QUOTE OF THE DAY: ""I no longer believe with reasonable medical certainty — or with any degree of certainty — that the marks on Ms. Terry were created by Mr. Swinton's teeth, because of the recent developments in the scientific understanding of bite-mark analysis," Karazulas wrote. Karazulas concluded that "many thousands of individuals could have produced those injuries."
Dr. Constantine Karazulas, who said bite marks on Terry's breasts matched Swinton's teeth - and later recanted his testimony.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The state laboratory also conducted new DNA testing on saliva that had been found in bite marks on both of Carla Terry's breasts. At the time of Swinton's trial, the state laboratory said there was not sufficient DNA to perform testing. But more recent testing, with the new technology, allowed lab staff to extract DNA from the saliva in the bite mark on Terry's right breast. The testing concluded that it was not Swinton's DNA. In addition, the laboratory also recently tested DNA that was found near Terry's vagina and determined that Swinton could not have been the source of that DNA either. With the new DNA testing of the bite mark and bra possibly eliminating Swinton as a suspect, the other key area his new attorneys attacked was the testimony of the forensic odontologist, Karazulas. Karazulas is a dentist who worked more than 25 years for the state police forensic science lab."
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STORY: "Murder Charge Dismissed Against Alfred Swinton, Man Who Served 18 Years After Wrongful Conviction, by reporters David Owens and Dave Altimari, published by The Hartford Courant on March 1, 2018.
PHOTO CAPTION: Innocence Project lawyer Vanessa Potkin hugs Alfred Swinton, a man once suspected of being a serial killer, after a Superior Court judge approved a new trial June 8.
GIST: A judge Thursday dismissed a murder charge against Alfred Swinton, a Hartford man who served 18 years of a 60-year sentence for a crime authorities now say he very likely did not commit. Swinton was released from prison last June after lawyers with the Innocence Project brought forth new evidence that significantly undermined Swinton's 1991 conviction for the murder of Carla Terry. Alfred Swinton, once considered a possible serial killer by law enforcement authorities, walked out of Superior Court in Hartford Thursday a free man when a judge dismissed his murder charge after new DNA testing cleared him. Swinton served 18 years of a 60 year sentence for the 1991 murder of Carla Terry before he was released, pending a possible new trial, last June after lawyers with the Innocence Project brought forth new evidence that significantly undermined that conviction. While Swinton awaited word on whether the state would try him again, Hartford State’s Attorney Gail Hardy said more DNA testing was done on evidence from the crime, including swabs of bite marks on Terry’s breasts, hairs found in Swinton’s car and a black bra that police thought belonged to Terry that was found in Swinton’s Stafford Springs home during the initial homicide investigation. Hardy, who read a detailed history of the case into the record, said that all the new testing either excluded Swinton or was inconclusive, leaving the state with no choice but to nolle or decline to prosecute the case. “Over the past year, I, and attorneys in my office have pored over trial transcripts to determine … whether sufficient evidence remains to bring Alfred Swinton to trial on the charge of murder; and to establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Hardy said.........Authorities once suspected that Swinton, 69, was a serial killer, but have not uncovered any new evidence linking him to the death of Terry or the deaths of four other women he acknowledged knowing and in whose deaths police considered Swinton a suspect. Prosecutors had the state lab examine evidence from other cases in which Swinton was suspected but no evidence emerged linking him to those crimes......... Some of the DNA evidence brought forth by the Innocence Project actually excludes Swinton from involvement in the crime. Last June, Judge Julia D. Dewey set aside Swinton’s convictions, ordered a new trial and released him from custody based on the avalanche of evidence that undermined his conviction. Swinton has always maintained his innocence, but was sentenced to 60 years after his 2001 conviction for Terry’s murder. She was strangled in January 1991. Swinton was convicted based, in part, on the testimony of a forensic odontologist who testified that a bite mark on Terry's right breast matched Swinton's teeth. But DNA from saliva found in the bite mark was recently tested by the state forensic laboratory and the results showed that Swinton's DNA wasn't a match. Police first identified Swinton as a suspect because he was seen with Terry at a bar before she disappeared. Swinton was arrested, but a judge threw out the case, ruling there wasn't enough probable cause to prosecute him. Seven years later, police arrested Swinton again based on two new pieces of evidence: a bra that was found in a box in the basement of the apartment building where Swinton lived at the time of the murder and the testimony of Dr. Constantine Karazulas, who said bite marks on Terry's breasts matched Swinton's teeth. At the trial, LaVerne Terry testified that she had given the bra to her sister to wear the night that she was murdered. Prosecutors told jurors that Swinton kept it as a trophy from the murder. But lawyers from the Innocence Project pushed state officials to retest DNA from the Terry case. It was one of nearly 700 cases that state officials reviewed using a federal grant. The