Sunday, July 14, 2019

Publisher's Note: Brief Pause to complete a writing assignment... Back soon. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.


Dear Readers.

I must embark briefly on a writing assignment - but will be back in  action  soon.

In the interim, please keep in touch as usual with leads on issues, cases,  developments, comments, whatever,  with respect to the subject matter of this Blog  at:

hlevy15@gmail.com

Best wishes.

Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;

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PS: Last words for now: Please mark Wednesday July 17 on your calender. That's when Chris Tapp -  this Blog has been following the twists and turns of his case for years - should finally be exonerated, as set out in the following story by reporter Cynthia Sewell, in the Idaho Statesman.  (Such a slow, painful process this has been. Follow the story  on the Statesman site,  at:

https://www.idahostatesman.com/

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STORY: "Prosecutor: Chris Tapp ‘convicted of a crime he did not commit’ in Angie Dodge case," by reporter Cynthia Sewell, published by The Idaho Statesman on July 12, 2019.

GIST: On March 22, Chris Tapp was released early from prison after serving 20 years for the rape and murder of Angie Dodge in Idaho Falls in 1996. Following nearly 30 hours of interrogation, Tapp confessed to assisting in the crime. Even though DNA coll After spending nearly half of his life in prison for a crime he said he did not commit, and then getting released early from prison but still tagged with a murder-related conviction, Chris Tapp finally might get exonerated. Tapp’s attorney and the prosecuting attorney are asking the court to vacate Tapp’s conviction. “There exists clear and convincing evidence that (Tapp) was convicted of a crime he did not commit,” Bonneville County Prosecuting Attorney Daniel Clark wrote in a court filing. “Therefore, the state moves that the court grant post-conviction relief ... set aside the jury verdict and vacate the judgment of conviction and dismiss (the) case.” In May 1998, an Idaho Falls jury convicted Tapp for aiding and abetting in the murder and rape of Angie Dodge in 1996. Tapp was sentenced to life with a minimum of 20 years for aiding the murder and a minimum of 10 years for aiding the rape. He would be eligible for parole in 2027. While incarcerated, Tapp maintained his innocence — his DNA did not match the DNA collected at the crime scene — and filed with the court five unsuccessful petitions for post-conviction relief. Eventually, on March 22, 2017, Tapp was released from prison after reaching a deal with prosecutors, but his murder-related conviction remained on his record. On Wednesday, his attorney filed a sixth petition “based on new evidence that Christopher Tapp is actually innocent.” “New evidence has been discovered which negates the conviction” of Tapp, Bonneville County public defender John Thomas wrote in the court filing. The day after Tapp’s attorney filed the petition, Clark filed a post-conviction relief motion on behalf of Tapp with the court. “The basis for this motion is that new, credible material evidence has been discovered by law enforcement,” Clark wrote. So, what is that new, credible evidence both sides are citing? On May 16, Idaho Falls police announced that they had arrested Brian Leigh Dripps in the rape and murder of Dodge. Following decades of dead ends, a nationally renowned genetic genealogist linked DNA from the Dodge crime scene to Caldwell resident Dripps, who lived across the street from Dodge when she was killed. “During his confession to the rape and murder of Angie Dodge, Dripps admitted that he acted alone. Furthermore, Dripps told investigators that he did not know Tapp and nor had he ever met Tapp,” Tapp’s attorney wrote. Tapp’s post-conviction relief hearing is set for 1 p.m. Wednesday, July 17, in Idaho Falls before Judge Alan Stephens."



 
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More last, last words. The Halifax Examiner continues to publish informative stories on the Glen  Assoun case - what should prove to be one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in Canadian history.  I suggest that our readers  check out the publication's site - at the link below - for some of the informative follow-ups that are already appearing.

 
Kudos to Innocence Canada (formerly known as The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted AKA AIDWYC ) for the amazing representation it has provided to Mr. Assoun over the years - and in particular  to lawyers Sean MacDonald,  Phil Campbell and Jerome Kennedy. (And, as always, the organization's non-lawyer heart and soul, Win Wahrer. Bravo to them all!  Check out the excellent  Innocence Canada website at:
 
 
(I was a member of AIDWYC'S Board for several years until I had to resign in order to avoid a conflict of interest with my reporting responsibilities at the Toronto Star. I hate to think of all of the innocent people, like Glen Assoun, would still be in prison if this organization did not exist. HL);
 
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Well, not quite done yet: Check out the recently released National Registry of Exonerations 1918 report: the Death Penalty Information Center analysis at the link below is a good place to start: "DNA evidence helped to exonerate 14 of those wrongfully convicted of homicide in 2018, accounting for only 20.1% of homicide exonerations. The prosecution presented perjured testimony or false witness accusations in all of the murder cases involving DNA, and police and/or prosecutorial misconduct was also present in more than 60% of those cases. DNA helped to rebut false or misleading forensic evidence presented by the prosecution in five of the homicide exonerations."
 
