Texas since 1980 for fatally shooting a Houston supermarket clerk during a robbery."

GIST: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday continued a trend toward limiting capital punishment, rejecting Texas’ approach to deciding which intellectually disabled people must be spared the death penalty. Writing for the majority in the 5-to-3 decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Texas had failed to keep up with current medical consensus, relied too heavily on I.Q. scores and took account of factors rooted in stereotypes. “Texas cannot satisfactorily explain why it applies current medical standards for diagnosing intellectual disability in other contexts, yet clings to superseded standards when an individual’s life is at stake,” Justice Ginsburg wrote. She was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan..........The case, Moore v. Texas, No. 15-797, had attracted some attention for one aspect of Texas’ approach, which was partly drawn from a comparison to the fictional character of Lennie Small, the dim, hulking farmhand in John Steinbeck’s novella “Of Mice and Men.” In 2004, in the decision that set out the standards Texas uses, Judge Cathy Cochran of the Court of Criminal Appeals wrote that Lennie should be a legal touchstone. “Most Texas citizens might agree that Steinbeck’s Lennie should, by virtue of his lack of reasoning ability and adaptive skills, be exempt” from the death penalty, she wrote. When Mr. Moore’s case was argued in November, Justice Sotomayor said he was at least as intellectually disabled as Lennie. “The state had no problem in saying that Lennie, even though he could work, earn a living, plan his trying to hide the death of the rabbit he killed, that he could do all of those things, and yet he was not just mildly, but severely disabled,” she said. The opinions rendered Tuesday did not mention Lennie."

The entire story can be found at:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/us/politics/texas-death-penalty-supreme-court-ruling.html?_r=0&referer=
 
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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.

Commentary: Bill Dillon and all too many other victims of charlatan John Preston " whose dog would supposedly “track” the suspect’s scent, months later or even once underwater — to magically place the suspect where cops needed him to be. Preston did this in more than 30 cases in Brevard before judges in two states declared him a fraud — a fact that should rattle the soul."..."The cases have never been formally re-examined. It is way past time. Journalist Scott Maxwell Florida Today has given new life to this cause with a 14-part series, “Murder on the Space Coast,” where veteran journalist John A. Torres looks at the men who were wrongfully convicted and one, Gary Bennett, who is still behind bars. The stories are all similar."

COMMENTARY: "Brevard’s wrongful convictions still need probing," by Scott Maxwell, published by The Orlando Sentinel on March 28, 2017.

PHOTO CAPTION: "Pam Bondi went on TV in 2010 and promised to probe cases involving a bogus dog handler expert that helped lead to convictions in dozens of cases. In 2017, a whole lot of nothing has happened."