new DNA testing, known as touch DNA, conducted on the bra in 2015 by the Connecticut Forensic Science Laboratory, revealed that neither Swinton's nor Carla Terry's DNA was on the bra. That revelation raises the possibility that the bra was not Terry's and that she wasn't wearing it the night she was murdered. The state laboratory also conducted new DNA testing on saliva that had been found in bite marks on both of Carla Terry's breasts. At the time of Swinton's trial, the state laboratory said there was not sufficient DNA to perform testing. But more recent testing, with the new technology, allowed lab staff to extract DNA from the saliva in the bite mark on Terry's right breast. The testing concluded that it was not Swinton's DNA. In addition, the laboratory also recently tested DNA that was found near Terry's vagina and determined that Swinton could not have been the source of that DNA either. With the new DNA testing of the bite mark and bra possibly eliminating Swinton as a suspect, the other key area his new attorneys attacked was the testimony of the forensic odontologist, Karazulas. Karazulas is a dentist who worked more than 25 years for the state police forensic science lab. At Swinton's trial, defense attorney Norman Pattis tried to have Karazulas' testimony excluded because he wasn't considered an expert and because the field of forensic odontology, the application of dental knowledge to criminal and civil law, was too new to be reliable. The trial judge allowed Karazulas' testimony and the state Supreme Court upheld that decision. Karazulas testified with "a reasonable medical certainty without any reservation that these bite marks were created by Mr. Swinton." He also testified the bite marks were inflicted within 10 minutes of her death. But in an 11-page signed affidavit submitted as part of Swinton's petition for a new trial, Karazulas recanted his trial testimony. "I no longer believe with reasonable medical certainty — or with any degree of certainty — that the marks on Ms. Terry were created by Mr. Swinton's teeth, because of the recent developments in the scientific understanding of bite-mark analysis," Karazulas wrote. Karazulas concluded that "many thousands of individuals could have produced those injuries.""
The entire story can be found at:
Read also U.S. National Register of Exonerations entry by Maurice Possley at the link below: "Shortly before 5 a.m. on January 13, 1991, the body of 28-year-old Carla Terry was found in a snowbank near the University of Hartford in Hartford, Connecticut. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. Police soon focused on 42-year-old Alfred Swinton after witnesses said they saw him talking to Terry a few hours earlier in a nearby tavern. Police obtained a search warrant for Swinton’s apartment, which was a short walk from where Terry’s body was found. During the search, they found a black bra in a basement common area. Although Terry’s sister, Laverne Terry, said she did not recognize the garment, police believed that Swinton had killed Terry after she refused to trade sex for drugs and that he took the bra as a “trophy.” In March 1991, police drove Swinton to the location where Terry’s body had been discovered, as well as the locations where four other women had been found murdered in Hartford. Swinton told police that he knew all of the women, but denied having anything to do with their murders. Police, however, believed he was a serial killer. After a forensic analyst said that bite marks on Terry’s breasts appeared to have been made by Swinton’s teeth, police arrested him on June 25, 1991. However, he was released in August when a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to charge him with murder after the forensic analyst said there was no way to determine when the bite marks were made in relation to Terry’s murder. The case went cold for several years. However, Swinton again was arrested for Terry’s murder in October 1998 after another forensic odontologist examined the evidence and said the bite marks had been left not long before Terry was killed. Swinton went to trial in Superior Court in Hartford in January 2001. Terry’s sister, Laverne—who in 1991 said that she did not recognize the black bra—testified that it in fact belonged to her niece, who had loaned it to the victim. Laverne said she had helped pin the bra so the victim could wear it. Dr. Gus Karazulas, the chief forensic odontologist of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory, testified that bite mark analysis was an exact science that could link an individual to a bite mark to the exclusion of all other individuals. Karazulas said that he compared Swinton’s teeth to the marks on Terry’s body and determined to a “reasonable medical certainty without any reservation” that Swinton made the bite marks. Hector Freeman testified that on the night of the crime, he saw Carla Terry around 1 a.m. at the Oakland Terrace Café and agreed to take her home. However, first they stopped at Kenney’s Grill. Freeman said he left with Terry shortly before 2 a.m. and dropped her off at the home of another sister, Rhonda Terry. Darlene Chappell, a bartender at Kenney's Grill, testified that she saw Swinton and Terry at the bar, but Swinton left before Terry. Martha Point-DuJour, a customer at Kenney’s, testified that she saw Swinton talking with Terry. After Terry left with Freeman, she said, Swinton left alone. Rhonda Terry testified that she saw Carla Terry get out of Freeman’s car shortly after 2 a.m. She said she saw her sister walk across the street and out of view, but she never arrived. Her body was found less than three hours later. Mary Alice Mills testified that although she did not remember