SUB-HEADING: "Reproductive rights advocates say the story shows how pregnant women of color are criminalized.
Sunday, June 30, 2019
Chris Tapp: False confession case: (False confession series: (Part two); Idaho Innocence Project hopes for full exoneration at a 'status conference' with prosecutors set for tomorrow. (Monday July 1, 2019)..."Tapp was freed in 2016, but is still waiting for his name to be cleared. On May 16, the Idaho Falls Police Department held a press conference to announce that Brian Dripps confessed to stabbing Angie Dodge on his own in 1996. Mr. Dripps is also a match to the DNA evidence in the case, including semen and a pubic hair recovered from the victim’s body."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in false confessions because of the disturbing number of exonerations in the USA, Canada and multiple other jurisdictions throughout the world, where, in the absence of incriminating forensic evidence the conviction is based on self-incrimination – and because of the growing body of scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects are to widely used interrogation methods such as the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’"
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
-------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "When asked by the press if Christopher Tapp was owed an apology, Chief Johnson announced that : “Chris Tapp is another very important part of this case that deserves its day in the sunlight, and we will do that…that day will be in a couple weeks and we’ll do that, whatever is right in a couple of weeks. We need a little more time to dot i’s and cross t’s.” It has now been almost six weeks and our hope that Chris will have his promised day of sunlight."
------------------------------------------------------------
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Tapp has been an IIP client since 2007. He was convicted of the 1996 rape and murder of Angie Dodge. Over the years several DNA tests have all excluded Tapp, and provided police with the profile of an unknown man. Tapp was freed in 2016, but is still waiting for his name to be cleared. On May 16, the Idaho Falls Police Department held a press conference to announce that Brian Dripps confessed to stabbing Angie Dodge on his own in 1996. Mr. Dripps is also a match to the DNA evidence in the case, including semen and a pubic hair recovered from the victim’s body."
------------------------------------------------------------
RELEASE: Idaho Innocence Project calls for full exoneration at 'status conference" set for today (Monday June 30) in the hope "the prosecutor will take this opportunity to address what is now a tortuously long process of exoneration." (Release dated 27 June, 2019."
GIST: The Idaho Innocence Project (IIP) is pleased to announce that Christopher Tapp will be in court on Monday, July 1 for a status conference. We are hoping that the prosecutor will take this opportunity to address what is now a tortuously long process of exoneration. Tapp has been an IIP client since 2007. He was convicted of the 1996 rape and murder of Angie Dodge. Over the years several DNA tests have all excluded Tapp, and provided police with the profile of an unknown man. Tapp was freed in 2016, but is still waiting for his name to be cleared. On May 16, the Idaho Falls Police Department held a press conference to announce that Brian Dripps confessed to stabbing Angie Dodge on his own in 1996. Mr. Dripps is also a match to the DNA evidence in the case, including semen and a pubic hair recovered from the victim’s body. The Idaho Falls Police chief Bryce Johnson credited the work of new DNA testing by Parabon NanoLabs and forensic genealogist CeCe More for the breakthrough. When asked by the press if Christopher Tapp was owed an apology, Chief Johnson announced that : “Chris Tapp is another very important part of this case that deserves its day in the sunlight, and we will do that…that day will be in a couple weeks and we’ll do that, whatever is right in a couple of weeks. We need a little more time to dot i’s and cross t’s.” It has now been almost six weeks and our hope that Chris will have his promised day of sunlight. Mr. Tapp is currently represented by lead attorney John Thomas (Bonneville County Public Defender), Jennifer Cummins (IIP), Peter Neufeld and Vanessa Potkin (The Innocence Project). He has also been represented in post-conviction by former IIP lawyers, Richard Visser and Jared Hoskins, and Dennis Benjamin (Nevin, Benjamin, McKay and Bartlett LLP). The status conference is public and will begin at 11 a.m. Monday in the Bonneville County Courthouse."
The entire release can be read at:
https://www.eastidahonews.com/2019/06/hearing-scheduled-for-chris-tapp-idaho-innocence-project-calls-for-full-exoneration/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND: See previous post of this Blog: "Chris Tapp: Idaho: (False confession case): Bulletin: Momentous Development: After 20 years in prison for the murder of Angie Dodge, he is to be freed today under a negotiated deal (subject to approval of a judge) - in spite of a conviction widely attributed to a coerced, false confession - and Angie Dodge's mother's belief that he is innocent..."Tapp was convicted because he confessed. But in recent years a slew of reports from false confession experts, geneticists, polygraph experts and former FBI supervisory special agents have concluded that Tapp’s confession was false, that the details were fed to him by police and that he was coerced with threats of the gas chamber if he didn’t cooperate." Reporter Bryan Clark; Idaho Statesman; March 21, 2017.
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=120008354894645705#editor/target=post;
postID=1180065481428856276
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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, June 29, 2019
Marshae Jones: Alabama: Criminalizing reproduction. (An outrageous indictment. HL): Washington Post story by reporters Gheni Platenberg and Michael Brice-Saddler gets to the heart of this unthinkable abuse of power by the State of Alabama..."In a statement Friday, Jones’s attorneys said their client was facing “unprecedented legal action” that had tarnished the reputation of both Jones and the state of Alabama. The law firm White Arnold & Dowd said it would fight vigorously for her exoneration to prevent a “grave injustice.” “This young mother was shot in the stomach while five months pregnant and lost her baby as a result. She lost her home to a fire and lost her job,” the firm said. “Now, for reasons that defy imagination, she faces an unprecedented legal action that subjects this victim of violence to further distress and harm.”
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: "I have taken on the them of criminalizing reproduction - a natural theme for a Blog concerned with flawed science in its myriad forms and its flawed devotees (like Charles Smith), as I am utterly opposed to the current movement in the United States and some other countries - thankfully not Canada any more - towards imprisoning women and their physicians on the basis of sham science (or any other basis). Control over their reproductive lives is far too important to women in America or anywhere else so they can participate equally in the economic and social life of their nations without fear for loss their freedom at the hands of political opportunists and fanatics. I will continue to follow relevant cases such as Purvi Patel and Bei Bei Shuai - and the mounting wave of legislative attacks aimed at chipping away at Roe V. Wade and ultimately dismantling it."