GIST: Nearly a decade ago, Bill Dillon walked out of a prison cell where he had spent 27 years of his life for a crime he didn’t commit. Dillon had been wrongly convicted by cops and prosecutors in Brevard County who were desperate to solve a gruesome murder. After he was convicted, a key witness recanted her testimony. Then, the lead “expert” — a dog-handler whose dog supposedly placed Dillon at the scene of the crime — was exposed as a charlatan who manufactured “evidence” when cops couldn’t make legitimate cases. Finally, DNA evidence proved Dillon’s blood did not, in fact, match the murderer’s.  In 2008, the nation watched as Dillon, who had entered jail a naive 22-year-old, walked out as a 49-year-old man.  The story was almost inspirational. Except it is not. Instead, Dillon’s tale is just one chapter in a dark and twisted story of injustice that still isn’t fully told. Dillon, you see, is just one of three men whose convictions were later overturned — all three convicted by the same prosecution team with help from the same fraudster dog-handler in the 1980s. Yet dozens more men were convicted in the same or similar way. At least one is still behind bars. The cases have never been formally re-examined. It is way past time. Florida Today has given new life to this cause with a 14-part series, “Murder on the Space Coast,” where veteran journalist John A. Torres looks at the men who were wrongfully convicted and one, Gary Bennett, who is still behind bars. The stories are all similar. There was a heinous crime — a particularly violent rape, stabbing or murder. There was a furious public. There were cops and prosecutors desperate to make a case — but short on actual evidence. And there was an unsympathetic suspect — a loner with a history of pot use or maybe drunken driving who didn’t have many resources to defend himself. In every case, the cops brought in the same “expert” — dog handler John Preston, whose dog would supposedly “track” the suspect’s scent, months later or even once underwater — to magically place the suspect where cops needed him to be. Preston did this in more than 30 cases in Brevard before judges in two states declared him a fraud — a fact that should rattle the soul. I spent three years trying to raise attention for this issue from 2009 to 2012. I consider it one of the biggest failures of my journalistic career. No one — Charlie Crist, Rick Scott, former Attorney General Bill McCollum or former State Attorney Norm Wolfinger — would push for answers. They all said that anyone who was wrongfully convicted should get his own lawyer, the same way Dillon did … over the course of 27 years. Finally, I had an idea. In 2010, there was a new race for attorney general. So I approached every candidate running — every Republican and every Democrat. I gave them the history of the cases and asked, if elected, if they would promise to conduct a thorough investigation into every person Preston helped convict. Not a promise of exoneration, mind you. Just a promise to fully probe all the cases where juries had gotten bad information to see if justice had truly been served. Every candidate promised they would … including the eventual winner. Pam Bondi claimed to be so keen on probing the Preston cases, she went on national TV to campaign on the issue. I still remember her calling me on a Saturday night in August of 2010. It was three days before her GOP primary, and Bondi was preparing to go on Geraldo Rivera’s show on Fox News. She wanted all the background on the cases. I helped her. Not because I cared about her campaign, but because I cared about justice. Bondi then went on TV, acting outraged and indignant about Preston’s bogus testimony, telling Rivera: “This guy was using junk science, claiming that this dog could find weapons underwater. It was unreal. Now we learn that there are are at least four people in Florida still in prison!” Bondi made it clear that, if elected, she would conduct a thorough probe herself. But she never did. Though her office said it looked at the cases, it never released any kind of detailed report. A thorough, independent probe is needed. Gov. Rick Scott could order one. So could Bondi. But frankly, after all this time, I think only the feds could provide a thorough, independent examination. One thing that is clear, as Florida Today is reminding us: Justice has not been carried out in Brevard County.

The entire commentary can be  found at:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-bill-dillon-wrongful-convictions-bondi-scott-maxwell-20170328-story.html

 PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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.

White elephant cases; East Cleveland; Ohio; NBC report: 'Rogue East Cleveland Cops Framed Dozens of Drug Suspects'...Or as Dr. Mike Bowers of CSIDDS (Forensics in Focus) puts it: "Framing the innocent with planted forensics evidence and lying cops."...(A neat exploration of 'group exonerations' HL)..."The Cleveland-area victims are among thousands of people who have been exonerated in cases involving police graft over the last three decades countrywide, from California to Texas, and from New Jersey to Ohio. In Philadelphia, more than 800 people have had their convictions dismissed. The Rampart scandal in Los Angeles in the late 1990s led to at least 150 tossed cases. These "group exonerations" are distinct from the stories of people cleared by DNA or new evidence, a movement led by crusading lawyers who dig into individual cases to expose faulty forensics, false confessions, mistaken identities and official misconduct. Group exonerations rarely attract much attention outside of the communities where they occur. They typically involve people convicted of relatively minor crimes that resulted in short prison sentences or terms of probation. The victims often have criminal records and, if not for the corrupt methods that led to their convictions, may actually have been guilty of a crime. There is no official record of group exonerations, and researchers believe that in some police corruption scandals, authorities don't bother to identify tainted convictions — or tell victims they could be cleared. Even so, the number of people wrongly convicted under such circumstances likely exceeds the more than 2,000 individual exonerations recorded since 1989, according to the National Registry of Exonerations."

In the years since I started publishing this Blog I have become increasingly disturbed by the 'white elephant' in the room: Sheer, unadulterated, willful   misconduct in the criminal justice system - much  of it involving forensic evidence - committed by lab technicians,  pathologists, police officers, prosecutors and others.  Think Annie Dookhan; Think Sonia Farak; Think David Kofoed; Think Charles Smith; Think Ken Anderson; Think Gene Morrison. Think Michael West;   I have therefore decided to run this image of a white elephant at the top of every applicable post henceforth, to draw our reader's attention to   what I see as a major problem in all too many criminal justice system's - my own included.  Harold Levy; Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
"Reformers have for years recommended that all forensic labs be independent from law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies' and this is a key reform promoted by The Justice Project (2008). But fixing these problems is only half the answer' because half of the wrongful convictions attributed to misleading forensic evidence involved deliberate forensic fraud' evidence tampering' and/or perjury.
From "The Elephant in the Crime Lab," by co-authored by Sheila Berry and Larry Ytuarte; Forensic Examiner; Spring, 2009;

