Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Adam Braseel: Tennessee; Mistaken eyewitness identification; Photo line-up comes under scrutiny in USA Today story: 'Issue of Innocence: Is Adam Braseel serving life for another man's crime?' by reporter Matt Linken..."Braseel’s lawyers say they recognized the case as lost from the moment Hill pointed to the defense table. “Juries believe eyewitnesses,” said attorney Bob Peters, who assisted with the defense. “She was not hesitant. I was studying the jurors’ faces, and there was not a single juror that didn’t believe her.” Courts have treated eyewitness testimony as the bedrock of convictions since the days of Moses and Hammurabi. But psychological studies and wrongful-conviction appeals over the past half-century have increasingly called that principle into question. “Mistaken eyewitness identification is the primary cause of wrongful convictions in the U.S. – about 70 percent by most estimates,” said Gary Wells, a professor of psychology at Iowa State University who has made a career of studying human memory. “There’s no other single factor that quite comes close to that. We think of eyewitness certainty as a pretty good indicator of accuracy, and if you do everything right in the initial lineup, you can count on the confidence of the witness as a pretty good predictor of what’s right or wrong. But unfortunately, things can really break down early on.” For all her ability to point out Braseel in the courtroom, Hill couldn’t give a consistent account of how she picked him out as her attacker..."“It’s ridiculous,” said William J. Bevil, a retired Brevard County, Fla., homicide detective who worked on the Braseel case as a private investigator during the initial appeals process. “That kind of lineup would never fly anywhere else in the country. Her son goes back home and lives with her. Don’t you think he’s going to say, ‘Hey, Mom, guess what? I picked the guy out.’ Right away, they have messed this case up. It’s garbage in, garbage out.”


STORY:  "Issue of innocence: Is Adam Braseel serving life for another man's crime?" by reporter Matt Lakin, published by The USA Today Network on May 19, 2017.

PHOTO CAPTION:  "A Grundy County jury found Adam Braseel guilty in 2007 of first-degree murder. A judge set him free a year-and-a-half ago and ordered a new trial, calling the evidence of Braseel’s guilt insufficient, but a state appeals court reversed the decision.

PHOTO CAPTION:  "Braseel's supporters say the lineup violated best practices and contains too many photos that don't look like the description of the killer."

PHOTO CAPTION:  "Cindy Henley served on the jury that convicted Adam Braseel of first-degree murder in 2007. She says she now believes Braseel to be innocent and that the guilty verdict was a mistake. "

