Radley Balko; Kennedy Brewer Levon Brooks: Mississippi; Robert Lee Stinson; Wisconsin; Conflicting federal court decisions on issue as to whether bite-mark experts can be granted qualified immunity in civil lawsuits..."."And yet, all this time later, four things remain true. 1: It remains nearly impossible for wrongly convicted people to hold junk science practitioners accountable in court. 2:T o this day, prosecutors still use and defend bite-mark evidence, and courts still allow it into evidence. 3:To this day, no court in the United States has upheld a challenge to the validity of bite-mark evidence. 4: When it comes to the controlling case law on whether bite-mark evidence should be allowed in court, the Stinson decision is still the authority in Wisconsin, and Brewer is still the authority in Mississippi......"When an innocent person is convicted, the legal system seems to bend itself into contortions to shield the expert witnesses who helped convict that person from liability. That’s understandable. If expert witnesses are subjected to real liability for their opinions, they’ll be reluctant to testify. Some should be reluctant. But it might discourage more legitimate experts, too. So instead, the system also feels obligated to shield obvious quacks from the extremely sympathetic people they’ve harmed. Here, there was a rare win for a wrongly convicted man. But he’ll still need to convince a jury. And for every Robert Lee Stinson, there are many more Kennedy Brewers and Levon Brookses. The odd thing is, all of this could be prevented, or at least diminished. If the courts diverted half the time and energy they spend cleaning up after these charlatans toward preventing them from testifying in the first place, there would be far fewer sympathetic exonorees to file lawsuits. Unfortunately, that’s a lesson the courts seem incapable of learning."

COMMENTARY:  "Federal appeals court refuses qualified immunity for bite-mark experts," by Radley Balko, published by The Washington Post on August 23, 2017. (Radley Balko blogs about criminal justice, the drug war and civil liberties for The Washington Post. He is the author of the book "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces.")

GIST: A couple months ago, I wrote about a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which held that expert witnesses Steven Hayne and Michael West, while perhaps grossly negligent, could not be sued by the two innocent men their testimony wrongly put in prison, because they were protected by qualified immunity. The wrongly convicted men had to show either recklessness or intentional misconduct, and the court found that what Hayne and West did in those cases didn’t meet that standard. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit issued its own ruling in a lawsuit against two bite-mark experts. This one turned out differently.The case is from Wisconsin, and the wrongly convicted man is Robert Lee Stinson. I wrote about the case in a 2015 series on bite mark evidence. Here’s a summary.......(The rest of this  incisive commentary deserves to be read word by word. But I will direct the reader to Balko's illuminating conclusion. HL).........."And yet, all this time later, four things remain true. 1: It remains nearly impossible for wrongly convicted people to hold junk science practitioners accountable in court. 2:To this day, prosecutors still use and defend bite-mark evidence, and courts still allow it into evidence. 3:To this day, no court in the United States has upheld a challenge to the validity of bite-mark evidence. 4: When it comes to the controlling case law on whether bite-mark evidence should be allowed in court, the Stinson decision is still the authority in Wisconsin, and Brewer is still the authority in Mississippi.
When an innocent person is convicted, the legal system seems to bend itself into contortions to shield the expert witnesses who helped convict that person from liability. That’s understandable. If expert witnesses are subjected to real liability for their opinions, they’ll be reluctant to testify. Some should be reluctant. But it might discourage more legitimate experts, too. So instead, the system also feels obligated to shield obvious quacks from the extremely sympathetic people they’ve harmed. Here, there was a rare win for a wrongly convicted man. But he’ll still need to convince a jury. And for every Robert Lee Stinson, there are many more Kennedy Brewers and Levon Brookses. The odd thing is, all of this could be prevented, or at least diminished. If the courts diverted half the time and energy they spend cleaning up after these charlatans toward preventing them from testifying in the first place, there would be far fewer sympathetic exonorees to file lawsuits. Unfortunately, that’s a lesson the courts seem incapable of learning."

The entire commentary can be found at: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/08/23/federal-appeals-court-refuses-qualified-immunity-for-bite-mark-experts/?utm_term=.2e2ab3433d90

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;