-------------------------------------------

"Rogue East Cleveland Cops Framed Dozens of Drug Suspects," by reporter Jon Schuppe, published by NBC News on March 27, 2017; (Thanks to CSIDDS (Forensics in Focus) for bringing this story to our attention. HL);

GIST: "In January 2013, police raided the home of a Cleveland drug dealer, saying in a search warrant that an informant had recently bought crack cocaine there. But the drug dealer had surveillance cameras that proved the officers were lying. He gave the tapes to his lawyer, who showed the FBI. The feds then worked to uncover a massive scandal of a rogue street-crimes unit that robbed and framed drug suspects who felt they had no choice but plead guilty to fraudulent charges. Four years later, authorities are still unwinding the damage. Three cops who worked for the city of East Cleveland are in prison. Cases against 22 alleged drug dealers have been dismissed. Authorities are searching for another 21 people who are eligible to have their convictions tossed. On top of those injustices, there is a slim chance that any of them will be fully reimbursed, because the disgraced officers and their former employer don't have the money. "I always took it on the chin when I got arrested for something I know I did. But when a cop lies to get you in prison, that's a different story," said Kenneth Blackshaw, who was arrested in a 2013 traffic stop and spent two years behind bars before his drug conviction was overturned. ........The Cleveland-area victims are among thousands of people who have been exonerated in cases involving police graft over the last three decades countrywide, from California to Texas, and from New Jersey to Ohio. In Philadelphia, more than 800 people have had their convictions dismissed. The Rampart scandal in Los Angeles in the late 1990s led to at least 150 tossed cases. These "group exonerations" are distinct from the stories of people cleared by DNA or new evidence, a movement led by crusading lawyers who dig into individual cases to expose faulty forensics, false confessions, mistaken identities and official misconduct. Group exonerations rarely attract much attention outside of the communities where they occur. They typically involve people convicted of relatively minor crimes that resulted in short prison sentences or terms of probation. The victims often have criminal records and, if not for the corrupt methods that led to their convictions, may actually have been guilty of a crime. There is no official record of group exonerations, and researchers believe that in some police corruption scandals, authorities don't bother to identify tainted convictions — or tell victims they could be cleared. Even so, the number of people wrongly convicted under such circumstances likely exceeds the more than 2,000 individual exonerations recorded since 1989, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. The vast majority of victims are black — a result that points to national trends in American drug-law enforcement researchers at the registry said in a report issued last month. "As any forger knows, the way to create convincing fakes is to make them look like the real thing," the report's authors wrote. "For drug cases, that means arresting mostly black suspects." The impact is profound. Group exonerations not only undermine crime fighting efforts, but also destroy faith in police and fuel the belief that the justice system treats poor, minority communities unfairly. "What I saw in this case is a legitimate reason for these folks to have these feelings toward law enforcement," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Ed Feran, who prosecuted the East Cleveland officers. East Cleveland is a city in distress, much more so than Cleveland, its larger Rust Belt neighbor. More than 40 percent of its 17,843 residents live in poverty, almost all of them black. Mass demolitions of abandoned homes has left the 3-square-mile city pocked with vacant lots. The median household income is $19,592. The local government is near bankruptcy. That is the atmosphere in which the rogue street crimes unit operated.........Most of the victims mentioned in the federal indictment didn't have private lawyers to push for their release. But the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office had just formed a Conviction Integrity Unit, which helped make sure all of the convictions were vacated. Blackshaw was released from prison in February 2016. All three officers were sentenced to prison: Moore got nine years, Malone six and Jones nearly four. In a tearful courtroom apology, Moore said she'd turned rogue in 2011.  That revelation prompted the Conviction Integrity Unit to review all of the officers' work since 2011. They came up with dozens of suspect cases. In some, the officers cited the use of confidential informants without proving their existence. In others, money used for undercover drug purchases, or money seized in arrests or raids, was not properly logged, raising questions about where the cash ended up. Each of the defendants, like Blackshaw, had pleaded guilty. Now they were all eligible to have their cases dismissed. Some of the victims had likely committed drug offenses. But because the entire process was corroded, the cases could no longer be defended in court. Justice required their dismissal. "We didn't go all the way to determine whether they were factually innocent or not," Jose Torres, who heads the unit, said. "We were convinced that they were legally innocent, and that's enough for us." So far, authorities have identified 43 people whose convictions deserved to be tossed. But in order for that to happen, they or a lawyer representing them needs to appear in court to ask a judge to dismiss the charges. Working with the county public defender's office, they've only been able to dismiss convictions for 22 people, Torres said. They've tracked down a couple of others who are expected to appear in court soon. The rest either haven't been found or don't want to come forward. In each case, defense lawyers have insisted on protecting the victim's right to sue for damages. But whether they get any award remains to be seen."