GIST: "Adam Clyde Braseel clocked out of work, borrowed his mother’s car and headed to the mountain for a weekend of four-wheeling with friends. He took about a 45-minute break in between to lure an old man from home in the dark, beat him to death by the roadside, steal his wallet and try to silence an eyewitness. He made it to his next stop in time for a late supper. That’s the argument that convinced a Grundy County jury to send Braseel, then 24, to prison for life a decade ago for the death of 60-year-old Malcolm Burrows. A judge set him free a year-and-a-half ago and ordered a new trial, calling the evidence of Braseel’s guilt insufficient. The state Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the decision and took that freedom back. He’s 34 now. He’ll be 76 if he lives long enough to appear at his first parole hearing. The case has divided this small Southeast Tennessee community on the Cumberland Plateau and raised questions about the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and just what issues qualify as fair game under Tennessee’s appeals process. Braseel maintained his innocence from the moment investigators confronted him. He maintains it today.........No other suspect was ever charged in the case. Not a single piece of physical evidence linked Braseel to the crime scene – no fingerprints, no DNA, no blood, hair or clothing fibers. Prosecutors say they didn’t need it. “Two eyewitnesses clearly identified him,” said Steve Strain, the assistant 12th Judicial District attorney general who handled the trial. “He was tried like anybody else. He was represented by two established, very experienced attorneys, and the jury found him guilty.” Two more eyewitnesses swore they saw Braseel in a church parking lot at almost the exact moment of the crime. A friend testified he saw Braseel walk through his door minutes after the killing – calm, clean and composed as far as he could tell.........The Tennessee Supreme Court chose earlier this year not to hear Braseel’s case. That leaves only one further avenue of appeal – a petition in U.S. District Court to have the conviction declared unlawful and thrown out. Such petitions are rarely granted – if ever...... Braseel complied with every request from police. He agreed to a search of the Acura and signed it over to deputies. A tow truck hauled off the car, which wouldn’t start due to a dead battery. He turned over his ballcap and the clothes he said he’d worn the night before. “I gave them everything they wanted,” Braseel said. “I had nothing to hide.” Tests found none of Burrows’ blood or brain matter in the car, on the cap or on the clothes. Braseel had no visible injuries except for a bruise and small cut on his cheek – where a box had fallen on him at work, he said. He followed officers that night to the county jail in Altamont, where he let himself be fingerprinted and photographed and gave a brief statement.........The trial lasted three days in November 2007. With a judge and jury watching, Becky Hill took the witness stand and pointed out Braseel as her attacker. “He is right there,” she said. Cleek, the chief deputy, testified Hill picked Braseel out of a photo lineup days after the killing with the words, “That’s him.”.........Braseel’s lawyers say they recognized the case as lost from the moment Hill pointed to the defense table. “Juries believe eyewitnesses,” said attorney Bob Peters, who assisted with the defense. “She was not hesitant. I was studying the jurors’ faces, and there was not a single juror that didn’t believe her.” Courts have treated eyewitness testimony as the bedrock of convictions since the days of Moses and Hammurabi. But psychological studies and wrongful-conviction appeals over the past half-century have increasingly called that principle into question.
“Mistaken eyewitness identification is the primary cause of wrongful convictions in the U.S. – about 70 percent by most estimates,” said Gary Wells, a professor of psychology at Iowa State University who has made a career of studying human memory. “There’s no other single factor that quite comes close to that. We think of eyewitness certainty as a pretty good indicator of accuracy, and if you do everything right in the initial lineup, you can count on the confidence of the witness as a pretty good predictor of what’s right or wrong. But unfortunately, things can really break down early on.” For all her ability to point out Braseel in the courtroom, Hill couldn’t give a consistent account of how she picked him out as her attacker. She testified at a preliminary hearing about six weeks after the killing that the sheriff and the chief deputy came to her sister’s home a day or two after she returned from the hospital. They sat at the kitchen table, showed her a photo lineup, and “once I seen the picture I knowed him. … None of (the others) look like him.” At the trial, 22 months after the killing, Hill swore she’d gone to the jail for the lineup. “I’m not sure if I looked at (the photos) at my sister’s or not,” she testified. “I did go to the jail and look at them. … I had been heavily medicated. I wasn’t at myself at that time real good. … I knowed exactly what I was telling them. I knowed what I was doing.” Cleek, the chief deputy, insists officers went to visit Hill immediately after she left the hospital but didn’t try to show her a lineup because she was still in too much of a daze. “I did not present the photo lineup to her then because I did not feel she was up to it,” he said. “I was the one who sat two inches away from Becky Hill (later) when she poked her finger on that photo of Adam Braseel. To me, she was certain. That lineup, introduced as an exhibit at trial, consists of eight color mug shots – four on top, four on the bottom – with Braseel’s on the bottom near the center. Five of the men in the photos have bangs or bushy hair. Four appear to be at least middle-aged or older. Three have beards. Only Braseel’s and another photo show close-cropped hair. Not everyone pictured has red hair. Grundy County authorities didn’t record Hill’s identification, on audio or video. The only record of the process to make its way into the court file consists of an undated report prepared under the name of Myers, the sheriff. “She told me that she could not positively identify the car but that she would never forget the person’s face that assaulted her,” the sheriff wrote. “When she saw his picture she began to cry. She told me that she knew that this would not bring Malcolm back but that she would never forget Adam Brazeel’s (sic) face when he assaulted her.” Myers didn’t respond to repeated efforts to reach him for this story. Defense lawyers made no objection to the lineup. “Frankly, I’m appalled at what I’m hearing,” said Wells, the eyewitness expert, who has no ties to Braseel’s defense. “I hesitate to criticize law enforcement in a case like this, because they often have small staffs and because it’s easy to hindsight people. But there needs to be some kind of clear, documented identification process. There should be filler (photos) of people who look like the suspect. The person conducting the lineup should be someone other than the case detective, someone who doesn’t even know which photo is the suspect’s so that they can’t unconsciously influence the witness. You shouldn’t be able to look at the lineup and tell which person is the suspect. When that doesn’t happen, it’s up to defense attorneys to hold law enforcement to account.” The official photo lineup with Hill didn’t take place until Jan. 16 – nine days after the killing and a week after her son, who was still living with her, had already identified Braseel’s photo in a process that raised further questions. That identification rated only a pair of sentences in the sheriff’s report. But at trial, Myers admitted things hadn’t gone as planned. The sheriff testified he’d been clipping out mug shots on a desk in an unsecured trailer outside the jail to paste into a lineup when Braden burst in unannounced.
“All of those photos was on the desk … and when he sat down he pointed at the picture and told me that that picture was the one that had did it,” Myers testified. “When he did that, I picked all those photos up in my hand, and I handed ‘em to him and I told him that I wanted him to make sure that he had picked out the right photo.” The sheriff said he couldn’t remember how the photos were arranged on the desk, how many lay face-up or how many face-down. Braden swore he saw Braseel’s photo first, then the others. “He showed me the first photo and I identified him,” the son testified. “He come up and asked me, yes, ‘Is this the man who done it?’ … He showed me three or four. … I couldn’t tell you how many (photos). There was a stack.” Experts say that’s one of the worst possible ways to conduct a photo lineup. “People want to believe the human memory is like a camera, but it’s more like an Etch-A-Sketch,” said Wells, the psychology professor. “Memory is malleable. Every time you remember an event, you reshape it in your mind. Once a witness identifies a suspect, then he becomes their memory. When they think back to the crime, they see his face. Their recollection is tainted, and there’s no way to get that back.” No one at the trial ever asked Hill or Braden whether they’d talked about his making the identification first. “It’s ridiculous,” said William J. Bevil, a retired Brevard County, Fla., homicide detective who worked on the Braseel case as a private investigator during the initial appeals process. “That kind of lineup would never fly anywhere else in the country. Her son goes back home and lives with her. Don’t you think he’s going to say, ‘Hey, Mom, guess what? I picked the guy out.’ Right away, they have messed this case up. It’s garbage in, garbage out.” Hill died in 2011, and Braden couldn’t be reached for this story. A knock at his door in Tracy City drew no answer. Defense lawyers had the right to challenge Hill’s and Braden’s identifications as tainted and try to keep the jury from hearing that testimony......... Jurors deliberated for a total of about three hours before finding Braseel guilty of first-degree murder in Burrows’ death, attempted first-degree murder in the beating of Hill and especially aggravated robbery. Circuit Judge Buddy Perry pronounced the sentence – life in prison. At least one member of the jury says she’s had second thoughts from the moment the foreman read the verdict. “It was wrong,” said Cindy Henley, who insists she argued against conviction but gave into pressure from her fellow jurors. “I don’t remember anybody else in the jury room questioning anything. I think most of them just wanted to go home. But I will never forget the look on that man’s face. I still feel guilty about that.” A review by the state Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the overall conviction and rejected the idea the photo lineups had violated Braseel’s rights. Next came the post-conviction process, when inmates get the chance to argue at the local court level for new trials based on due process violations or newly discovered evidence. A hearing on Braseel’s petition, argued by Knoxville attorney Doug Trant, reached the court docket on Nov. 17, 2015, eight years after Braseel’s conviction. A new judge, Justin Angel, five years out of law school and elected to the bench just a year before, presided this time. Trant’s argument rested primarily on the problematic nature of Hill’s and Braden’s identifications, on additional witnesses supporting Braseel’s alibi – including Jake Baum, who’d been on active duty with the Army during the trial – and on testimony pointing to other potential suspects in Burrows’ death. Trant argued Braseel’s lawyers failed him by not objecting and by not driving those points home with jurors. “Those are such important issues that certainly the defense counsel should have run with it,” Trant said. “I think they just didn’t see it.” The judge issued his decision on Christmas Day. “Identification alone is all that ties the petitioner to the crimes,” Angel wrote. Based on “clear and convincing evidence … The petitioner is entitled to a new jury trial. Braseel came home from prison, released on bond as he waited for a new trial that never came. He worked a construction job while living with his mother and sister, who’d moved back to Pelham since the trial. “I was a free man – justly free – for 10 months,” he said. “I thought it was all over with. It’s a beautiful thing to have your physical freedom, especially after it’s been taken away from you once. I take a lot less things for granted now.” That freedom didn’t last. Prosecutors appealed the judge’s decision as unfounded. The state Court of Criminal Appeals agreed. Neither of Braseel’s original lawyers testified at the post-conviction hearing. Without hearing from the attorneys, any ruling on their effectiveness amounted to guesswork, the court ruled. “A defendant in a criminal case is not entitled to perfect representation, only constitutionally adequate representation,” Judge Timothy Easter wrote. “These witnesses had a substantial and prolonged opportunity to observe the offender amid adequate lighting and from close distances. The witnesses expressed certainty . … No probability exists that the result of the trial would have been different (had the defense objected to the identifications).” That decision sent Braseel back to the prison cell where he sits today at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex in Pikeville, Tenn. His appeals at the state level ran out in March when the Tennessee Supreme Court declined to hear his case.........Braseel’s latest attorney, Alex Little, hopes to file a petition in federal court by the end of the month. Just persuading a judge to hear that plea won’t be easy, as such hearings typically deal only with death-penalty cases or clear questions of constitutional rights."

The entire story can be found at:
http://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2017/05/19/issue-innocence-adam-braseel-serving-life-another-mans-crime/325458001/

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;

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Motherisk: Hospital for Sick Children. Toronto; Major Development; Reporter Rachel Mendleson (Toronto Star) reports that "The stunning litany of problems uncovered at the Hospital for Sick Children’s Motherisk laboratory has prompted the province to launch a review of the oversight and accountability of Ontario’s forensic labs."..."The Motherisk scandal, which was revealed by a Star investigation in late 2014, has cast doubt over thousands of child protection proceedings across Canada that relied on the lab’s discredited hair-strand drug and alcohol tests from the late ’90s to spring of 2015, when Sick Kids closed the lab. It also exposed oversight gaps at Sick Kids and in the justice system, which failed to ensure that Motherisk’s hair tests met the high bar for evidence presented in court, and has served as yet another reminder of the dangers of flawed forensics. In December 2015, a retired judge appointed by the province to review the previous decade’s worth of Motherisk hair tests concluded the lab’s operations “fell woefully short of internationally recognized forensic standards,” and the tests were “inadequate” and “unreliable” for use in criminal and child protection cases. Motherisk was never accredited as a forensic lab. It did not have clinical accreditation, which is not as stringent as forensic accreditation but ensures basic standards are being met, until 2011. In her report, Justice Susan Lang found the lab did not double-check results before August 2010, until which point it reported screening-test results despite “an explicit warning” that the results were preliminary and must be confirmed. Neither the hospital nor Motherisk leadership appreciated that the nature of the tests the lab carried out was forensic, which Lang defined as being “used for a legal purpose.” Staff routinely performed a forensic service yet lacked the forensic training required to meet the stringent standards for evidence presented in court, she said. Lang also found Sick Kids failed to provide “meaningful oversight” and did not learn from the lessons of the 2008 public inquiry into Charles Smith, a former Sick Kids pediatric forensic pathologist, whose flawed autopsy analyses tainted more than a dozen cases."