See also the Crime Report's analysis at the link below - under the very apt heading: "The price of wrongful convictions - 1639 years behind bars."
 
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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, July 13, 2019

False confessions: Superb 'Science Magazine" story (Reporter Douglas Starr) on Saul Kassin "a psychologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City who is one of the world's leading experts on interrogation" - and on his crusade to expose the psychology that leads to false confessions (including the notorious Reid Technique)..."Kassin is part of a cadre of scientists who have flipped conventional wisdom about confessions—and about the perception of truth. His cleverly designed experiments have probed the psychology that leads to false confessions. In more recent work, he has shown how a confession, true or not, can exert a powerful pull on witnesses and even forensic examiners, shaping the entire trial. "Saul Kassin is one of the godfathers of the innocence movement," says Rebecca Brown, policy director of the Innocence Project in New York City. Drizin has his own metaphor: "If there was a Mount Rushmore to the study of false confessions, Dr. Kassin's face would be on it."e

GIST: At 16, Huwe Burton confessed to killing his mother. He was still in shock from discovering her body when New York City police began to interrogate him. After hours of being threatened and cajoled, he told the police what they wanted to hear. He soon recanted, knowing he was innocent and hoping the justice system would clear him. Burton was convicted of second-degree murder in 1991 and received a sentence of 15 years to life. After 20 years in prison, he was released on parole, but he never could shake the stigma of the conviction. Attorneys from several organizations worked for more than a decade to clear him. They produced facts that contradicted the confession and showed evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. But for the Bronx District Attorney's Office, Burton's confession outweighed all other evidence; after all, who would admit to a crime they did not commit? Finally, last summer Burton's attorneys brought in Saul Kassin, a psychologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City who is one of the world's leading experts on interrogation. "I went in prepared to make a 15-minute presentation, but the attorneys started asking some really good questions," Kassin says. "Before you knew it, we had a discussion that lasted almost 2 1/2 hours." Kassin explained that false confessions are not rare: More than a quarter of the 365 people exonerated in recent decades by the nonprofit Innocence Project had confessed to their alleged crime. Drawing on more than 30 years of research, Kassin told the legal team how standard interrogation techniques combine psychological pressures and escape hatches that can easily cause an innocent person to confess. He explained how young people are particularly vulnerable to confessing, especially when stressed, tired, or traumatized, as Burton was.










Huwe Burton falsely confessed to killing his mother. Nearly 30 years passed before he was exonerated.
Kassin's presentation helped open the prosecutors' eyes to the emerging science of interrogation and false confession. Six months later, on 24 January, Judge Steven Barrett of the Bronx Supreme Court vacated Burton's 3-decade-old conviction, citing such work as the basis of his decision. "Having Dr. Kassin come in and give a master class on the science of false confessions was a turning point," says Steven Drizin, co-director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, who led the team that pursued Burton's exoneration. Although scores of people have been cleared of false confessions since DNA evidence entered U.S. courtrooms, the Burton case was the first time someone had been exonerated on the basis of the scientific analysis of interrogation. As such, it marks the coming of age of research that is profoundly affecting the justice system. Confessions are being questioned as never before—not just by defense lawyers, but by lawmakers and some police departments, which are reexamining their approach to interrogation. Kassin is part of a cadre of scientists who have flipped conventional wisdom about confessions—and about the perception of truth. His cleverly designed experiments have probed the psychology that leads to false confessions. In more recent work, he has shown how a confession, true or not, can exert a powerful pull on witnesses and even forensic examiners, shaping the entire trial.  "Saul Kassin is one of the godfathers of the innocence movement," says Rebecca Brown, policy director of the Innocence Project in New York City. Drizin has his own metaphor: "If there was a Mount Rushmore to the study of false confessions, Dr. Kassin's face would be on it."