The entire story  can be found at:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rogue-east-cleveland-cops-framed-dozens-drug-suspects-n736671

See also the related CSIDDS (Forensics in Focus) - Framing the innocent with planted forensics evidence and lying cops -  post at the link below: "Not just a myth or a fictional plot line. This article starts in Cleveland OH and references other examples where people ‘of color’ with criminal histories get thrown into jail. In Cleveland, three police went there too. It’s called ‘framing’ the innocent. (click the above pic to go to “Youtube” vid reports on the subject."
 https://csidds.com/2017/03/27/framing-the-innocent-with-planted-forensics-evidence-and-lying-cops/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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.

Keith Harward: Prof. Brandon L. Garrett (University of Virginia law school) explains in 'The Baffler' how forensic dentistry nearly cost Keith Harward his life...."Throughout the case’s long trek through the appeals system, the bite-mark testimony retained a tenacious hold on jurists. On appeal, the Virginia court said: “Both forensic dentists testified that all gross characteristics of spacing, width, and alignment of Harward’s teeth ‘fit on the money’ the photographs of bite marks.” Harward was released last year, aged sixty, after spending thirty-three years in prison. DNA testing cleared his name and definitively matched another person, Jerry L. Crotty, who died in prison in Ohio over a decade ago, while serving time for burglary and kidnapping. What went wrong? The dentists provided a story that fit what the prosecutors wanted—a conviction. “It’s just heartbreaking to think that more than half of his life was spent behind bars when he didn’t belong there,” state attorney general Mark Herring said after Harward’s release. “The Commonwealth can’t give him back those years, but we can say that we got it wrong, that we’re sorry and that we’re working to make it right.” But what, exactly, has been done to make it right? The attorney general and the courts all promptly released Harward. The State of Virginia will probably offer him compensation. But so far, Virginia law enforcement and prosecutors have not banned the use of unreliable forensics like bite-mark testimony, as the Texas Forensic Science Commission has done."... Issue 34. (2017):

STORY "Inside the great forensic-science boondoggle," by Brandon L.  Garrett, published in Issue 34 of The Baffler. (2017); (Thanks to Mike Bowers at CSIDDS (Forensic In Focus) for bringing this important commentary to our attention.)

GIST: "As the broad echoes of the same basic story of expert hubris and misguided evidence-handling play out in the transcripts, over and over again, I re-experience some of the initial shock of my first in-depth review of a forensics-driven miscarriage of justice: the death-penalty case of Keith Harward, convicted on rape and murder charges in 1982, chiefly on testimony from two dentists about bite marks left on a victim’s legs. It is no exaggeration to say that forensic dentistry nearly cost Keith Harward his life. Starting in the 1970s, dentists versed in the basics of dental identification started to develop a lucrative sideline: offering expert forensic testimony in criminal cases. Criminal scientists had long had the ability to pursue basic mouth-related inquiries, such as matching pristine molds of teeth to identify remains. But these new experts, known as “forensic odontologists,” claimed to be able to match a suspect’s teeth to human bite marks, in the macabre kinds of assault and murder cases where such evidence looms large. The two dentists who testified in Harward’s case, Lowell Levine and Alvin Kagey, couldn’t have been more confident in their conclusions. They said Harward’s teeth had to have made the marks. Levine, in particular, was nationally known as an expert in forensic bite-mark analysis and in the forensic sciences more generally. When I briefly noted in an article I wrote in 2009 that there were invalid forensic findings in the Harward case, I had no idea that Harward was still in prison and that he had claimed his innocence for decades. In fact, right around the time I came across his trial records, he had written to the Innocence Project seeking new DNA testing to prove those dentists wrong. The results of the DNA testing would upend a battery of expert forensic evidence that had seemed to pin him down as the biter. Harward was twenty-six when the crime occurred, in 1982, in Newport News, Virginia. In the early morning, a man broke into a family’s home near the Navy yards, beat the husband to death with a crowbar, and raped his wife. During the assault, he bit her thighs and calves repeatedly. After the victim was able to summon the police to the scene, they recovered sperm from her T-shirt, and they also swabbed and photographed the bite marks on her legs. She was never able to identify the person who assaulted her, but described him as a white male who was wearing a white sailor’s uniform that had a symbol on it with three nested V’s. That symbol sounded a lot like the insignia of an E-3 Naval sailor. The USS Carl Vinson, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was at the Navy yards, and it had thousands of sailors on board.