STORY: "Motherisk scandal prompts review of Ontario’s forensic labs," by Rachel Mendleson, published by The Toronto Star on May 30, 2017.


SUB-HEADING: "Community Safety Minister Marie-France Lalonde says the province "will be moving forward on mandatory accreditation" for Ontario forensic labs, in the wake of the Motherisk scandal."


It also exposed oversight gaps at Sick Kids and in the justice system, which failed to ensure that Motherisk’s hair tests met the high bar for evidence presented in court, and has served as yet another reminder of the dangers of flawed forensics. In December 2015, a retired judge appointed by the province to review the previous decade’s worth of Motherisk hair tests concluded the lab’s operations “fell woefully short of internationally recognized forensic standards,” and the tests were “inadequate” and “unreliable” for use in criminal and child protection cases. Motherisk was never accredited as a forensic lab. It did not have clinical accreditation, which is not as stringent as forensic accreditation but ensures basic standards are being met, until 2011. In her report, Justice Susan Lang found the lab did not double-check results before August 2010, until which point it reported screening-test results despite “an explicit warning” that the results were preliminary and must be confirmed. Neither the hospital nor Motherisk leadership appreciated that the nature of the tests the lab carried out was forensic, which Lang defined as being “used for a legal purpose.” Staff routinely performed a forensic service yet lacked the forensic training required to meet the stringent standards for evidence presented in court, she said. Lang also found Sick Kids failed to provide “meaningful oversight” and did not learn from the lessons of the 2008 public inquiry into Charles Smith, a former Sick Kids pediatric forensic pathologist, whose flawed autopsy analyses tainted more than a dozen cases. Lalonde said these incidents have prompted the province to explore the possibility of creating a process of mandatory accreditation for labs performing forensic services “in a very serious way.”........As Lang said in her report, forensic accreditation is not currently required for a lab to perform tests for forensic purposes. The Standards Council of Canada, a federal Crown corporation, is responsible for accrediting forensic labs based on international standards, which include strict rules for documentation and chain-of-custody procedures. Toronto criminal defence lawyer James Lockyer, who was instrumental in exposing the failings at Motherisk, said the review is long overdue. “If a proper accreditation process had been in place 10 years ago for Motherisk, presumably we wouldn’t have had these problems. They would have been compelled to function properly in a scientific manner,” he said. From 2005 to 2015, Motherisk performed its hair-strand tests for 16,000 individuals at the request of Ontario’s child protection agencies — 54 per cent of whom tested positive for drugs or alcohol, Lang found. The tests were also relied upon in thousands of child protection cases in B.C., Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Between January 2007 and March 2015, the lab’s revenues exceeded $11 million, $6.8 million of which came from children’s aid organizations, as the Star has previously reported. Used primarily as evidence of parental substance abuse, the results of Motherisk’s hair tests were rarely challenged in legal proceedings, and influenced decisions to remove children from their families. On Lang’s recommendation, the province established the Motherisk Commission in January to probe child protection cases in Ontario that relied, in part, on Motherisk’s hair testing evidence, and offer counselling and legal assistance to affected families. Led by retired judge Judith Beaman, the commission has identified 41 cases in which there was a “substantial reliance” on Motherisk testing out of 701 files reviewed so far. Motherisk founder and longtime director Gideon Koren, who retired from Sick Kids in the summer of 2015 and is now working in Israel, is under investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Sick Kids, Koren and former Motherisk lab manager Joey Gareri are named in several lawsuits, including a proposed class action seeking $200 million in damages for negligence and $250 million in punitive damages."

The entire story can be found at: 
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/05/30/motherisk-scandal-prompts-review-of-ontarios-forensic-labs.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.

Former prosecutor John H. Jackson: Texas: Leading Florida journalist John Torres, says Florida, like Texas, has prosecutors who deserve to be brought to account for misconduct..."A Texas prosecutor-turned-judge was brought before a jury to answer accusations of misconduct related to the case he presented in 1992 that resulted in the execution of a father convicted of killing his three daughters. Judge John H. Jackson was accused of concealing evidence by conspiring with a jailhouse snitch for favorable testimony in exchange for leniency when he was a prosecutor. He was cleared last week. What's so remarkable isn't that he was cleared, but that Jackson was even facing the charge to begin with. The civil action, brought by the Texas Bar Association, could have resulted in Jackson losing his law license. The case offers hope to anyone wondering why Brevard County prosecutors -- in particular Dean Moxley -- have never been held accountable for several wrongful and dubious convictions from the early 1980s. As chronicled in Florida Today throughout the last two weeks as well as in the podcast "Murder on the Space Coast," Brevard prosecutors used a formula or playbook to win cases with little evidence that resulted in innocent men going to prison. That playbook involved fake evidence from a fraudulent dog handler as well as the use of jailhouse snitches, whose deals with the state were only revealed after the trials -- the very same reason Jackson was brought to trial in Texas."


COMMENTARY: " So, prosecutors can be made to answer after all," by John Torres, published by Florida Today on May 19, 2017.

PHOTO CAPTION:  "Judge Dean Moxley has refused to comment on his record as a prosecutor. Junk science and jailhouse snitches fueled several of his convictions, some of whom were innocent men."

