PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The entire post is mandatory reading. I am just enclosing - for a taste - the important stories in forensics (and the treasure chest of links) that Radley Balko has singled out:
POST: "The Watch year in review," by Radley Balko, published by The Washington Post on Decmber 21, 2017, on his Blog 'The Watch.' (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: (Forensics):
- "There were new developments in the ongoing saga of disgraced Mississippi forensic specialists Steven Hayne and Michael West: In August, Hayne backed off his “shaken baby” theory during a hearing for death row inmate Jeffrey Havard. A judge is expected to rule soon on whether Havard will get a new trial. Unfortunately, despite a 5th Circuit determination a few years ago that Hayne is not a credible witness, the courts continued to rule against the people harmed. In February, the same court ruled against a man convicted mostly due to absurd testimony Hayne gave after creating a “death mask” of an alleged victim. And in June, a 5th Circuit panel ruled that Hayne and West were protected by qualified immunity in dismissing a lawsuit brought by exonerees Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. A three-judge panel found that while the two experts may have been grossly negligent, Brooks and Brewer had to show they acted recklessly, and had failed to do so. Finally, in May we asked what Mississippi owes to a 13-year-old who was convicted in part due to some particularly absurd testimony from Hayne.
- However, a couple of months later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit did allow a lawsuit to proceed against two bite-mark analysts who helped convict Robert Lee Stinson. The court found that Stinson had presented enough evidence for a jury to reasonably find a criminal conspiracy to manufacture evidence. Incredibly, the Wisconsin appeals court decision allowing bite-mark evidence against Stinson is still the controlling case law on bite-mark analysis in that state.
- At the same time, another man convicted because of bite-mark evidence was exonerated and released from prison. He served 19 years. And earlier in the year, another man wrongly convicted confronted the bite-mark analysts who put him in prison.
- And yet despite all of that, and despite a mountain of evidence showing bite-mark analysis to be dubious, prosecutors continue to defend bite-mark analysis, and this year yet another judge allowed it into evidence during a criminal trial.
- Robert O’Block, the king of junk forensics, died over the summer. We took a look back at his odd and unfortunate career.
- Judges continued to do a pretty terrible job at keeping bad science out of criminal trials.
- These issues briefly hit the pop culture, as John Oliver delivered a righteous and at times humorous monologue about forensics in the courtroom.
- Crime lab scandals continued to pop up all over the country.
- Of course, Trump didn’t take office until late January. So during the first part of the month, we criticized Barack Obama for his own failures on forensics reform — and for exaggerating his record on that issue."
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/c