A hunt for viable Navy suspects rapidly ensued, in what local media dubbed “the bite-mark case.” The police did a bite-mark dragnet of all the E-3 sailors. Harward was one of more than 1,000 E-3 sailors stationed on the Vinson. Apparently between 1,100 and 3,000 sailors on the Vinson were asked to provide dental records for comparison. In fact, one of those sailors was the actual culprit, but the bite experts didn’t detect him. Nor did they find evidence linking the crime to Harward. The bite-mark case remained unsolved for months, for sound scientific reasons. Comparing bite marks is not easy. People with a full set of teeth have thirty-two teeth, each with multiple surfaces. Each set of teeth carries a great deal of forensic information, which is why postmortem dental plates can be effective in identifying a corpse. However, a bite mark has a lot less information. We bite only with our front teeth: maybe four or eight teeth, and just the edges of those, are used to bite. What’s more, a bite mark in human skin may not preserve much information. To put things euphemistically, a biting situation may be “dynamic.” The parties in a biting encounter are typically moving around, struggling to either inflict or avoid a bite. To complicate matters further, skin is highly elastic and does not perfectly preserve information like a plaster dental mold would. Skin also reacts to injuries, by swelling and bruising. It can be hard to tell whether bite marks were made by a human at all. Decomposition, for one thing, greatly affects skin. In the Mississippi case of Kennedy Brewer, convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1995, an odontologist who testified frequently in Mississippi claimed that only Brewer could have made bite marks. In fact, the marks turned out to be insect bites on the victim’s body, which was, after all, found in a creek. In 2008, new DNA testing exonerated Brewer. Such fundamental uncertainty “may severely limit the validity of forensic odontology,” as the National Academy of Sciences concluded in its landmark 2009 report. This finding, crucially, doesn’t apply only to bite marks; all crime scene forensics can lack the information that pristine lab conditions might permit. Fingerprints may be smudged or partial. DNA may be mixed with several people’s genetic material, or degraded. But bite marks were always known to be especially difficult to compare. Months after the crime in Newport News, police came across what they believed was a pivotal break in the case. Harward was in court because a fight with his girlfriend had turned violent—she reported that he had bit her during the fight. Now the police thought they had their biter. They brought the victim in the bite-mark case to the courtroom in Harward’s domestic dispute—but she could not identify him. So they tried to get Harward to confess. He wouldn’t. “The detectives, all through the whole situation, tried their best to convince me to admit to something I didn’t do,” Harward said. The cops were so determined to link Harward to the crime that they hypnotized a security guard at the Navy base—and a full seven months after the crime, he identified Harward’s mugshot as that of the person whom he saw returning to the shipyard in the early morning after the murder. Enter forensic odontology. The two dentists, Kagey and Levine, testified that the bite mark matched Harward’s teeth. They told the jury that they were totally certain. Levine testified to a “very, very, very high degree of probability” that Harward’s teeth left the bite mark. Kagey testified that “there is just not anyone else that would have this unique dentition.” It was, Levine said, a “practical impossibility”—yes—“that someone else would have all [the] characteristics in combination.” They described all this in detail. They explained how they compared Polaroid images from the victim to Harward’s dental mold. They said Harward had unusual and distinctive characteristics on his teeth. One of his teeth “canted sideways” and there was a “hook type area” that seemed to match the bite mark. There was a “chipped area” and a “breakage” that aligned perfectly, they said. There were “no discrepancies.” Could that be true? Could no one else in the world have left those bite marks? How high a degree of probability is “very, very, very high”? Does that mean one in a million? One in a billion? One in a thousand? The dentists couldn’t have answered those questions, because no one knows. There were not, and still are not, any databases of bite marks. Tracing the configuration of bite marks is nothing like DNA testing, where demographic studies and statistical analysis can, with great precision, identify what segments of the population share certain genetic markers. Statistics can be used to express a DNA comparison result, but not a bite comparison. There are no population studies on bite marks, nor are there any statistics that can offer airtight identifications from other forensics far more commonly used today, such as fingerprints or ballistics. In an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch after Harward’s exoneration, Kagey explained, “At that time, bite-mark analysis was new, relatively, and there was a lot of publicity about it,” adding that “I never say about a bite mark [now], ‘He or she is the only person that could have done this.’” As a result of cases such as Harward’s, along with the West Memphis Three conviction, which also hinged on bite-mark testimony that has since been thoroughly discredited, the American Board of Forensic Odontology no longer recognizes the validity of testimony that claims total certainty. For years, the board’s guidelines allowed examiners to say that this set of teeth made that bite, to the exclusion of all other sets of teeth in the world. It was only after the National Academy of Sciences issued its 2009 report discrediting such claims that the board members changed their tune. In one important win for scientific rigor, forensic odontologists have conceded that the word “match” should not be used. Today they say, “Terms assuring unconditional identification of a perpetrator, or identification ‘without doubt,’ are not sanctioned as a final conclusions.” Instead, the dentist can say that the person “could have” created the bite marks. Nevertheless, the overall effect of the revised, and exasperatingly vague, odontologist guidelines is to continue offering cover to a multitude of sins. There are simply no standards for how much evidence it takes to conclude that bite marks “match” or even are “generally similar.” What makes the marks generally similar? What are the criteria? There are none in the field. As the Innocence Project later asserted in connection with the Harward case: “Despite the fact that for decades courts have permitted forensic dentists to testify in criminal trials, there is a complete lack of scientific support for claims that a suspect can be identified from an injury on a victim’s skin.” And this was but a restatement of the National Academy of Science’s 2009 declaration: “The scientific basis is insufficient to conclude that bite-mark comparisons can result in a conclusive match. There was more in the way of forensics in Harward’s case—and none of it implicated the suspect. None of the fingerprints that police lifted from the scene matched Harward. An expert from the Virginia crime lab also testified that blood typing on the semen evidence was inconclusive, and blood types on cigarette butts found at the scene did not match Harward. None of the hairs found in the house matched Harward. The victim could not identify Harward as her attacker. Nor had the victim described a person with a moustache, which Harward wore at the time.