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, says Alabama leads the country in mothers charged with crimes related to pregnancy. But she said this case was unique. “This is the first time the idea that fertilized egg or fetal personhood has provided the basis for arrest of a woman because she was pregnant, and she herself was the victim of a criminal act,” Paltrow said. “Alabama has indicted Ms. Jones, claiming it is a crime for a woman to be unable to protect her own life and health.”
----------------------------------------------------------------
SECOND QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Randall Marshall, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said the state “is one of the most dangerous places in the country for a black woman trying to carry her pregnancy to term, and this prosecution is just one more attack on the basic human rights and dignity of black women in our state.”
------------------------------------------------------------------
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "In a Friday statement, the office of District Attorney Lynneice Washington said they have not decided whether Jones will be prosecuted for manslaughter, face a lesser charge or be cleared in the death of her fetus. A grand jury looked at actions by both women and declined to indict Ebony Jemison, the woman who fired the shot, prosecutors said. The jurors instead returned an indictment for Jones."
------------------------------------------------------------------
PHOTO CAPTION: "A 27-year-old Birmingham woman was indicted on manslaughter charges Wednesday in the loss of her pregnancy, even though, police say, another woman pulled the trigger. The East Thomas neighborhood is shaken with the question of who is to blame. "
STORY: A bullet, a miscarriage and an unthinkable question: Who's the victim, and who is to blame," by Gheni Platenburg and Michael Brice-Saddler, published by The Washington Post on June 29, 2019.
GIST: "As she recovered in a hospital bed on a chilly December night,
Marshae Jones could only think about what she’d lost. The
27-year-old was five months pregnant when she was involved in a fight
that, authorities say, prompted a woman to fire a gun in self defense.
The bullet tore through Jones’s abdomen and caused a miscarriage,
anguishing the young mother — and the historic East Thomas neighborhood
of central Alabama, where her family has lived for generations. “As
her pastor, I would ask whoever to prayerfully consider the heart of
this young lady," said Rev. George Robinson Jr., the pastor of First
Baptist of East Thomas, where Jones and her family attend church.
“Marshae is not the person that has been pictured or painted of her.
She’s not that young lady.”
Robinson said he prayed with Jones in the hospital that night, and in the weeks leading up to Wednesday, when a grand jury indicted her on a manslaughter charge for the death of her own fetus. The
complex case has divided those seeking to place blame in the fetus’s
death, a tension augmented by the abortion debate in Alabama and the
state’s broad manslaughter law, which makes it a felony to “recklessly”
cause the death of another person. “She was
really sorrowful about everything that actually transpired up to this
point," Robinson told The Washington Post, speaking of the woman’s
reaction in the aftermath of the shooting. “Her words to me were she
could not believe she lost the baby.” In a
Friday statement, the office of District Attorney Lynneice Washington
said they have not decided whether Jones will be prosecuted for
manslaughter, face a lesser charge or be cleared in the death of her
fetus. A grand jury looked at actions by both women and declined to
indict Ebony Jemison, the woman who fired the shot, prosecutors said.
The jurors instead returned an indictment for Jones. Robinson
and others close to Jones, who has a young daughter, say it’s difficult
to picture the “lovable and caring” mother as an aggressor. They say
Jones may have been caught up in the heat of the moment on the afternoon
of Dec. 4, 2018, when police and prosecutors allege she initiated a
fight with Jemison outside a Dollar General. In
a phone interview late Thursday, Jemison’s mother, Earka, told The Post
that her daughter was cleared by the grand jury because evidence and
testimony was presented to suggest that Jones started the fight, causing
Ebony to fire a warning shot out of fear. Jones worked at the same
company as Ebony Jemison and the fetus’s father, and tension developed
between the two women, according to Jemison’s mother. She
said things boiled over in December when Jones, who was driving with
friends at the time, spotted Jemison and leaped out of the vehicle to
attack her. Jones’s friends left the car soon afterward and began to
move toward the scuffle, she said. “Ebony was
afraid for her life and reached in her purse for the gun,” her mother
said, adding that her daughter had a license to carry the weapon. “She
tried to fire a warning shot to get away from her.” But
the shot — which Jemison’s mother says was aimed at the ground —
ricocheted into Jones. Earka Jemison told The Post that her daughter
received threats after the indictment. “If they
weren’t sitting in the courtroom, let them talk,” the mother said about
the people threatening her daughter. “I saw the evidence. I saw the
evidence.” Jones was released on $50,000 bond
Thursday. In a statement Friday, Jones’s attorneys said their client was
facing “unprecedented legal action” that had tarnished the reputation
of both Jones and the state of Alabama. The law firm White Arnold &
Dowd said it would fight vigorously for her exoneration to prevent a
“grave injustice.” “This
young mother was shot in the stomach while five months pregnant and
lost her baby as a result. She lost her home to a fire and lost her
job,” the firm said. “Now, for reasons that defy imagination, she faces
an unprecedented legal action that subjects this victim of violence to
further distress and harm.” In front of a
modest blue home in Birmingham on a hot, sunny day, Jamal Jones
identified himself as Marshae Jones’s second cousin. He told The
Washington Post that Jones and Jemison had feuded in the past but that
Jones has always been a quiet, soft-spoken person. “She’s
a good mom,” the 37-year-old said of Jones, who has a young daughter.
“Her daughter is with her everywhere. She makes sure she gets her to
school every day, picks her up, feeds her. She don’t try to put her off
on anybody.” He added: “She’s a good person. I’m not just saying that because she’s my cousin. She gets along with anybody.” Jones’s mother, who declined to give her first name, said she was turning to her faith amid a trying time for her family. Jones “is a fun-loving mom, churchgoing, a hard-working lady,” Jones’s mother said. “My child just doesn’t bother anybody.” Speaking with AL.com, Jones’s grandmother, Patrice Jones, echoed those sentiments. “It’s not fair,’’ the grandmother said. “Marshae didn’t have a gun. How did they turn it around on her?” "We
feel sympathy for the families involved, including Ms. Jones, who lost
her unborn child,’’ the district attorney’s office said. “The fact that
this tragedy was 100 percent avoidable makes this case Alabama is among 38 states with laws that classify fetuses as victims in homicide or assault, according
to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In Alabama, a
“person” includes embryos and fetuses at any stage of development. And
rights groups say those laws are ensnaring pregnant women. Lynn
Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women,
says Alabama leads the country in mothers charged with crimes related to
pregnancy. But she said this case was unique. “This
is the first time the idea that fertilized egg or fetal personhood has
provided the basis for arrest of a woman because she was pregnant, and
she herself was the victim of a criminal act,” Paltrow said. “Alabama
has indicted Ms. Jones, claiming it is a crime for a woman to be unable
to protect her own life and health.” Randall
Marshall, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of
Alabama, said the state “is one of the most dangerous places in the
country for a black woman trying to carry her pregnancy to term, and
this prosecution is just one more attack on the basic human rights and
dignity of black women in our state.” Rev.