“Overpowering influences”

Confessions have always been the "gold standard" indicator of guilt, even though some proved spectacularly misleading. For example, a man who had admitted to a murder in 1819 narrowly escaped hanging when his supposed victim was found living in New Jersey. The first scientific red flag came from Hugo Münsterberg, a renowned Harvard University psychologist, who in 1908 warned about "untrue confessions … under the spell of overpowering influences." But it took several shocking false confession cases in the late 1980s and the introduction of DNA evidence to the justice system for the extent of wrongful convictions to emerge—and with it how often false confessions played a role. Kassin was not surprised, having spent years studying police interrogation techniques. In person he projects a kind of affable intensity, with piercing brown eyes and a conversational style that lends urgency to even a casual chat. Raised in a working-class neighborhood of New York City, he got his bachelor's degree at Brooklyn College in New York (tuition: $53 per semester) and his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, both in psychology. As a postdoc at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, he studied how juries make decisions and was struck by the power of a confession to practically guarantee a guilty verdict.
Saul Kassin is one of the godfathers of the innocence movement.





Rebecca Brown, Innocence Project
He also began to wonder how often those confessions were genuine, after he learned about the Reid interrogation technique, the near-universal method taught to police. Its training manual—now in its fifth edition—was first published in 1962 by John Reid, a former Chicago detective and lie detector expert, and Northwestern University law professor Fred Inbau. "I was horrified," Kassin says. "It was just like Milgram's obedience studies, but worse." Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University and one of Kassin's heroes, had conducted studies in the 1960s in which subjects were encouraged to give electric shocks to other subjects who were not learning their lessons quickly enough. The volunteers, who didn't know the shocks they gave were fake, were disturbingly willing to inflict pain when someone in authority told them to. A Reid interrogation looks different at first. It starts with a behavioral assessment, in which the officer asks questions—some irrelevant and some provocative—while watching for signs of deception, such as looking away, slouching, or crossing the arms. If the suspect is thought to be lying, the investigator moves on to phase two, the formal interrogation. Now, they amp up the questioning—repeatedly accusing the suspect, insisting on hearing details, and ignoring all denials. Meanwhile, the investigator offers sympathy and understanding, minimizing the moral (but not legal) dimension of the crime and easing the path to confession. (Example: "This never would have happened if she didn't dress so provocatively.") That phase, with an authority figure applying psychological pressure, reminded Kassin of Milgram's infamous experiments. But whereas Milgram got someone to "harm" another person, the Reid technique gets people to harm themselves by admitting guilt. Kassin suspected that the pressure might sometimes lead to false confessions.
To find out, he decided in the early 1990s to model the Reid technique in the lab, with student volunteers. In what Kassin called the computer crash paradigm, he had students take rapid-fire dictation on computers. He warned them that the system had a glitch and that hitting the Alt key would trigger a crash. That part was a fib: The computers were programmed to crash regardless of which keys were hit. The experimenter then accused the students of hitting the Alt key.  At first, none confessed. Then, Kassin added variables based on what he and other researchers had learned about actual police interrogation tactics. Sometimes, for example, police falsely tell a suspect they have witnesses to the crime—causing a suspect to doubt their own version of events. (Under U.S. law, police are permitted to lie.) In one of the most striking examples, Marty Tankleff, a Long Island teenager, came to breakfast one morning in 1988 to find his parents stabbed on the kitchen floor, his mother dying and his father in a coma. Detectives thought Tankleff was not sufficiently grief-stricken, so he became their prime suspect. After hours of getting nowhere, a detective said he had called Tankleff 's father at the hospital and that the injured man said Tankleff had committed the crime. (In truth, his father died without regaining consciousness.) Shocked beyond reason, Tankleff confessed. He spent 19 years in prison before a growing body of evidence set him free.
… confessions that look real can actually be false, even if they’re corroborated by informants and forensic science.





Saul Kassin, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Kassin could never simulate that kind of trauma in the lab, but he could set up a variation of the computer crash experiment in which a confederate claimed to have seen the student hit the wrong key. Those students confessed at more than double the rate of students paired with witnesses who said they hadn't seen anything. Under some circumstances, nearly every student facing a false witness confessed. Some students ended up believing they really had caused the crash, coming up with explanations such as, "I hit the wrong key with the side of my hand." So deeply had they internalized their guilt that some refused to believe Kassin when he told them the truth.
Another detective told Kassin that during an interrogation, he didn't actually lie about the evidence in hand, but said he expected new, potentially incriminating evidence to come in. For example, an interrogator might tell a suspect that they were waiting for lab results on DNA from the crime scene. You might think that doing so would get the innocent to deny the crime more vehemently because they expected the results to absolve them. Kassin, however, had interviewed exonerated men who said the prospect of new evidence had a surprising effect. Some confessed just to get out of the stressful situation, figuring that the evidence would later clear them. "They think their innocence is their ticket out of there," he says. Kassin and a colleague tested such police "bluffs" in a variation of the computer crash experiment. This time, in addition to accusing the students, the experimenter said that all the keystrokes had been recorded on the server and would soon be examined. The false confession rate soared. Postexperiment questionnaires revealed that many of the bluffed students, like the men Kassin had interviewed, signed a confession to get out of the room and assumed they'd later be cleared. In that sense, Kassin says, belief in one's innocence and faith in the justice system can themselves be risk factors.