But the bite marks impressed the jury, which convicted Harward of capital murder. When an appeals court later reversed Harward’s conviction on technical grounds concerning the interpretation of Virginia’s death penalty statute, a new jury sentenced Harward to life in prison. Throughout the case’s long trek through the appeals system, the bite-mark testimony retained a tenacious hold on jurists. On appeal, the Virginia court said: “Both forensic dentists testified that all gross characteristics of spacing, width, and alignment of Harward’s teeth ‘fit on the money’ the photographs of bite marks.” Harward was released last year, aged sixty, after spending thirty-three years in prison. DNA testing cleared his name and definitively matched another person, Jerry L. Crotty, who died in prison in Ohio over a decade ago, while serving time for burglary and kidnapping. What went wrong? The dentists provided a story that fit what the prosecutors wanted—a conviction. “It’s just heartbreaking to think that more than half of his life was spent behind bars when he didn’t belong there,” state attorney general Mark Herring said after Harward’s release. “The Commonwealth can’t give him back those years, but we can say that we got it wrong, that we’re sorry and that we’re working to make it right.” But what, exactly, has been done to make it right? The attorney general and the courts all promptly released Harward. The State of Virginia will probably offer him compensation. But so far, Virginia law enforcement and prosecutors have not banned the use of unreliable forensics like bite-mark testimony, as the Texas Forensic Science Commission has done.".........Meanwhile, scientists and researchers have started to make strides to improve forensics and how they are used in courtrooms. But as the White House report concluded, this isn’t a question of mere incremental tinkering. The present, scandalously unreliable state of forensic inquiry is unlikely to change unless and until the relevant pseudo-authorities are held truly accountable for the consequences of their actions. “They weren’t looking for the truth. They were looking for a conviction,” Keith Harward said after he was exonerated. No one could be bothered to listen to Harward during his 1982 trial, when it counted most for him. It is high time that we heed the lesson of his ordeal now. [*] You can read this testimony in an online archive I’ve constructed at convictingtheinnocent.com."