GIST: A Texas prosecutor-turned-judge was brought before a jury to answer accusations of misconduct related to the case he presented in 1992 that resulted in the execution of a father convicted of killing his three daughters. Judge John H. Jackson was accused of concealing evidence by conspiring with a jailhouse snitch for favorable testimony in exchange for leniency when he was a prosecutor. He was cleared last week. What's so remarkable isn't that he was cleared, but that Jackson was even facing the charge to begin with. The civil action, brought by the Texas Bar Association, could have resulted in Jackson losing his law license.  The case offers hope to anyone wondering why Brevard County prosecutors -- in particular Dean Moxley -- have never been held accountable for several wrongful and dubious convictions from the early 1980s. As chronicled in Florida Today throughout the last two weeks as well as in the podcast "Murder on the Space Coast," Brevard prosecutors used a formula or playbook to win cases with little evidence that resulted in innocent men going to prison. That playbook involved fake evidence from a fraudulent dog handler as well as the use of jailhouse snitches, whose deals with the state were only revealed after the trials -- the very same reason Jackson was brought to trial in Texas. Moxley has denied my interview requests over the years pertaining to these cases. In Texas, the state bar had accused Jackson of not revealing that a jailhouse snitch in the case against Cameron Todd Willingham was promised a reduced sentence in exchange for his testimony. "Before, during, and after the 1992 trial, Respondent knew of the existence of evidence that tended to negate the guilt of Willingham and failed to disclose that evidence to defense counsel," the complaint against Jackson read. That snitch recanted his story later and said Jackson had told him what to say. Jackson had previously come under scrutiny for using junk science -- discredited arson theories -- in the case against Willingham. Jackson argued that Willingham had spread lighter fluid around his home But shortly before Willingham was executed in 2004, an independent fire investigator determined there was no arson. That same conclusion has been reached numerous times over the last several years by other fire experts. If this sounds similar to Brevard County cases it's because it is. Brevard County prosecutors used junk science, which was already being scrutinized, discredited and debunked, in addition to jailhouse snitches whose deals were only revealed after trial, to convict Wilton Dedge, William Dillon and Juan Ramos. Dedge and Dillon were exonerated through DNA testing after spending decades behind bars. Ramos was acquitted during re-trial after only a few hours when the state was unable to use the dog handler, John Preston. Brevard prosecutors also used that same formula to convict and execute Gerald Stano of a murder that many believe he did not commit and Gary Bennett, who remains in prison after 33 years. Moxley personally prosecuted Bennett, Stano, Ramos and Dedge while supervising Dillon's prosecution. In two of the five cases, Moxley relied on the testimony of jailhouse snitch Clarence Zacke, a murderer, drug trafficker and child rapist who was convicted of killing the brother of a prosecutor and conspiring to kill a judge and the state attorney. Zacke testified that he had no deal in place with the state for his testimony against Dedge and was only doing it because he hated anyone who hurt women. Prosecutors were aware that Zacke's 11-year-old adopted daughter had testified that Zacke raped her for years and yet allowed him to testify.  Years later he was secretly recorded telling a New York journalist that Moxley and fellow prosecutor Chris White told him what to say during the Stano trial. In exchange for his testimony, Zacke's prison sentence went from 180 years to 18. At a round-table event held last week featuring Wilton Dedge and longtime Public Defender J.R. Russo as well as Zacke's rape victim -- Michelle Martin -- local attorney Sammy Cacciatore mentioned the possibility of someone lodging a complaint with the Florida Bar Association. And that's exactly what needs to happen. Florida needs to follow suit and do what the bar in Texas just did. The result is not as important. Maybe John H. Jackson in Texas sent an innocent man to his death. Maybe he just got away with it. But at least he had to answer for his actions in court and that's more, way more, than Moxley has ever had to do here in Florida."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2017/05/19/torres-so-prosecutors-can-made-answer-after-all/101714586/

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;

Monday, May 29, 2017

Staff Sergeant Brad Murray: Halton Region, Ontario: Alleged drug evidence tampering: Bulletin: The Halton Region Drug Squad Officer (16 years on the Halton force) faces charges of breach of trust, theft and obstruction of justice after a probe found more than 30 exhibits from a series of court cases had been tampered with........."A Star investigation previously revealed that an internal Halton police audit in November found at least 36 exhibits whose packaging had been compromised, throwing prosecutions into jeopardy. A summary of the findings indicated the contents of the exhibits may have been compromised as well. Tanner asked Toronto police to conduct an independent criminal probe into the tampered exhibits."..." As staff sergeant, Murray would have had a swipe card that allowed him access to the drug vault, Tanner told the Star. While it was preferred that two officers go into the vault together, this might not always have been the case, he said."..."Murray’s arrest also raises questions about a program he ran encouraging the public to drop off unwanted medications — including prescription painkillers — at local police stations and pharmacies." Reporters Jesse McLean, Rachel Mendleson and Jackie Hong; Toronto Star. 28 May, 2017.


"The former head of Halton Region’s police drug squad, who once boasted of major busts and encouraged residents to drop off their unused prescription painkillers so police could properly dispose of them, has been arrested and accused of using his position to steal drug exhibits stored in an evidence vault. Brad Murray, a staff sergeant with 16 years on the Halton force, was charged Sunday with obstruction of justice and two counts each of theft under $5,000 and breach of trust following a seven-month internal probe and external investigation by Toronto police. The probe revealed that more than 30 exhibits from a series of court cases had been tampered with. In all instances, the affected exhibits were prescription painkillers such as OxyContin. “In all likelihood, all of these cases will have to be stayed or withdrawn, which is a shame,” Halton police Chief Stephen Tanner said in an interview Sunday. “But that’s the cost of what this person did.”Murray has been suspended with pay. The allegations against him have not been proven in court. The veteran officer was already facing internal discipline for an incident in which he allegedly obtained prescription painkillers from an officer under his command, Tanner said. Murray has not responded to numerous requests for comment from the Star. A Star investigation previously revealed that an internal Halton police audit in November found at least 36 exhibits whose packaging had been compromised, throwing prosecutions into jeopardy. A summary of the findings indicated the contents of the exhibits may have been compromised as well. Tanner asked Toronto police to conduct an independent criminal probe into the tampered exhibits. “We recognize the impact such news brings to you, the people we serve, and to the reputation of our service,” Tanner said in a release on Sunday. “It violates public trust in the work we do and is an affront to the Canadian justice system as a whole. As such we are committed to dealing with this issue transparently and thoroughly.” Murray was a member and supervisor of Halton’s drug and morality unit from January 2013 to May 2016, “during which time the criminal offences are alleged to have occurred,” the release stated. As staff sergeant, Murray would have had a swipe card that allowed him access to the drug vault, Tanner told the Star. While it was preferred that two officers go into the vault together, this might not always have been the case, he said.........Murray’s arrest also raises questions about a program he ran encouraging the public to drop off unwanted medications — including prescription painkillers — at local police stations and pharmacies. In 2013, as a detective on the newly formed integrated drug, gun and gang unit, he was the force’s public face announcing the squad’s first arrests, in which officers seized three pounds of marijuana and some cocaine. “It won’t affect the supply and demand. What it will do is put the word out that we’re here,” he said. Murray later became the head of the drug and gang unit. He warned the public of the black market’s increasing thirst for opiate-based prescription painkillers, and championed a program encouraging the public to dispose of their unwanted and potentially harmful medications at local pharmacies or police stations. Each month, the program collected roughly 80 pounds of medicine — everything from narcotics to blood pressure pills to herbal remedies — preventing the drugs from being flushed down the toilet or ending up on the street. “Most harmful drugs are found at home. Essentially, the (inadvertent drug) trafficker is living at home,” Murray told the Burlington Post in 2015. Pharmacist Samir Patel worked with Murray in the program, collecting customers’ unwanted drugs at his pharmacies. “He would call me or text me, say, ‘Hey, how much do you have? Do you have a lot of stuff there?’ I’d say, ‘Yup, we have this much. If you want to come by it’s a good amount,’” Patel said in an interview......... The program with Halton police ended once Murray moved from the drug squad, said Patel, though the pharmacist continues to dispose of unwanted medications through another program. Tanner said there is no current evidence suggesting any of the pharmaceutical drugs collected by Murray or Halton police through the program have been misused or stolen. “In hindsight, I have concern that it is certainly possible,” he told the Star. In a press release, Halton police said it has implemented additional measures to preserve the integrity of all seized drug exhibits."
https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2017/05/28/halton-police-staff-sergeant-charged-after-drug-evidence-tampering.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;

Kathleen Zelner: Clyde Ray Spenser: White Elephant Cases? Steven Avery's lawyer scores a $9 million victory for Spencer in lawsuit over his wrongful sexual abuse conviction in 1985. (His sentence was commuted in 2004, thanks to evidence found to be fabricated..."A former Vancouver, Washington, police officer, Spencer spent nearly 20 years in prison. His sentence was commuted in 2004, thanks to evidence found to be fabricated. There's a lot more to the story, of course, and the Columbian can fill you in. But it could be seen as another reason for Avery backers to feel good about Zellner being in the mix. Zellner, who vowed to prove Avery's innocence in the 2005 death of Teresa Halbach, sent out a tweet Thursday telling "fabricators of evidence" to "beware." As "Making a Murderer" viewers will recall, accusations of evidence-planting have, and were, a major part of the arguments from the pro-Avery camp."