Deception detection

Social scientists worldwide have repeated variations of the computer crash experiments, with similar results. But critics have questioned Kassin's findings because the "crimes" his subjects were charged with could have been simple acts of carelessness, committed unwittingly, and because confessing bore no serious consequences. Joseph Buckley, president of John E. Reid and  Associates Inc. in Chicago, the company that copyrighted the Reid technique in the early 1960s, adds that Kassin's studies lack validity because they were not conducted using professional interrogators. Buckley says false confessions occur only when interrogators don't closely follow procedures. In a January report, Buckley said the Reid technique isn't meant to force a confession. Instead, he wrote, its goal "is to create an environment that makes it easier for a subject to tell the truth." Work by other researchers has answered some of those criticisms. Social psychologist Melissa Russano at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, designed an experiment in which volunteers were asked to solve a set of logic problems—some working in groups and some alone. The researchers stipulated that under no circumstances should anyone assist the students working alone. Beforehand, however, a few students were coached to become visibly upset. That prompted some of their classmates to help, in violation of the rules. In those experiments, the helpers could not have committed the "crime" without knowing, and confessing carried some consequence because cheating violated the college's honor code. But, just as Kassin found, accusatory questioning often provoked false confessions. Russano also tested another component of standard interrogations—the "minimization" technique that lowers the emotional barrier to confessing. She and colleagues would say things such as, "You probably didn't realize what a big deal this was." That technique increased false confession rates by 35%.
Other researchers, including Gísli Guðjónsson, a former Icelandic detective who became an eminent psychologist at King's College London, have shown how some individuals are especially susceptible to such pressure. Factors such as mental impairment, youth, and substance addiction make people quicker to doubt their own memory and, under pressure, to confess, Guðjónsson found. Law professor Richard Leo of the University of San Francisco in California reported that fewer than 20% of U.S. suspects invoke their Miranda rights against self-incrimination, perhaps hoping to appear cooperative. He and social psychologist Richard Ofshe, then at the University of California, Berkeley, also described "persuaded" confessions in which a suspect, worn down by hours of interrogation, goes into a fugue and begins to believe their own guilt. The problem is especially pronounced among adolescents like Burton, who are both impressionable and cowed by authority. Much of the Reid technique involves watching for verbal and nonverbal signs of deception, something many police investigators think they are skilled at doing. Kassin put that confidence to the test more than a decade ago. He recruited the best liars he could find—a group of prisoners at a Massachusetts penitentiary. For a small fee he asked half to tell the truth of their crimes on video and the other half to lie, saying they had committed someone else's crime. He showed the videos to college students and police. Neither group did particularly well at truth detection (the average person is right about half the time), but the students performed better than the police. Yet the police felt more certain about their conclusions. "That's a bad combination," Kassin says. "Their training makes them less accurate and more confident at the same time."

The power of a confession

A poster in Kassin's office at John Jay College shows 28 faces: men, women, adults, adolescents, white, black, Hispanic. "Look at how many different types of people there are—all of humanity," Kassin says. "And what they have in common is that they all gave false confessions. There's no one kind of person who can give a false confession. It can happen to anybody." Kassin has helped many of them. Defense lawyers and human rights organizations around the world often call on him to analyze confessions or testify about the nature of interrogation—sometimes as a paid consultant or witness, sometimes pro bono. One face on the poster belongs to Amanda Knox, the U.S. college student studying in Italy who was coerced into confessing to the murder of her roommate. Kassin's reports to Italian courts were involved in getting her freed. He testified for John Kogut, a Long Island man who after an 18-hour interrogation falsely confessed to raping and murdering a 16-year-old girl. DNA evidence had won Kogut's release after he spent 18 years in prison, but prosecutors retried him on the basis of the confession. Kassin's 2005 testimony helped acquit him.