The entire commentary can be found at:

 https://thebaffler.com/salvos/trials-and-errors-garrett

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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.

Duane Buck: Texas: Catch-up: Houston Press: Supreme Court Gives Duane Buck a New Chance to Appeal His Death Sentence..."Duane Buck has long argued that a Harris County jury sentenced him to death by lethal injection partly because of racial prejudice after a psychologist called by his own attorney testified that Buck was more likely to commit more violent crimes because he is black. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Buck, the Houston man who brutally murdered his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend in 1995, may continue to appeal his death sentence. "

 

STORY: "Supreme Court Gives Duane Buck a New Chance to Appeal His Death Sentence," by reporter Dianna Wray, published by The Houston Press on February 22, 2017. (Dianna Wray, a nationally award-winning journalist, is a staff writer at the Houston Press. Born and raised in Houston, she writes about everything from NASA to oil to horse races.)

SUB-HEADING: "The Supreme Court has sided with Duane Buck and reopened his case.

GIST: "Duane Buck has long argued that a Harris County jury sentenced him to death by lethal injection partly because of racial prejudice after a psychologist called by his own attorney testified that Buck was more likely to commit more violent crimes because he is black. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Buck, the Houston man who brutally murdered his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend in 1995, may continue to appeal his death sentence. On Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court sided with Buck in a 6-2 ruling giving him the right to have a new hearing. In an opinion penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court concluded Buck had been given ineffective counsel because his own defense lawyers introduced racially charged testimony that helped a jury sentence him to death and then failed to challenge that testimony on appeal. There's no question of innocence here. In July 1995, a few weeks after they'd broken up, Duane Buck walked into the home of his former girlfriend, Debra Gardner, carrying a shotgun and a rifle. Buck shot his stepsister, Phyllis Taylor, and Kenneth Butler, her new boyfriend. Gardner ran out of the house and Buck followed. As her young son and daughter begged him for their mother's life, Buck shot Gardner in the chest. She and Butler died of their wounds. Taylor survived. Buck was easily convicted when he stood trial for capital murder two years later. The only question was the punishment. That's where the case went off the rails. As Roberts notes in his decision, at that time Texas juries could only impose the death penalty if it was found, unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt, that there was "a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society." The prosecutors were making a good case against Buck. They called witnesses that testified about Buck's apparent lack of remorse. A former girlfriend recounted how Buck used to hit her and had pointed a gun at her twice during their relationship. It was pretty clear that this was not a nice guy. Buck's defense counsel, Jerry Guerinot, a lawyer who was already on his way to racking up a substantial record for losing death penalty cases, as we've noted before, called his own character witnesses, even putting Buck's father and stepmother on the stand to testify that they'd never known Buck to be a violent person. But then Guerinot called Walter Quijano as an "expert" witness. Guerinot asked Quijano — who has since been found to have given problematic testimony promoting racial bias in numerous cases over the years — how the jury should judge whether Buck would be a future menace to society. “It’s a sad commentary that minorities, Hispanics and black people, are overrepresented in the criminal justice system,” Quijano replied. The prosecution was on it like a duck on a June bug and Quijano confirmed during cross-examination that it was his expert opinion that black and Hispanic people are more likely to commit violent crime. With that, the jury had enough to justify sentencing Buck to death by lethal injection, and it had all been handed over to them by Buck's own lawyer. As Roberts observes, Quijano's testimony did significant damage because when the jury was deliberating punishment, it was the one piece of "concrete" evidence they had to help weigh out the question of whether Buck was likely to commit more violent acts. On top of that, Quijano's statement tapped into a powerful stereotype, Roberts states, that black men are prone to violence. And the results were troubling, Roberts finds: "In combination with the substance of the jury’s inquiry, this created something of a perfect storm. Dr. Quijano’s opinion coincided precisely with a particularly noxious strain of racial prejudice, which itself coincided precisely with the central question at sentencing. The effect of this unusual confluence of factors was to provide support for making a decision on life or death on the basis of race." Just three years later, in 2000, then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn acknowledged that seven people, including Buck, who had been sentenced to death based on Quijano's racist testimony had been denied their constitutional right to be judged without any regard to the color of their skin. Cornyn said the state AG's office would review the sentencing hearings for these defendants. But in 2002, the AG's office, with now-Governor Greg Abbott at the helm, decided Buck should not have another hearing since, unlike in the other cases, his own attorney had called Quijano to the stand. Since then, Buck's case has bounced through the court system (The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals alone has looked at the case three times), with the state AG's office continuing to argue that this one wasn't their problem since the testimony was introduced by Buck's lawyer.........The high court thus vacated the Fifth Circuit's ruling. The vote split, with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joining Roberts in his majority opinion. The decision is being celebrated by Buck's legal team. "Today’s ruling gives us hope that the ugliness of Mr. Buck’s tainted death sentence will soon be put behind us and he will receive a life sentence,” Kate Black, senior staff attorney at Texas Defender Service and one of Buck's lawyers, stated in a release."