Image result for "white elephant"

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;

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

STORY: "Steven Avery lawyer Kathleen Zellner scores victory," by reporter Shane Nyman, published by The USA Today Network on May 19, 2017.

GIST: "Kathleen Zellner scored a win this week, just not the one Steven Avery supporters were hoping for. Zellner, the Chicago lawyer leading Avery's fight for freedom, helped a man named Clyde Ray Spencer catch a $9 million jury award for his wrongful sexual abuse conviction in 1985. A former Vancouver, Washington, police officer, Spencer spent nearly 20 years in prison. His sentence was commuted in 2004, thanks to evidence found to be fabricated. There's a lot more to the story, of course, and the Columbian can fill you in. But it could be seen as another reason for Avery backers to feel good about Zellner being in the mix. Zellner, who vowed to prove Avery's innocence in the 2005 death of Teresa Halbach, sent out a tweet Thursday telling "fabricators of evidence" to "beware." As "Making a Murderer" viewers will recall, accusations of evidence-planting have, and were, a major part of the arguments from the pro-Avery camp. For Zellner's 17 months as Avery's lawyer, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin investigative reporter John Ferak took a look last week at the bold claims she's made since jumping into the fray and what — at least from what we can see from the outside — has actually materialized."
http://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/local/steven-avery/2017/05/19/steven-avery-lawyer-kathleen-zellner-scores-victory/101870656/

The Columbian story can be found at the link below: "Clyde Ray Spencer was awarded $9 million Monday by a federal jury that unanimously agreed a detective from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office violated Spencer’s constitutional right to due process by fabricating the evidence that put him behind bars for two decades for sexually abusing his two children and a stepson. The $9 million award is the highest in Washington in a civil rights case, said Kathleen Zellner, Spencer’s attorney.  “Justice was served — even though it took 30 years,” Zellner said. “We were able to prove they framed him. We’ve proven the evidence was fabricated. And, after 30 years, that’s remarkable. Justice is alive and well in Washington.”.........Clark County Prosecutor Tony Golik, who took office in January 2011, called the verdict “extremely troubling” on Monday.“We need to look specifically at the facts of this, and the findings that the jury made,” Golik said. He said prosecutors will be researching other cases investigated by Sharon Krause. If they find cases similar to Spencer’s, they have a duty to notify defendants’ attorneys of the Spencer verdict.Krause’s supervisor, Sgt. Mike Davidson, was also found liable by the jury. Krause and Davidson are both retired, but the county paid for their legal counsel.........The county could appeal the verdict or argue it shouldn’t have to pay the award because Krause, by fabricating evidence, was acting outside the scope of her duties, Wilsdon said. They’ll also discuss asking Spencer to consider a smaller settlement in exchange for not appealing the verdict.........The jury heard testimony from 25 witnesses over 13 days in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, including Spencer’s son and daughter, Matt Spencer and Katie Spencer Tetz.
They each spent a grueling day and a half on the witness stand refuting the graphic sexual abuse allegations that Krause fabricated as part of investigative reports that sent Spencer to prison.
They also endured Guy Bogdanovich and Jeffrey Freimund, attorneys for Krause and Davidson, respectively, trying to blame them for Spencer’s wrongful conviction. “That has to be the toughest part for me,” Tetz said. “To get up there on the witness stand and re-live it. To listen to (the defense) bash your family. And to have them keep putting the blame on me, trying to paint me as this sexualized, manipulative 5-year-old child,” the latter a result, Krause tried to suggest, of abuse by her father......... Jurors also heard from Matt Hansen, who maintains that he was abused by his stepfather, and jurors learned about evidence that went missing. That included medical exams that showed Spencer’s daughter and stepson had not been physically abused.
There also was a video of former deputy prosecutor James Peters interviewing Tetz that disappeared almost as soon as it was made. It turned up in Krause’s garage in 2009. She testified that she didn’t remember the video being taped, or how it ended up in her garage. That video would have hurt the state’s case, Spencer’s attorneys argued.On the witness stand, Krause was unable to explain why there were two separate evidence indexes created in the case — one that included the medical exams and one that didn’t. She testified that she didn’t recall preparing the indexes, but she didn’t dispute that it was her work. Jurors also heard that Davidson had an affair with Spencer’s wife, a relationship Davidson maintained didn’t begin until after Spencer went to prison and the couple divorced. Krause testified that she became interested in police work during her seven years as a hotel clerk after getting to know Portland police officers who came to the hotel bar. She worked as a records clerk and a dispatcher for the Vancouver Police Department before joining the Clark County Sheriff’s Department in 1975. After three years as a patrol deputy, she became a detective and was soon investigating child sex abuse — a job there was no training for at the time, she testified. Krause spent the duration of her career investigating sex abuse cases and retired in 1995. She lives in Arizona, while Davidson lives in central Oregon. The four-man, four-woman jury deliberated approximately 13 hours over three days before answering five questions. Question No. 1: “Was plaintiff’s Constitutional right to due process of law violated by being subjected to criminal charges on false evidence deliberately fabricated by defendant Krause when she knew or should have known plaintiff was innocent of the crimes he was ultimately charged with?” Answer: Yes. Other questions dealt with Davidson’s liability, whether or not Davidson and Krause conspired to deprive Spencer of his rights (that answer was “no”) and if Krause’s fabricated reports were the “moving force” behind Spencer going to prison. Because the answer to that question was “yes,” the final question was how much money Spencer should receive. Spencer’s attorney suggested last week during closing arguments that $1 million a year would be fair, but jurors, without explanation on the verdict form, settled on $9 million......... Spencer and his family will ask the state Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to pursue a criminal corruption investigation now that they have proven the evidence was fabricated. Going forward, Tetz hopes to start a foundation to support wrongfully convicted adults and their children.  “I think this happens far more often than people realize,” Tetz said. “It just destroys families.”
 http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/feb/03/jury-awards-9-million-spencer/

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; 

Sunday, May 28, 2017

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Session's war on science/forensics: (Part 19): Sessions in perspective..."Jeff Sessions has done more damage in his first 100 days than his boss."... Hanna Kozlowska...Quartz...."Sessions’ biggest actions, from undermining federal oversight of police departments to cracking down on undocumented immigrants, have worried a wide array of lawmakers, law-enforcement leaders, advocates and scientists. “Of all the cabinet members, maybe even the president, he has to this point had the most significant impact as to policy changes,” said Jesselyn McCurdy, the deputy director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Washington Legislative Office told Quartz. Unlike his boss, Sessions is delivering on what he has promised—sometimes on causes he has championed for decades."; 19 May, 2017.