Robinson, the pastor at Jones’s church, said he did not see young woman
as a criminal. He called the situation “shocking” and said the 200 or
so members of his tight-knit congregation are equally concerned about
the case. As they struggle to answer
unthinkable questions, the East Thomas community waits for a prosecutor
to decide whether Jones should be held accountable for her lost
pregnancy."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/29/bullet-miscarriage-an-unthinkable-question-whos-victim-who-is-blame/?utm_term=.2bd39b98ed9c&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1PUBLISHER'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;
Charles Ray Finch; North Carolina; Sentenced to death because of flawed ballistics (as well as rigged lineups and pressured witnesses) he becomes the 166th Death-Row Exoneree as North Carolina Prosecutor Formally Drops All Charges, The Death Penalty Information Center reports..."In July 1976, false forensic testimony and an eyewitness identification manipulated by police misconduct sent Charles Ray Finch to North Carolina’s death row. Forty-three years later, he has become the 166th person in the United States since 1973 to be exonerated after having been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death."
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Jim Coleman, co-director of the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic, represented Finch for more than 15 years. He said that when he took on the case, he contacted every major state official, seeking review of Finch’s case. “The worst thing that we encounter in the work that we do are indifferent officials—police officers, sheriffs, prosecutors and judges—who think that justice has been done when there is a conviction, and nothing that happens after a conviction matters,” Coleman said. “We have a human system and therefore we make mistakes. It is the obligation of everybody in the system to be concerned when mistakes are made and to take action to correct them.”
-----------------------------------------------------------
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The court identified major problems with the evidence
used to convict Finch. He was subjected to “suggestive lineups,” in
which he was the only suspect dressed in a three-quarter length jacket,
the same style of clothing that the eyewitness, Lester Floyd Jones, said
the perpetrator was wearing. Such lineups have since been declared
unconstitutional. “These procedural issues support Finch’s allegations
of constitutional error that he was misidentified by Jones,” Judge
Gregory wrote. “No reasonable juror would likely find Finch guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt if it knew the high likelihood that he was
misidentified by Jones both outside and inside the courtroom as a murder
suspect because of the impermissibly suggestive lineups.” The decision
also noted that Jones – who the court said “had cognitive issues,
struggled with alcoholism and had issues with short-term memory recall” –
told police that the killer was armed with a sawed-off shotgun and had
never mentioned to the police that the shooter had any facial hair. At
the time Holloman was killed, Finch had a long beard and distinctive
sideburns and at trial Jones changed his description of the shooter to
fit Finch’s appearance. A new review of the autopsy evidence decades
after the crime disclosed that Holloman had been killed with a pistol,
not a shotgun and new ballistics evidence contradicted prosecution
claims that the shells found at the crime scene matched a shotgun shell
found in Finch’s car. Other witnesses also indicated they had been
pressured into providing testimony implicating Finch. “This new
evidence,” the court said, “not only undercuts the state’s physical
evidence, but it also discredits the reliability of Jones.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------
POST: "Charles Ray Finch Becomes 166th Death-Row Exoneree as North Carolina Prosecutor Formally Drops All Charges," published by The Death Penalty Information Center on June 26, 2019.
GIST: "In July 1976, false forensic testimony and an eyewitness identification manipulated by police misconduct sent Charles Ray Finch to North Carolina’s death row. Forty-three years later, he has become the 166th
person in the United States since 1973 to be exonerated after having
been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. On June 14, 2019,
after a federal appeals court said Finch had proven his “actual innocence” and a federal district court had given the state 30 days to decide whether to attempt to retry him, the Wilson County District Attorney quietly and without advance notice to counsel formally dismissed all charges against Finch, completing his exoneration. Finch is the second person in 2019 to be exonerated more than forty years after having been sentenced to death. In March, Clifford Williams, Jr. was exonerated 42 years after having been sentenced to death in Florida. According to the Death Penalty Information Center innocence list, Finch’s case was the 10th
time this decade an exoneration has taken 30 years or more. All of
those exonerees have been black. In 18 cases—more than 10% of the
exonerations—it has taken a quarter century before the exoneree’s rights
have been vindicated. The 166th
exoneration came just days before the nation’s 1,500th
execution on June 20. In the modern era of the U.S. death penalty, there has now been one exoneration for every 9 executions. Finch was wrongly convicted in 1976 of murdering a grocery store
clerk during a robbery. He was sentenced to death under North Carolina’s
mandatory death sentencing law, which was struck down as
unconstitutional soon thereafter. In 1977, the North Carolina Supreme
Court vacated Finch’s death sentence and resentenced him to life in
prison. In January 2019, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found him “actually innocent” and sent the case back to a lower court for adjudication of constitutional violations relating to his innocence claim. He was freed
on May 23, 2019, when U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle formally
overturned his conviction and gave prosecutors 30 days to decide whether
to retry him. With the dismissal of charges, Finch has now been fully
exonerated. In the Fourth Circuit decision that declared Finch “actually
innocent,” Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory wrote that “Finch has overcome
the exacting standard for actual innocence through sufficiently alleging
and providing new evidence of a constitutional violation and through
demonstrating that the totality of the evidence, both old and new, would
likely fail to convince any reasonable juror of his guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt.” The court identified major problems with the evidence
used to convict Finch. He was subjected to “suggestive lineups,” in
which he was the only suspect dressed in a three-quarter length jacket,
the same style of clothing that the eyewitness, Lester Floyd Jones, said
the perpetrator was wearing. Such lineups have since been declared
unconstitutional. “These procedural issues support Finch’s allegations
of constitutional error that he was misidentified by Jones,” Judge
Gregory wrote. “No reasonable juror would likely find Finch guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt if it knew the high likelihood that he was
misidentified by Jones both outside and inside the courtroom as a murder
suspect because of the impermissibly suggestive lineups.” The decision
also noted that Jones – who the court said “had cognitive issues,
struggled with alcoholism and had issues with short-term memory recall” –
told police that the killer was armed with a sawed-off shotgun and had
never mentioned to the police that the shooter had any facial hair. At
the time Holloman was killed, Finch had a long beard and distinctive
sideburns and at trial Jones changed his description of the shooter to
fit Finch’s appearance. A new review of the autopsy evidence decades
after the crime disclosed that Holloman had been killed with a pistol,