his exact words, she heard Swinton say in 1991 that he “got away with murder.” She admitted that when she heard the statement, she was drinking alcohol and “getting stoned.” James Arnold, an inmate at the Webster Correctional Institution and an admitted heroin addict, claimed he had two conversations with Swinton in 1991, during which Swinton told him that he bit the victim. Cynthia Stallings, a habitual drug user, testified that in August 1991, Swinton said that he was not innocent of Terry's murder, and that the authorities “had” him “through the teeth marks” that were found on Terry’s breasts. The prosecution also presented portions of a freelance writer’s tape-recorded interview of Swinton . The writer, Karon Haller, published an article about the unsolved murders of 10 women and quoted Swinton as saying that the women likely traded sex for drugs. At the same time, Swinton said he had been falsely accused of being “an insane murderer. You don’t have to be insane to have sex and bit somebody all over her body, all right?” The prosecution asserted showed Swinton’s “consciousness of guilt.” The tape of the interview also contained Swinton’s denials that he had any involvement in Terry’s death or the deaths of any of the women—although those denials were not in the article Haller published. Michael Scalise testified that while he was in jail with Swinton prior to Swinton’s trial, Swinton confessed to him that he had killed Terry. Scalise, who also said that another inmate had confessed an unrelated crime to him as well, said Swinton told him he had sex with Terry, bit her on the breasts, killed her, and took her bra. Police subsequently equipped Scalise with a hidden tape recorder, but Swinton never incriminated himself and repeatedly insisted he was innocent. Swinton’s defense attorney presented a dental expert as well. Forensic dentist Neal Riesner testified that his examination revealed no match between Swinton’s teeth and the bite marks. Riesner testified that the images used by Karazulas were too blurry to allow for a positive match, and that a computer enhancement falsely increased the appearance of a match. On March 21, 2001, the jury convicted Swinton of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison. Although police said they continued to suspect Swinton in the other unsolved murders, he was never charged with any of those crimes. In 2004, the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld his conviction, although the court said that the computer enhancement evidence should not have been allowed because the person who created the enhancement was never called to testify. In 2014 and 2015, at the request of the Connecticut Innocence Project, DNA testing was performed on the bite mark swabs. The tests identified male DNA that did not belong to Swinton. DNA testing of the bra revealed the presence of skin cells that did not match the victim or Swinton—suggesting that Carla Terry had never worn it. Although Swinton had never been charged with sexually assaulting Terry, anal and vaginal swabs taken at the time also were tested and revealed male DNA that did not match Swinton. Because of a conflict, the Innocence Project took over Swinton’s representation in 2015 and enlisted the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher &Flom. After bringing the case to the attention to the Hartford County state’s attorney’s office, DNA testing of the fingernail scrapings of the victim was performed. Those tests also excluded Swinton. Since Dr. Karazulas’s 2001 testimony, the scientific community had come to reject bite mark analysis as a forensic method capable of identifying a suspect. A 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences found that there is “no scientific basis for forensic odontologists (bite mark analysts) to proffer individualization testimony.” The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the Texas Forensic Science Commission, which recommended a ban on the use of bite mark evidence, has also condemned the use of bite mark analysis. The American Board of Forensic Odontologists, the accrediting board for bite mark analysts, no longer permits analysts to make a positive identification from bite mark comparisons. In light of those developments, Innocence Project lawyers contacted Dr. Karazulas, who provided a sworn affidavit saying he no longer believed that Swinton was the person who inflicted the bite mark on the victim. Dr. Karazulas said that “new scientific developments caused a significant change to my understanding of bite-mark analysis, which have compelled me, as a matter of my professional ethics and civic duty, to recant completely the testimony that I gave at Mr. Swinton's trial.” Dr. Karazulas said, “First, I now understand that it is not possible to accurately measure and scientifically compare anything other than the arch of an individual's dentition. Second, I have become convinced, given the recent changes in scientific knowledge and understanding in my field, that skin is not capable of accurately recording the characteristics of human dentition, making it impossible to identify ‘the biter’ with any degree of certainty."
In January 2017, Innocence Project lawyers Chris Fabricant and Vanessa Potkin, along with Skadden attorneys Maura Barry Grinalds, Ed Tulin and Thania Charmani, filed a motion for a new trial. In June 2017, the prosecution agreed to vacate Swinton’s conviction and on June 8, 2017, he was released on bond.
On March 1, 2018, the prosecution dismissed the case."
http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5287&utm_content=bufferc1098&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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