STORY: "Jeff Sessions has done more damage in his first 100 days than his boss,"  by reporter Hanna Kozlowska, published by Quartz on May 19, 2017. (From Quarz: Hanna  Kozlowska is a reporter at Quartz. She previously worked for the New York Times as a digital writer for NYT Opinion, and was a fellow at Foreign Policy magazine. Prior to FP, Hanna was a stringer for the New York Times in Poland. She graduated from Swarthmore College. Her obsessions include politics, Eastern Europe, human rights, and the American criminal justice system.........Quartz is a digitally native news outlet, born in 2012, for business people in the new global economy. We publish bracingly creative and intelligent journalism with a broad worldview, built primarily for the devices closest at hand: tablets and mobile phones. Like Wired in the 1990s and The Economist in the 1840s, Quartz embodies the era in which it is being created. The financial crisis that recently engulfed much of the world wasn’t just a cyclical decline or a correction or even a bubble bursting. It was a breaking point. And its shockwaves exposed a fundamentally changed economic order with new leaders and ways of doing business.)

GIST: 'US attorney general Jeff Sessions may not be part of the biggest investigation in the Department of Justice, but as he reaches 100 days in office, there’s little doubt that he’s had an important impact on the American criminal-justice system—potentially for years to come. Despite the political turmoil of the Trump administration, Sessions has moved to reverse a tide of progressive reform and to fulfill his boss’s law-and-order agenda, a collection of concepts loosely articulated during the 2016 presidential campaign. Sessions’ biggest actions, from undermining federal oversight of police departments to cracking down on undocumented immigrants, have worried a wide array of lawmakers, law-enforcement leaders, advocates and scientists. “Of all the cabinet members, maybe even the president, he has to this point had the most significant impact as to policy changes,” said Jesselyn McCurdy, the deputy director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Washington Legislative Office told Quartz. Unlike his boss, Sessions is delivering on what he has promised—sometimes on causes he has championed for decades. “There’s been a great bipartisan movement by organizations on the ground and members of Congress to reform the federal criminal-justice system, based on successes that have happened in the states, but the leader of opposition to that reform was Jeff Sessions, as a senator from Alabama,” McCurdy said. “These are all things that [Sessions], as a criminal justice reform opponent, had on his radar already. McCurdy said Sessions was “definitely” living up to the ACLU’s concerns, and in some areas, fulfilling the worst-case scenarios. Here’s a look at what Sessions has managed to do in just a few short months: (This list of criminal justice measures launched by sessions includes: 'Downplayed the importance of science in courtroom.'..."In yet another reversal from the previous administration, the DOJ under Sessions will not go out of its way to advance and promote reliable science in the courtroom, despite pleas from the country’s top criminologists and forensic scientists. Sessions did not renew the term of the National Commission on Forensic Science, a body formed in 2013 to study methods used to gather and assess evidence in US crime labs, some of which had been discredited as scientifically unsound. Instead, forensic science will now fall under the purview of an internal task force—a move experts warned against. The DOJ also suspended a review of testimony by FBI experts, who have been giving misleading accounts about evidence in court for years."



The entire story can be found at:
https://qz.com/987299/donald-trumps-attorney-general-jeff-sessions-has-done-more-damage-in-his-first-100-days-than-even-his-boss/

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;

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Desmond Hicks: Michigan; Cleared of murder after 25 years behind bars; New tests on bullets supported his remarkable that police framed him with bogus evidence.......The bullets were in poor shape and didn't resemble the pristine bullets that were presented as evidence by Detroit police in 1992. Police at that time said a gun belonging to Ricks' mother was the murder weapon, but new tests now have ruled out any connection, Innocence Clinic director David Moran said. One of the bullets doesn't match the gun, and the other bullet was too mutilated for a thorough analysis, he said. "Ricks was a great advocate for his own cause," Moran said. "What he was saying seemed to be outlandish: The Detroit police crime lab would not only make mistakes but switch bullets. It wasn't outlandish — it was true. This outlandish conduct cost Desmond Ricks 25 years."




Image result for "white elephant"

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;

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

STORY: "Bullet Tests Clear Detroit Man in Prison Since 1992," by reporter Ed white, Associated Press; May 26, 2017.

Townshend said they didn't resemble the actual bullets that were locked away in police storage and produced just two years ago. "Townshend's a hero," Moran said. "He was willing to put his reputation on the line."

The entire story can be found at:

 https://www.forensicmag.com/news/2017/05/bullet-tests-clear-detroit-man-prison-1992

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.

Attorney General Jeff Session's war on science/forensics: (Part 18): Six scientists explain why "We Must Strengthen the "Science" in Forensic Science," in Scientific American..."The Justice Department is home to many dedicated public servants including scientists whose passion for justice is unquestioned. However, DOJ is not a scientific body, and it is difficult to see how forensic science can become a true science in that environment. Science flourishes when free and independent; only then can the tools and technology that it creates be truly reliable. Scientists and the justice department can do the necessary research to put forensic techniques on a scientifically sound footing, or they can retreat into the status quo in which untested forensic practices are admitted in court simply because they have been in the past. Proclaiming evidence to be scientific does make it so. Given this state of affairs, we are bewildered by the decision to end the NCFS. Questions about the validity of forensic science will not go away. Failure to address them will lead to further convictions of innocent people. For our society, the stakes don’t get much higher."


COMMENTARY: "We Must Strengthen the "Science" in Forensic Science," by By Sunita Sah, Arturo Casadevall, Suzanne Bell, S. James Gates Jr., Thomas D. Albright, M. Bonner Denton, published by  Scientific American on May 8, 2017."

SUB-HEADING: "A national commission created to improve the reliability of forensics has been dealt a possibly fatal blow."

GIST:  "Keith Allen Harward served 33 years in jail after being convicted of rape and murder, largely on the strength of bite mark evidence. He was subsequently found to be innocent on the basis of DNA evidence and released. During his incarceration the actual criminal remained free and committed other crimes. This miscarriage of justice was the result of bad science. Bite mark evidence has been shown to lack any scientific credibility, yet it continues to be used in court. To a public accustomed to watching crimes being solved on television shows, where the results are always pristine and the guilty are always convicted, there is a perception that forensic science is flawless. The reality is that it is not, and we are in danger of halting and even reversing the considerable progress that has been made in improving it. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences evaluated the state of forensic science and, shockingly, concluded that many of the techniques used in court actually have no scientific validity. This means that the science used to convict the accused is neither reliable, nor robust and cannot be trusted in a court of law. In response to this report, the government established the National Commission of Forensic Science (NCFS) in 2013, which was tasked to explore these issues and make recommendations for improvement (all of the authors of this piece have served on the NCFS). Administered jointly by the Department of Justice and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the commission has worked diligently over the past four years to identify problems and propose changes to strengthen forensic science. This progress is now in danger of being undone. On April 10, the Justice Department, under the leadership of Attorney General Sessions, refused to extend the term of the NCFS. The demise of the NCFS is a tremendous missed opportunity for the progress of forensic science and criminal justice. The NCFS brought together diverse stakeholders including forensic scientists, judges, lawyers, victims’ advocates, law enforcement, and practicing independent scientists. NCFS was the only formal link between mainstream science and the communities that support and consume the products of forensic science, most notably the criminal justice system. During the four years in which it operated, the NCFS made considerable progress in bridging the scientific and legal disciplines. For example, the NCFS found such language as “reasonable scientific certainty: to be meaningless and recommended that it not be used in court, since it gave the false impression of scientific validity. Even more importantly, the NCFS recommended that all forensic techniques should be independently validated before being used in criminal investigations. Some have been; but too many others have not. Bite mark evidence is one example; despite lacking any scientific foundation, it is incredibly is still being admitted into the courts. Last year the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology identified latent fingerprints, firearms identification and footwear analysis as also lacking scientific validity. Medical therapies, airplanes and electrical devices are tested by independent entities before they can be used routinely; the public demands it and takes for granted that this has occurred. The public has the right to expect the same of forensic techniques, given the substantial consequences of the ‘evidence’ produced in court. Independent and unbiased assessment is fundamentally essential to determining the efficacy of any technique claiming to be scientific. By stating this principle clearly, the NCFS established an important precedent that should have far reaching consequences on the future development of forensic science. Now the public should demand this validation. ......... The Justice Department now proposes to improve forensic science by moving its oversight and development to an office within the department. This is precisely the opposite of what was recommended by the National Academy of Sciences report and the NCFS. It is a step backwards, because it reinforces the conditions that contributed to the current problems, namely, placing this discipline within the control of law enforcement and prosecutors. The Justice Department is home to many dedicated public servants including scientists whose passion for justice is unquestioned. However, DOJ is not a scientific body, and it is difficult to see how forensic science can become a true science in that environment. Science flourishes when free and independent; only then can the tools and technology that it creates be truly reliable. Scientists and the justice department can do the necessary research to put forensic techniques on a scientifically sound footing, or they can retreat into the status quo in which untested forensic practices are admitted in court simply because they have been in the past. Proclaiming evidence to be scientific does make it so. Given this state of affairs, we are bewildered by the decision to end the NCFS. Questions about the validity of forensic science will not go away. Failure to address them will lead to further convictions of innocent people. For our society, the stakes don’t get much higher."