not a shotgun and new ballistics evidence contradicted prosecution
claims that the shells found at the crime scene matched a shotgun shell
found in Finch’s car. Other witnesses also indicated they had been
pressured into providing testimony implicating Finch. “This new
evidence,” the court said, “not only undercuts the state’s physical
evidence, but it also discredits the reliability of Jones.” Jim Coleman, co-director of the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic,
represented Finch for more than 15 years. He said that when he took on
the case, he contacted every major state official, seeking review of
Finch’s case. “The worst thing that we encounter in the work that we do
are indifferent officials—police officers, sheriffs, prosecutors and
judges—who think that justice has been done when there is a conviction,
and nothing that happens after a conviction matters,” Coleman said. “We
have a human system and therefore we make mistakes. It is the obligation
of everybody in the system to be concerned when mistakes are made and
to take action to correct them.” An editorial in The Wilson Times,
which chronicled Finch’s case, called the case a “cautionary tale to
law enforcement officers and prosecutors” and noted that the person who
actually killed Richard Holloman was never held accountable. Finch’s
daughter, Katherine Jones-Bailey said the wrongful conviction victimized
both her family and Holloman’s. “They still didn’t get justice,” she
said. “We all end up suffering at my dad’s expense.” Finch spent 43 years in prison, more than any other death-row
exoneree in modern times. He is the ninth person exonerated from death
row in North Carolina. Seven of the North Carolina death-row exonerees
are black; an eighth is Latino. All of the North Carolina death-row
exonerations involved witness perjury or false accusation, and eight
also involved official misconduct. Those two factors are the most
prevalent causes of wrongful capital convictions in the United States.
The entire post can be read at
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/charles-ray-finch-becomes-166th-death-row-exoneree-as-north-carolina-prosecutor-formally-drops-all-charges
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;
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;
Marshae Jones: Alabama: Criminalizing reproduction: A shooting ended Marshae Jones’s pregnancy. Police say it’s her fault, Vox, Reporter P.J. Lockhart) reports..."In Alabama, a black woman is facing criminal charges after being shot in the stomach and having a miscarriage. The story has drawn national attention and outrage from reproductive rights groups who argue that the incident is a disturbing example of the mistreatment and criminalization of low-income pregnant women of color."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: "I have taken on the them of criminalizing reproduction - a natural theme for a Blog concerned with flawed science in its myriad forms and its flawed devotees (like Charles Smith), as I am utterly opposed to the current movement in the United States and some other countries - thankfully not Canada any more - towards imprisoning women and their physicians on the basis of sham science (or any other basis). Control over their reproductive lives is far too important to women in America or anywhere else so they can participate equally in the economic and social life of their nations without fear for loss their freedom at the hands of political opportunists and fanatics. I will continue to follow relevant cases such as Purvi Patel and Bei Bei Shuai - and the mounting wave of legislative attacks aimed at chipping away at Roe V. Wade and ultimately dismantling it."
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "On Wednesday, Marshae Jones, a 27-year-old woman from Birmingham, was taken into police custody after being indicted in Jefferson County on a manslaughter charge. She is currently being held on a $50,000 bond. In December, Jones — then five months pregnant — got into an altercation with a 23-year-old woman outside of a store. The woman, Ebony Jemison, pulled out a gun and shot Jones in the stomach. Jones miscarried shortly after. According to a report from Al.com, police initially charged Jemison with manslaughter over the shooting. But a jury declined to indict her, saying that Jones initiated the altercation and that Jemison was acting in self-defense when she shot at Jones."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Alabama is one of 38 states with a fetal homicide law that recognizes a fetus as a potential victim of a crime against a pregnant woman. When the indictment was reported on Wednesday, it immediately raised questions about why the woman who was shot was the one charged. It’s not the first time that Alabama has been in the news for pursuing controversial criminal charges against a woman of color: In 2018, Jacqueline Dixon, a black woman from Selma, was charged with murder after shooting her abusive husband in self-defense. Media coverage of Dixon’s case noted that she had not been protected by Alabama’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law, and local police said that Dixon did not seek consistent enforcement of a protection order against her estranged husband. A jury declined to indict Dixon later that year. Based on the information that has been released so far, advocates argue that Jones’s ordeal, in some ways, highlights another problem: the ways that mothers and expecting women — especially black women — deal with what a 2012 New York Times Magazine article called the “criminalization of ‘bad mothers,’” the use of the justice system to prosecute women for things like miscarriages caused by drug misuse. In other cases, women have faced criminal charges after the death of their children in accidents, or for inducing their own abortions. In Alabama, advocates note that these sorts of prosecutions are particularly frequent, and they fear that they could increase further due to a new (but not yet implemented) law banning most abortions in the state."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Marshae Jones’s indictment comes just over a month after Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed the strictest anti-abortion law in the country, effectively banning almost all abortions in the state and not including exceptions for rape and incest. That law is not set to take effect until November, and Jones was not charged under it. Still, reproductive rights groups say it is alarming that she was indicted, pointing to the case as a potential sign of what will happen to women, especially low-income women of color in the state, once the law is in effect. “Marshae Jones is being charged with manslaughter for being pregnant and getting shot while engaging in an altercation with a person who had a gun,” Amanda Reyes of the Yellowhammer Fund, an abortion rights advocacy group, said in a statement. “Tomorrow, it will be another black woman, maybe for having a drink while pregnant. And after that, another, for not obtaining adequate prenatal care.” Reproductive justice groups argue that these issues also reflect a tragic reality in several states with highly restrictive abortion laws, many of which struggle with high rates of poverty, high maternal and infant deaths, and wide racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality. This is also the case in Alabama, which is the sixth poorest state in the nation, where black women are roughly three times more likely than white women to die during or shortly after childbirth. In 2014, fewer than half of the state’s 67 counties had hospitals that offered obstetrics services, limiting many rural women’s ability to access pre- and postnatal health care. Reproductive rights advocates say Jones’s treatment shows that women are still being punished and criminalized for things they shouldn’t be, and that the system is failing them in too many ways.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