The entire  story can be found at:

http://www.houstonpress.com/news/supreme-court-gives-duane-buck-a-new-chance-to-appeal-his-death-sentence-9220173

Annie Dookhan: Massachusetts: Bulletin: Boston Globe Investigative reporter Shawn Musgrave reports that most drug cases handled by the former state chemist have been vacated as the saga nears its end........."District attorneys say their top priority in reviewing cases is public safety, and they might try to preserve some convictions under non-felony charges in lower courts if that means they can keep a violent offender behind bars. But prosecutors face a tough evidentiary burden to keep convictions in any cases handled by Dookhan. For all undismissed cases, the district attorneys must certify they could prove the defendant's guilt without using evidence that was tainted by Dookhan's dubious testing or testimony. That would be particularly difficult for older cases in which drug samples were destroyed years ago, or cases where the defendant pleaded guilty only after receiving results from Dookhan's analysis. All defendants whose convictions remain in place must be notified by mid-May, under the SJC's order." March 25, 2017.

"The vast majority of drug cases potentially tainted by former state chemist Annie Dookhan will be vacated by mid-April, with just a few hundred convictions out of 24,000 remaining on the books, according to district attorneys. The prosecutors have been working on a 90-day deadline issued in January by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to produce shortened lists of Dookhan convictions they believe must stay in place and are getting close to concluding......... Dookhan, who was responsible for testing drugs in about 40,000 cases at the former Hinton laboratory in Jamaica Plain from 2003 to 2012, admitted to more than two dozen charges of tampering with evidence and fabricating results. She served three years in prison, for perjury and evidence-tampering, before she was released on parole last year. Since Dookhan's misconduct came to light in 2012, defense advocates have called for erasing convictions in any case she touched. They argued that the scale of her tampering made case-by-case appeals unworkable because the process would require far too many public defenders.  The January SJC ruling pushed prosecutors toward dismissing Dookhan cases in bulk, but declined to wipe all defendants' slates clean. The court gave DAs in all seven districts an April 18 deadline to determine which convictions to dismiss and which to keep. The court made clear that prosecutors were to "reduce substantially" the number of defendants who might challenge their convictions because of Dookhan's crimes. It is not the "global" dismissal defense advocates sought, but some said they were pleased that as many as 95 percent or more of Dookhan cases may be vacated. "Even the possibility that this might happen means that anyone who cares about criminal justice in Massachusetts ought to be paying attention to April 18," said Matthew Segal, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, whose clients' lawsuit led to the SJC ruling. The court reserved the right in its ruling to dismiss additional cases if the prosecutors do not dismiss enough cases.........The unanswered questions are which convictions will remain in effect and whether individual Dookhan defendants with standing cases will appeal in court. According to one data analysis conducted by the ACLU of Massachusetts and cited by the SJC, a majority of Dookhan defendants were convicted on drug possession charges alone. Approximately 90 percent of convictions were misdemeanors or minor felonies for which defendants had already served their time, that data indicated. District attorneys say their top priority in reviewing cases is public safety, and they might try to preserve some convictions under non-felony charges in lower courts if that means they can keep a violent offender behind bars. But prosecutors face a tough evidentiary burden to keep convictions in any cases handled by Dookhan. For all undismissed cases, the district attorneys must certify they could prove the defendant's guilt without using evidence that was tainted by Dookhan's dubious testing or testimony. That would be particularly difficult for older cases in which drug samples were destroyed years ago, or cases where the defendant pleaded guilty only after receiving results from Dookhan's analysis. All defendants whose convictions remain in place must be notified by mid-May, under the SJC's order."

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/25/most-drug-cases-handled-former-state-chemist-annie-dookhan-have-been-vacated-case-nears-end/yfa6MU9P8HLdA3irE4tgnM/story.html