The entire commentary can be found at:
­
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/we-must-strengthen-the-science-in-forensic-science/

See related Radley Balko commentary (Washington Post) at the link below: "The notion that the Justice Department handles all of this internally (which, incidentally, was also the position of Sessions’s predecessor Loretta Lynch) is particularly problematic when you consider the fact that the FBI crime lab has been the source of some of the more wide-reaching forensic scandals of the past few decades, including advancing at least two fields (a method of hair fiber analysis and bullet composition analysis) that tainted thousands of cases and have no scientific support at all."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/05/08/scientists-blast-sessions-decision-on-forensics/?utm_term=.72adde8330a4

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;

Friday, May 26, 2017

Eric Loomis: Wisconsin; Technology; (Indiana Risk Assessment System): Judgment by algorithm; (Whatever happened to King Solomon? HL)...Eric Loomis just wants to know how, exactly, an algorithm determined he posed a high risk to the community."..."Sentencing him to six years of incarceration and five years of extended supervision, the trial judge pointed to Loomis’ history of recidivism and failure to take responsibility. Also, the court noted the result of an actuarial assessment tool that labeled him likelier to reoffend. Loomis filed a motion for post-conviction relief, arguing, in part, that his due process rights were violated because the court relied on the computer-based assessment program COMPAS (Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions). A central question is whether the claims by COMPAS developer Northpointe Inc. — that the calculations were proprietary — prevented Loomis from challenging the scientific validity of the assessment. Now the Supreme Court of the United States is considering taking a closer look."


STORY: "Judgment by algorithm," by Marilyn Odendahl, published by  The Indiana Lawyer on May 17, 2017.

PHOTO CAPTION: "Eric Loomis just wants to know how, exactly, an algorithm determined he posed a high risk to the community."

GIST: "The Wisconsin man was charged in connection with a February 2013 drive-by shooting in La Crosse. He has continued to maintain he was home cooking dinner at the time of the incident, but he did plead guilty to two related offenses of trying to flee police and driving a motor vehicle without the owner’s permission. Sentencing him to six years of incarceration and five years of extended supervision, the trial judge pointed to Loomis’ history of recidivism and failure to take responsibility. Also, the court noted the result of an actuarial assessment tool that labeled him likelier to reoffend. Loomis filed a motion for post-conviction relief, arguing, in part, that his due process rights were violated because the court relied on the computer-based assessment program COMPAS (Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions). A central question is whether the claims by COMPAS developer Northpointe Inc. — that the calculations were proprietary — prevented Loomis from challenging the scientific validity of the assessment. Now the Supreme Court of the United States is considering taking a closer look. Loomis filed a petition for writ of certiorari in October 2016 after the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied his motion for resentencing. In March 2017, the court invited the acting solicitor general to file a brief on the case. Risk assessments and algorithms are not new. They have been used routinely by criminal justice systems in many states to predict how likely the defendant or offender is to commit another crime.  Indiana has a set of such tools to help determine conditions for pretrial release, community supervision, prison intake, and re-entry. The Indiana Risk Assessment System scores an individual’s responses to a series of questions that range from criminal history and substance abuse to employment and social support Like the Wisconsin tool, the IRAS scores are based on algorithms. Both the Indiana Public Defender Council and the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council expressed reservations about IRAS. The organizations note IRAS scores have not been validated as to their accuracy when applied to the Indiana offenders. Moreover, they worry judges will rely more on the numerical score than their own discretion. IRAS scores are actuarial and not individualized. The assessment tools put the defendants or offenders in certain groups based on shared characteristics. The IRAS-Pretrial Assessment Tool labels an individual as low-, medium- or high-risk, depending on the typical behavior of the group..........Noting risk assessment tools are not going anywhere, David Powell, executive director of the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council, said they must provide a valid, accountable, objective analysis and the outcomes have to be measured.  Algorithms cannot replace personal judgment, he said, giving the example that IRAS does not consider the nature of the crime. A person charged with a heinous act might be deemed low-risk if it was the first crime he or she committed. Prosecutors who turn the decision-making over to the victims have been disciplined for transfer of discretion, and Powell sees the same possibility for running afoul of court rules when judges rely too much on IRAS. “Prosecutors are not big fans of IRAS, by and large,” he said. “The fear we have is the tool will be used in lieu of judicial discretion.”.........News reports, including a series done by ProPublica in 2016, have focused on the potential for bias against minorities built into these kinds of assessment tools. Landis described particular questions in the IRAS, which he said ask the age of the offender’s first arrest and whether the offender has any relatives in prison, as being racially biased."
The entire story can be found at:

http://www.theindianalawyer.com/judgment-by-algorithm/PARAMS/article/43719

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;

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Tyrone Noling; Ohio: Development: Bulletin: New rules the state’s high court adopted Monday (effective June 1) will enable inmates sentenced to death to appeal rejections of applications for additional DNA testing of evidence directly to the Ohio Supreme Court — a change prompted by a ruling late last year in this case...Reporter Marc Kovac...The Canton Repository. May 22, 2017..."He (Noling) twice was indicted for the crime and convicted about five years later, based on testimony of several young men who were involved with him in a string of robberies in Alliance, according to documents. Noling has maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings, arguing that there is evidence of other perpetrators. DNA evidence from the scene did not match Noling or the other men involved in the case and did not identify any alternative suspects, according to documents. State investigators also determined that shell casings and ring boxes from the crime scene have been contaminated and are not suitable for DNA testing, according to documents."


PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Just a few words to express my disgust and concern  over the alleged assault  last night by U.S. Republican candidate Greg Gianforte on journalist Ben Jacobs of The Guardian. In a statement, Gianforte, who has since been charged with a misdemeanor,  portrayed himself through a  spokesman  as the victim, of  'aggressive behaviour of a 'liberal journalist.'  The attack, which occurred to the backdrop of President Donald Trump's portrayal  of reporters as 'the enemy of the people'  was unwarranted and vicious.  Jacobs was just doing his important job. My job. The job of every reporter.  The assault, and Gianforte's response,  should be condemned by anyone who treasures freedom of speech regardless of their political stripe  - including Republicans. (Sadly, that's not likely  in the USA of today.)