STORY: A shooting ended Marshae Jones’s pregnancy. Police say it’s her fault," by reporter P.J. Lockhart, published by VOX on June 27, 2019. (P.J. Lockhart writes about race: how it intersects with gender, sexuality, and economic status, how it influences social justice movements, and how communities of color interact with and are affected by policy and politics.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/6/27/18761652/marshae-jones-alabama-misscarriage-shooting-indictment
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, June 28, 2019
Robert Lee Stinson: Wisconsin: Bogus bite-mark evidence: Major Development: His lawsuit against the dentists and detectives he claims have framed him has taken a surprise twist, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Reporter Bruce Vielmetti) reports, in story headed "Bogus bite-mark evidence and a 10-year lawsuit. The surprising end to Robert Lee Stinson's road to justice."..."Robert Lee Stinson's long slog for justice is finally over. But it's unclear whether he got it, or any further compensation for spending 24 years in prison on a wrongful conviction. The trial over his claims that detectives and dentists conspired to frame him with bogus bite-mark evidence ended in a surprise settlement Thursday shortly before the case would have gone to the federal court jury 10 years after it was filed. There were handshakes all around among lawyers, and a hug for Stinson and his lead attorney for U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper, but not a word about the terms of the settlement. Lawyers for all the parties said only, "No comment at this time."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Kudos to Journal Sentinel Legal Affairs Reporter Bruce Vielmetti for one of the best pieces of trial reporting I have ever seen. He caught the tragedy of an innocent man losing almost half of his life life to quack science, the systemic bias of the entire justice system that was likely also at work when a poor, young African American male is on trial for the sexual assault and murder of a white woman, the failure of the State to preserve potentially exculpatory evidence, and the difficult decisions that had to be made along the way by the judge, prosecutor and defence lawyer - all while explaining the intricacies of the law in a clear, intelligent way. Kodos as well to the Journal Sentinel for the attention it has devoted to this case - and above all to the Innocence Project and its lawyers, without whom might still be behind bars.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
-----------------------------------------------------------
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The trial judge in the case, now-retired Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske, told Vox earlier this year that she feels bad, but had no reason at the time to block the expert testimony. "I'm grateful we don't have the death penalty," she said."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: Stinson, 54, was convicted in 1985 in the November 1984 beating death of his older female neighbor, Ione Cychosz, based on the dentists' expert opinions that only he could have made the bite marks on the victim's body. He was sentenced to life in prison. The dentists, Marquette University professor Lowell Thomas Johnson and Raymond Rawson, of Las Vegas, strongly believed that everyone's dentition is unique and could be matched to human bite wounds, a theory that was unproven and subject to much debate within forensic dentistry at the time. Stinson's case, and its affirmation on appeal, helped persuade more courts to admit similar bite-mark evidence. In 2009, the Innocence Project of Wisconsin won Stinson's release after a panel of experts concluded Johnson and Rawson's opinions were badly flawed, even for that time, and that Stinson's teeth did not make the bites. Male DNA from Cychosz's clothing did not match Stinson either. A different man, Moses Price, matched the DNA and confessed to killing Cychosz in 2012. His teeth didn't match the victim's bite marks either.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "There were other initial suspects — basically, anyone in jail on a sexual assault charge who was missing a tooth — but Johnson only examined Stinson. No one raised the systemic bias of the entire justice system that was likely also at work when a poor, young African American male is on trial for the sexual assault and murder of a white woman. An error in preserving semen collected from the victim prevented testing, which meant prosecutors couldn't charge sexual assault. The testing would have shown the person's blood type, which might have excluded Stinson. Though the process by which Stinson was singled out as a suspect and linked conclusively to bite marks on the victim seems shockingly flawed now, it was accepted in 1985 and upheld on appeal. The prosecutor on the case at the time said his gut feeling after meeting and talking with Stinson was that he couldn't be the perpetrator, but was convinced by the dentists' work. Stinson's trial attorney, Steve Kohn, now retired, hired his own dental expert but didn't call him as a witness because he agreed that Johnson's evidence pointed to Stinson."
PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: " Stinson is just one of dozens of people who were convicted on false-bite mark evidence in the 1980s and 1990s when forensic dentistry proponents like Johnson were pushing bite-mark evidence as a scientific way to connect someone to a crime. It was one of several pattern comparison fields in forensics, such as shoe prints, fingerprints, tire tracks, handwriting and ballistics. But despite the ardor of its believers, it was never scientifically validated and has fallen out of favor. Though the process by which Stinson was singled out as a suspect and linked conclusively to bite marks on the victim seems shockingly inept now, it was accepted in 1985 and upheld on appeal — a ruling that led to more courts approving similar evidence. Dozens of those also resulted in wrongful convictions that the Innocence Project helped overturn. Seven years after Stinson's conviction, the U.S. Supreme Court set a new standard meant to give judges the authority to rein in what critics called junk science, and require expert's testimony be based on reliable principles and methods. Bite-mark evidence has largely not done well under the new scrutiny. Many scientists disagree that human tissue can record bites well enough to allow precise comparison since skin stretches and marks vary depending on where they are made on a body."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
PASSAGE FOUR OF THE DAY: "Stinson testified about being taunted and harassed in prison as "an old lady killer," his constant fear, how he lost hope and became depressed. He said he had always dreamed of having a family, children, "home with a fence and a pool and all that." Byron Lichstein, one of the Innocence Project lawyers, said the day Stinson was released from prison he seemed disoriented, dealing with both jubilation and shock. He said he remained in touch and saw Stinson make "a wonderful effort" to reintegrate with the outside world, but "he remains haunted by the (prison) experience."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
STORY: "Bogus bite-mark evidence and a 10-year lawsuit. The
surprising end to Robert Lee Stinson's road to justice," by reporter
Bruce Vielmetti, published by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on June 27,
2019.
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.jsonline.com/
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/
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Vicente Benevides: California: From our 'Enough to Make One Weep Department: 26 years on San Quentin's death row..."The case began in 1991 when a 21-month-old girl he had been babysitting was injured and rushed to two hospitals. The prosecutor presented experts who said that Benevides raped the girl, causing her death. Those experts later recanted. Records revealed there were no genital injuries on the child at the first hospital. The trauma happened at the second hospital after nurses struggled to insert a catheter into the urethra of the dying child to drain urine."