Harold Levy:  Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.

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"New rules the state’s high court adopted Monday will enable inmates sentenced to death to appeal rejections of applications for additional DNA testing of evidence directly to the Ohio Supreme Court — a change prompted by a ruling late last year in a Portage County murder case. Justices ruled in December that Tyrone Noling would be allowed to appeal a trial court’s earlier denial of further testing of evidence from the scene of the murder of an elderly couple more than 25 years ago. The rules change, which will take effect on June 1, outlines the process for inmates sentenced to death to appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court when common pleas courts reject applications for additional DNA testing. Noling, formerly of Alliance, was convicted for the April 1990 murder of the Bernhardt and Cora Hartig, who were found shot to death in the kitchen of their home in Atwater Township. He twice was indicted for the crime and convicted about five years later, based on testimony of several young men who were involved with him in a string of robberies in Alliance, according to documents. Noling has maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings, arguing that there is evidence of other perpetrators. DNA evidence from the scene did not match Noling or the other men involved in the case and did not identify any alternative suspects, according to documents. State investigators also determined that shell casings and ring boxes from the crime scene have been contaminated and are not suitable for DNA testing, according to documents.

http://www.cantonrep.com/news/20170522/appeals-involving-dna-testing-in-death-row-cases-to-go-directly-to-ohio-supreme-court



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;

Establishing Innocence: It's a lot more difficult after a guilty verdict; Greg Brown: Pennsylvania; Arson; Establishing innocence: Why it can be "enormously difficult" to establish innocence "even when the case hinged on bad science."..."On this week’s episode of 90.5 WESA’s Criminal Injustice podcast, University of Pittsburgh law professor and show host David Harris talked to Marissa Boyers Bluestine, legal director for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project."..." Greg Brown was convicted of setting a fire in his home on Valentine's Day in 1995. And yet we believe that this is a case where it was not arson, that it was actually an accidental fire. But in putting out the fire, three firefighters died and then lost their lives tragically. Greg was prosecuted for that. He was convicted of it, and in about 10 years afterwards, we find out that witnesses had an undisclosed promise from the federal government that they would receive up to $15,000 reward money for their testimony. When we exposed that, Greg has granted a new trial, and he is still awaiting trial in federal court in Pittsburgh...These cases take years just to get the evidence to be able to show that this person is innocent. And even once we're in court, then it can be used more of litigation. With Greg Brown's case, the case that we have out of Pittsburgh, we started the case in 2010. We won the new trial in 2014, and even today in 2017 he's still awaiting trial. These are very long, drawn out cases. We don't have a magic wand. It takes very intensive work over years and years."

 


GIST: "The exposure of wrongful convictions began in 1989, and it upended the idea that guilty verdicts were always trustworthy. When there’s a wrongful conviction, what has to happen to get a court to exonerate someone? On this week’s episode of 90.5 WESA’s Criminal Injustice podcast, University of Pittsburgh law professor and show host David Harris talked to Marissa Boyers Bluestine, legal director for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. She says its enormously difficult to establish innocence – even when the case hinged on bad science or faulty evidence – after a court declares someone guilty.

DAVID HARRIS: What sorts of errors are you looking for in the convictions?
MARISSA BOYERS BLUESTINE: We have almost a laundry list of errors that can go wrong in the trial. Could the eyewitness have misidentified the defendant? Could the defendant have given the confession that was false? Was there forensic science error? Could some of the witnesses who testified have lied, either for benefit of because they wanted to? Was there error from the prosecution or from the police? So we know that the system has error all sprinkled throughout it. It's our job to try to figure out where it happened in a particular case.

HARRIS: And when you say the system has error throughout it, what we're talking about is a systems problem. It's not people who are doing bad things, it's the system occasionally not working.
BOYERS BLUESTINE: That's absolutely right. It's not that police and prosecutors want to get it wrong. They don't. They want to get it right, but because it's a system built upon humans and where humans power it, there's going to be flaws. What we have to do to fix this is to understand where those flaws come in and try to help train ourselves against them so they're not so prevalent.

HARRIS: You had a really complicated case in Pittsburgh, the case of Greg Brown. Tell me about him.
BOYERS BLUESTINE: Greg Brown was convicted of setting a fire in his home on Valentine's Day in 1995. And yet we believe that this is a case where it was not arson, that it was actually an accidental fire. But in putting out the fire, three firefighters died and then lost their lives tragically. Greg was prosecuted for that. He was convicted of it, and in about 10 years afterwards, we find out that witnesses had an undisclosed promise from the federal government that they would receive up to $15,000 reward money for their testimony. When we exposed that, Greg has granted a new trial, and he is still awaiting trial in federal court in Pittsburgh.

HARRIS: It sounds like what you have to do is basically totally reinvestigate the case from the beginning.
BOYERS BLUESTINE: We absolutely investigate from the beginning. We leave no witness unspoken to. We talk to every witness who would talk to us, police officers, prosecutors, informants. It doesn't matter – co-defendants. We'll talk to everybody. We don't avoid talking to a witness, because we don't like what they might say. We don't avoid asking particular questions. We want to know the facts.

HARRIS: You said that you go forward with a presumption of guilt actually, not a presumption of innocence. Can you explain why what that means?
BOYERS BLUESTINE: We want to make sure that the cases we take are people who are actually innocent. If we go in with a belief of innocence and trying to "prove innocence," then we probably will get what we're looking for. We want to know what the facts are. So we don't try to gin the outcome. We don't try to get a witness to say something we think would be helpful. We just want to know what they have to say, because everything we do is based on the facts – not about what we want the facts to be.

HARRIS: How long can the process take? Are we talking a few months? Several years?
BOYERS BLUESTINE: It can be anywhere in between. In between a few weeks, months or years, but most likely years. These cases take years just to get the evidence to be able to show that this person is innocent. And even once we're in court, then it can be used more of litigation. With Greg Brown's case, the case that we have out of Pittsburgh, we started the case in 2010. We won the new trial in 2014, and even today in 2017 he's still awaiting trial. These are very long, drawn out cases. We don't have a magic wand. It takes very intensive work over years and years.

HARRIS: So you've been doing this in Pennsylvania since 2009. In that time, there have been eight exonerations through your organization's work. When you're successful, what kind of life can the newly proven innocent person expect?
BOYERS BLUESTINE: Because we don't have a compensation statute, it really is up to the individual and their support system to be able to provide a new life for them. They don't even get an expungement. The arrest will still show up on their criminal record, so we have to work to expunge the petition. But beyond that – getting them a job and housing and health care and mental health counseling and family reunification counseling and all that – that falls on us, because we don't just open the door and let them go. They're part of our lives now. We're part of theirs. So we have to do everything we can to help people with a successful re-entry. And sometimes that works in a phenomenal way. Our client Jean, he and his wife just had their second child together. He's in middle management at a really terrific job. I have another client who has two pairs of pants and runs from couch to couch to be able to try to have a place to live. So it really can go the whole gamut."

The entire story can be found at:

http://wesa.fm/post/establishing-innocence-lot-more-difficult-after-guilty-verdict#stream/0
 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;