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I only got through on death row knowing that the truth would come to light one day," said Benevides, who will turn 70 this month."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Benevides was arrested at age 41 and spent nearly 26 years at San Quentin. He is suing Kern County officials for allegedly fabricating evidence. The case began in 1991 when a 21-month-old girl he had been babysitting was injured and rushed to two hospitals. The prosecutor presented experts who said that Benevides raped the girl, causing her death. Those experts later recanted. Records revealed there were no genital injuries on the child at the first hospital. The trauma happened at the second hospital after nurses struggled to insert a catheter into the urethra of the dying child to drain urine. "They framed - and I don't say this lightly - they framed this innocent man," says attorney Ron O. Kaye."
------------------------------------------------------------------
STORY: "Freed after 26 years on San Quentin's death row, farmworker files suit for false imprisonment," by reporter Miriam Hernandez, published by KABC Los Angeles on June 27 2019.
The entire story can be read at:
https://abc7.com/wrongfully-convicted-california-death-row-inmate-files-lawsuit/5366745/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
------------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND: Read excellent background on the pathological aspects of the claim - L.A. Times Reporter Alene Tchekmedyian, June 28, 2019, at the link below: "The case dates back to 1991, when Benavides, a former farmworker who is now 69, was babysitting the 21-month-old Consuelo Verdugo when her mother went to work. Consuelo’s 9-year-old sister had gone to play with a friend and somehow, the toddler also ended up outside the Delano apartment. Benavides told authorities he discovered the girl injured near a carport. Her mother, a nurse’s aide who had left for work about 40 minutes earlier, returned home right away and took the girl to the Delano Regional Medical Center. Consuelo was treated there, along with two other medical centers, before she died. James Dibdin, a coroner with the Kern County medical examiner’s office who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, determined that Consuelo died of “blunt force penetrating injury of the anus.” The lawsuit, however, says every medical expert who supported that conclusion and testified against Benavides at trial has since recanted their testimony that Consuelo was sexually abused. One UCLA physician who treated Consuelo said that if he had been given all of the girl’s medical records, he would have concluded that the pathologist’s cause of death was “anatomically impossible,” the lawsuit states. Another doctor who reviewed Consuelo’s medical records said the coroner’s conclusion was so unlikely that it reaches “the point of being absurd,” the lawsuit states. The complaint says the injuries were actually the result of repeated failed efforts to insert an adult-sized catheter, rectal temperature taking, the use of a paralytic medication and physical examination. A nurse who saw Consuelo when she was first brought in for treatment said no one at the hospital noted any vaginal or anal trauma. When reached by phone Wednesday, Dibdin said that before he conducted the autopsy, he was told by the coroner’s office that it had been established that the child had been sexually assaulted. “My testimony was based on the theory that that was correct, so I don’t have any beef with the court saying my testimony was not correct,” he said. “If I hadn’t been told the child had been sexually assaulted, I wouldn’t have gone to court and said the child had been sexually assaulted.” He said he had not been served with a lawsuit. “I just did the job I was told to do,” he said. “If it turns out the information I was given was false I can’t do anything about that.” The complaint points to a history of misconduct by the pathologist who conducted the autopsy, alleging that Dibdin was fired from at least four coroner jobs across the U.S. and in Australia for various reasons, including giving erroneous causes of death. “Kern County knew this,” said Salomon Zavala, another attorney representing Benavides. “They hired someone with that type of history.” Dibdin told The Times that he’s not aware of any court in any of those jurisdictions ever finding that he got a cause of death wrong. The complaint quotes a San Bernardino County coroner who indicated Dibdin conducts “bad autopsies” and generally gives “no foundation” for his cause of death. “He does autopsies as fast as possible for monetary purposes,” he said, according to the complaint. “He’s dangerous to have him work on an autopsy with you.” A pathologist in Riverside County described Dibdin as a “disaster waiting to happen,” the complaint states. “He does fast autopsies and shoots from the hip,” the pathologist said, according to the lawsuit. The complaint also alleges that prosecutors failed to turn over exculpatory evidence and coerced witnesses, including Consuelo’s older sister Cristina, into incriminating Benavides. Cristina reported that Consuelo had run into the front door of the house, fell down and lost consciousness, the lawsuit states. Their mother told police she didn’t know what happened, but she was confident Benavides did not hurt her child. Investigators with the Delano Police Department and the Kern County district attorney’s office removed Cristina from her home and questioned her about sex abuse after she said neither she nor her sister had been abused, the lawsuit said. When she told officers that she thought Benavides was telling the truth, they replied that “as police officers,” they thought she was wrong and suggested she didn’t believe herself, the lawsuit states. They asked the same question repeatedly: Did she believe him? Eventually, the lawsuit states, she said she didn’t know, and she ultimately answered the question with: “No? No.” “Rather than reviewing the evidence, rather than giving the case the attention it deserves, they embraced a theory that was false,” Kaye said. “They had so little concern for his humanity that they pushed forward for conviction with blinders on.” Benavides’ case was not an isolated incident, his attorneys said. The complaint alleges that more than 30 child sexual abuse convictions Kern County prosecutors secured in the 1980s were subsequently overturned." (Alene Tchekmedyian covers Los Angeles County’s criminal courts.)
(https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-vicente-benavides-death-row-false-conviction-lawsuit-20190626-story.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Read the National Registry of Exonerations account at the link below. (It took me quite a while to calm down after reading it. HL);
"On April 19, 2018, 68-year-old Vicente Benavides was released from California’s death row, 25 years after he was sentenced to death for the rape, sodomy, and murder of a 21-month-old girl in Delano, California. His convictions were vacated and the charges were dismissed after numerous experts concluded that the girl had never been raped or sodomized, and that the medical evidence used to convict Benavides was wrong.
The case began on the evening of November 17, 1991, when the 42-year-old Benavides and his girlfriend, Estella Medina, brought Medina’s 21-month-old daughter, Consuelo, to the Delano Regional Medical Center in Delano, California. They said they thought that Consuelo might have hit her head on a door while chasing her nine-year-old sister Cristina. Consuelo was initially not fully responsive, but she was awake and responded to stimuli.
Medical personnel focused a small bruise on her forehead and scrapes on her nose and lip. They initially believed she had a closed head injury. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to insert a catheter. When Consuelo’s stomach began to distend and her condition deteriorated, she was transferred to Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, California. The receiving nurse there noted that she had “blown pupils,” which are often seen in victims of blunt force trauma from an auto accident.
Attention was immediately focused on the girl’s distended abdomen. A nurse attempting to insert a catheter noted a bruise on Consuelo’s external genitalia. Eventually, a small feeding tube was inserted instead of a catheter. Within 20 minutes of arrival, her abdomen had become even more distended. Diagnostic surgery revealed that her bowel, duodenum, and pancreas were “cracked in half,” with portions of each on either side of her spine.
A surgeon would later testify that those injuries could have been caused by a kick or punch to the abdomen. The surgeon also noted scars, which he said indicated injuries suffered two months earlier between her colon and liver.
The morning after the surgery, Dr. Jess Diamond, a pediatrician, examined Consuelo and found a tear in her hymen and bruises around her anus. There were also tears in her anus and damage to the sphincter muscles. He concluded that her injuries were not consistent with Consuelo being hit by or running into a door. He believed that she had been sodomized, that her vaginal area had been penetrated and the vaginal wall torn, and that she had been kicked or punched in the abdomen.
On November 19, 1991, Consuelo was transferred to UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. Her entire body was swollen and her kidneys had stopped functioning. A second surgery was performed. On November 20, Benavides was arrested. Six days later, on November 26, 1991, Consuelo died.
On December 12, 1991, Benavides was charged with first-degree murder, rape, sodomy, and lewd conduct with infliction of great bodily injury.
On March 15, 1993, Benavides went to trial in Kern County Superior Court. Medina testified that she changed Consuelo’s diaper and went to work at about 6:40 p.m. on the day of the incident. When she left, Cristina and Consuelo were eating hamburgers for dinner.
Medina said Cristina called her at 7:20 p.m. and reported that Consuelo was pale, sick, and could not breathe. Medina said she returned home and found Benavides sitting on a bed holding Consuelo in his arms. She drove them to the hospital in Delano.
Cristina testified that after the incident, state welfare officials removed her from the family, and police and social workers questioned her several times. Ultimately, in May 1992—six months later—she suddenly remembered a time when Benavides, who was caring for her and Consuelo alone overnight, took a crying Consuelo into his locked bedroom until morning. She admitted on cross-examination that the following day, Consuelo did not appear hurt or afraid of Benavides.
Cristina told the jury that on the night of the incident, she asked Benavides for permission to go outside to play with a friend. She said Benavides told her to be home in 30 minutes. She said she opened the door as she went out and closed it behind her. She said that she did not see Consuelo near the door. About 15 minutes later, Benavides came outside and told her to come home. When she got home, she said, Benavides was holding Consuelo and putting alcohol on her forehead. He told her to call Medina.
Cristina testified that on the way to the hospital, Benavides told Medina that Cristina had hit Consuelo with the door when she went outside. He said that he had found Consuelo outside and brought her back inside. Cristina told the jury that she did not hit Consuelo with the door.
A Delano detective testified that he interviewed Benavides on November 18, 1991—the day after the child was brought to the hospital. The detective said Benavides reported that when Cristina went outside, Consuelo followed her and Cristina brought her back. Benavides said he told Cristina to take Consuelo with her, but she refused and left, shutting the door hard.
Benavides said he had gone into the kitchen. After a minute, when he didn’t hear Consuelo, he came out and found the door ajar. He said he looked outside and found Consuelo on a grassy area adjacent to the carport. She was on her back with blood on her nose and mouth, and she was vomiting. The detective said Benavides said he brought the girl inside and cleaned her face with toilet tissues, but that he realized she was “injured bad” because her eyes were rolling.
Jeanne Spencer, a criminalist from the Kern County Regional Crime Laboratory, testified that she searched the apartment on November 20, 1991. She said that she did not find any blood or vomit or any indication that either had been cleaned up in the area near the door or outside. Spencer said she found paper towels soaked with vomit containing semi-digested food consistent with a hamburger bun and carpet fibers consistent with the rug in the apartment. She said she found no dirt, gravel, or any other substance she would have expected to find had the vomit been cleaned up outside.
Spencer also testified she found a towel that tested positive for blood and semen on the master bedroom floor. The blood was consistent with both Medina and Benavides, and the semen was consistent with Benavides. She found bloody tissues in the bathroom wastebasket, and vomit in a pattern indicating it came from a downward spray on the right leg of the pants Benavides was wearing when he came to the hospital.
Consuelo’s clothing was not torn and had no dirt or markings that would indicate she had landed on pavement. No semen was detected. No diaper was included in the bag of the girl’s clothes obtained from the hospital. A microscopic examination of her clothing revealed no signs of trauma.
A California Highway Patrol accident investigator testified that Consuelo would not have landed outside the apartment door on the grassy area between the building and the carport had she been hit by a car pulling into or backing into the carport. And even if she had been hit in that fashion, he said, her injuries would have been far less severe.
Dr. James Dibdin, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy, testified that Consuelo died of a blunt force penetrating injury of the anus that not only lacerated her anus, but also severely damaged her internal organs. The anus was expanded to seven or eight times its normal size. He concluded she had been anally sodomized. He said the vaginal tear was the reason for the difficulty in attempting to insert a catheter at the hospital.
Dibdin said there were several fractured ribs, which he attributed to Consuelo being gripped tightly around the chest from behind. He found bruises resulting from thumbs being pressed against her. He also found a subdural hematoma and brain swelling, which he said was evidence that Consuelo had been shaken violently during the sexual assault.
Dibdin testified that the facial abrasions resulted from Benavides holding a hand over her mouth. He said her injuries were not consistent with a fall or running into something. Dibdin admitted that he had not written up his autopsy findings until two months after Consuelo’s death, and well after Benavides had been charged with her murder and sexual assault.
Dr. Diamond testified that although he learned of the tear in the rectum wall from Dibdin’s autopsy, he had concluded at the hospital while Consuelo was still alive that she had been sexually assaulted. Dr. John Bentson testified that Consuelo’s head injuries were consistent with receiving blows to the head.
The defense lawyers presented two medical experts who testified that Consuelo’s injuries were consistent with a fall or a car accident, as well as the effects of the various medical procedures that were employed during the eight days she was hospitalized before her death. The defense also presented evidence that some plant material was removed from Consuelo’s nasal passage at UCLA.
Benavides testified that he had been cooking eggs in the kitchen when he went to look for Consuelo. He said he found her outside on the ground, vomiting and bleeding from her nose and mouth. He brought her inside and put her on the couch, and then went back out to call Cristina inside. He told the jury he tried to clean up Consuelo’s face with toilet paper. He said he used kitchen towels to clean up the vomit outside, tossing the towels into the trash.
He admitted that the door to the apartment opened inward, and that a person leaving would pull the door shut behind them. He agreed that if Consuelo hit her head on the door, she would have been inside, not outside, of the apartment.
Benavides denied assaulting Consuelo in any fashion or inflicting any harm on her.
On April 20, 1993, the jury convicted Benavides of first-degree murder, rape, sodomy, and lewd conduct inflicting serious injuries. Two days later, the jury voted to impose the death penalty.
In 2005, the California Supreme Court upheld Benavides’s convictions and death sentence.
In 2007, attorneys for Benavides filed a 395-page petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The petition argued that the convictions were based upon false medical testimony, that the police and prosecution withheld evidence, and that the prosecution made improper arguments.
The petition also cited the failure of Benavides’s defense attorneys (both of whom were subsequently disbarred or suspended) to provide an adequate defense. Benavides was developmentally disabled—his mental capacity was that of a seven-year-old—the defense never brought that out at his trial.
The primary focus of the petition, however, was on the medical testimony.
“Virtually every medical observation and conclusion that the prosecution presented – from the cause of death to the ‘evidence’ of rape and sodomy – was manufactured and false,” the petition said. “The indisputable evidence presented in this petition—provided by world-renowned medical authorities, the medical personnel who observed Consuelo Verdugo immediately upon her arrival at the hospital, and the doctors who testified on behalf of the prosecution–disproves each and every element of the prosecution's case.”
“The jury did not learn or know that the pathologist's cause of death—anal penetration that severed her pancreas—is medically impossible,” the petition said. “The jury did not learn or know that the numerous medical personnel who administered Consuelo's care immediately upon her arrival at the hospital emphatically deny that she had such injuries. Indeed, the jury did not hear that the injuries used to support the charges resulted not from criminal conduct, but rather from the invasive and sustained medical efforts to address Consuelo's increasingly deteriorating medical condition.”
The only medical witness who did not recant his trial testimony was Dibdin, the pathologist. The habeas petition noted that Dibdin had been fired or his contract was terminated from medical examiner offices in Oklahoma City; Brown County, Wisconsin; Tasmania, Australia; San Bernardino County, California; Nevada County, California, and, some time after Benavides’s conviction, his contract with the Kern County Coroner’s Office was not renewed.
In the early 2000s, Dibdin was hired as a pathologist at a hospital in South Shields, England, analyzing tissue samples to diagnose illnesses. In 2007, the General Medical Council found he had made numerous errors, some of which resulted in belated diagnoses of cancer in patients. The Council suspended Dibdin’s medical license. Subsequently, he returned to California and resumed practicing.
The petition also said that the initial x-ray of Consuelo’s body showed no rib fractures, but the report of the x-ray was amended to state that the fractures were visible after detectives claimed they spotted fractures in the x-rays. The police report documenting the change in the original report of the x-rays was not disclosed to the defense.
In addition, the two experts presented by Benavides’s attorneys were provided with only some of the medical evidence. Moreover, what they were given came too late to fully inform their testimony.
Among evidence that was not disclosed to the evidence, according to the petition, were the lab reports of Spencer, the crime lab criminalist. Despite her testimony that there was no evidence that Consuelo was outside, the lab report documented that plant material was found on the girl’s sweatshirt and that there was dirt and blood on the sole of her shoe.
The petition said that after Cristina was removed from the home by state child protective services, she was subjected to numerous interviews by social workers and detectives. During these interviews, she was threatened that unless she provided testimony favorable to the state, she would never go home.
Moreover, the prosecution failed to disclose that the state paid benefits to the family members who took temporary custody of Cristina. Both had testified at Benavides’s sentencing hearing that they wanted “justice” for Consuelo.
The prosecution, according to the petition, threatened Medina that if she continued to support Benavides’s innocence, she would never regain custody of Cristina. After repeated interviews and threats relating to Cristina, Medina ultimately testified—falsely, according to the petition—that she had warned Benavides not to harm her children and that if he did, “I would have you locked up.”
The prosecution also failed to disclose that Dr. Diamond conducted an examination of Cristina and determined that she had never been molested. The report was significant, the defense contended, because the prosecution suggested that Cristina “was lucky to get out alive.”
The Supreme Court ordered the prosecution to respond to the petition. In August 2010, the prosecution filed a 501-page response, conceding that the convictions were based on false medical evidence. However, the prosecution argued that while the charges relating to sexual assault should be dismissed, Benavides’s first-degree murder conviction should be reduced to second-degree murder.
In March 2018, the California Supreme Court vacated all of the convictions, noting that the defense medical experts were virtually unanimous in concluding that Consuelo was not sexually assaulted. At least 10 physicians or treating personnel recanted their trial testimony, the court noted.
The court concluded that the injuries were caused by the numerous medical interventions and “bodywide swelling.”
“A comparison between witnesses’ trial testimony and their later declarations is striking,” the court said.
Two doctors who treated Consuelo at UCLA, the final hospital to which she was admitted, reviewed all of the medical records and declared that anal penetration could not have been the cause of death because the organs between the anus and upper abdomen were not injured. “Dr. Rick Harrison, the physician in charge of Consuelo’s care at UCLA, believed that the cause of death given by Dr. Dibdin was anatomically impossible,” the court said.
The court pointed out that Dr. Diamond, the child abuse expert who evaluated Consuelo at Kern Medical Center and testified at trial that the appearance of Consuelo’s anal region was consistent with penetration had recanted, saying “it is now my opinion to a high degree of medical certainty that Consuelo was not raped or sodomized.”
Dr. Nat Baumer, a medical expert who testified for the defense, subsequently declared that he had not been given Consuelo’s complete medical record before testifying and “[c]onsequently, [his] testimony supported the prosecution’s allegations that Consuelo had been anally penetrated with a penis which, based on [his] own observations, [he] could not support.”
The court specifically noted that Dr. Tracey Corey, a forensic pathologist who reviewed the case in post-conviction, stated that she was “embarrassed about the pathologist because what he says isn’t even . . . anatomically possible.” She added, “I’m embarrassed that . . . a pathologist didn’t know better, didn’t know anatomy better.”
On April 19, 2018, Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green moved to dismiss the charges and Benavides was released.
In June 2019, Benavides filed a lawsuit seeking compensation from Kern County."
--------------------------------------------------------------