“There’s no one kind of person who can give a false confession. It can happen to anybody,” says Saul Kassin, who keeps a photo gallery of innocent people convicted after false confessions in his office.
DREW GURIAN
Then there was Barry Laughman, a man with the mental capacity of a 10-year-old, who in 1987 confessed to raping and murdering an elderly neighbor after police falsely told him they found his fingerprints at the scene. After his confession, the police disregarded all other evidence. Neighbors who offered alibis for Laughman were told they must be mistaken. His blood was type B, but the only blood at the crime scene was type A. So the forensic expert proposed a novel theory: that bacterial degradation could have changed the blood type from B to A. Laughman spent 16 years in prison until DNA evidence finally cleared him. (Kassin later testified when Laughman sued the state.) To Kassin, Laughman's case showed that confession doesn't just trump other evidence, but can corrupt it as well. After a confession, alibis are recanted, witnesses change stories, police ignore exculpatory evidence, and forensic scientists reinterpret material. In Huwe Burton's case, for example, police had caught a neighbor with a history of violence driving the dead mother's stolen car, but they did not consider him a suspect because Burton had confessed. The magnitude of the effect emerged in 2012, when Kassin and colleagues published an analysis of 59 false confession cases from the Innocence Project. Forty-nine of those also involved other mistakes, such as eyewitness errors and mistaken forensics—a far higher proportion than in nonconfession cases. In 30 of those cases, the confession was the first piece of evidence collected. In other words, once the police had a confession, all the other evidence lined up to support it. That has an ironic effect: Even when confessions have turned out to be false, appeals courts have ruled that the other evidence is strong enough to support the conviction, Kassin says. "The courts completely missed out that the other evidence was corrupted."  Other groups have shown experimentally how a narrative can shape forensic evidence. One dramatic example came in 2011, when U.K. psychologist Itiel Dror and U.S. DNA expert Greg Hampikian tested the people you would least expect to be affected by bias—DNA specialists. Dror and Hampikian obtained the printed DNA results from a rape case in which a man was found guilty. The original genetic analysts had been told that police had a suspect in custody; the forensic experts then determined that the suspect's DNA was part of the crime scene sample. To see whether knowledge of the arrest caused bias, Dror and Hampikian gave the printouts to 17 experts unconnected with the case and told them nothing about the suspect. Only one of them matched the suspect's DNA to the crime sample. Such findings support the increasingly popular idea that all forensic science should be "blinded"—conducted without any knowledge about the suspects. Sometimes a confession will override even untainted DNA evidence. In the infamous "Central Park Five" case dramatized in a new Netflix series, five teenagers in 1989 confessed after hours of interrogation to brutally beating and raping a female jogger in New York City. They quickly recanted, and none of the DNA recovered from the victim was theirs. Yet two juries convicted them after the prosecutor explained away the contradiction. She came up with a theory that a sixth unidentified accomplice had also raped the victim and was the only person to ejaculate. (The "unindicted co-ejaculator" theory has been used in other wrongful convictions as well.) Thirteen years later, the man whose DNA matched the sample—a convicted serial rapist and murderer serving a life sentence—confessed that he alone had committed the crime. How could such an injustice occur? Kassin and a colleague published a study in 2016 in which they simulated the situation with mock jury experiments. When presented with a simple choice between a confession and DNA, people would choose DNA. But if the prosecutor offered a theory as to why the DNA contradicted the confession, the juries overwhelmingly sided with the confession—an insight, he says, into the power of story to influence judgment.

New approaches

Change is coming. By 2010, the evidence about how interrogations can go wrong had become so compelling that Kassin and several colleagues from the United States and United Kingdom wrote an American Psychological Association white paper warning about the risk of coercion. They suggested several reforms, such as prohibiting lying by police, limiting interrogation time, recording all interrogations from start to finish, and eliminating the use of minimization. They also said the practice of seeking confessions was so inherently damaging that it might be necessary to "completely reconceptualize" the tactic and come up with something new. One model comes from England, where police did away with their Reid-style interrogation system in the early 1990s after several false conviction scandals. Police there now use a system designed to identify deception based not on visible signs of emotional stress, but on "cognitive load," which can lead liars to stumble as they try to keep their stories straight. English police conduct the kind of open-ended interviews that journalists might use and are encouraged not to go after confessions. Several other countries including New Zealand and Australia, along with parts of Canada, have adopted the new method. They also record the entire interrogation to make the process transparent, something that 25 U.S. states have also adopted. Two years ago, one of the largest U.S. interrogation trainers, Chicago-based Wicklander-Zulawski and Associates Inc., stopped teaching accusatory interviews and embraced the nonconfrontational methods Kassin and his colleagues advocate. The company was influenced by the proliferation of research and a desire to minimize false confessions, says Dave Thompson, vice president of operations. "We realized there's a better way to talk to people today than the way we talked to people 20 or 30 years ago." Kassin sees progress, too. In March, he spoke to a group that until recently might have been hostile to his message: 40 district attorneys from around the country who want to learn to avoid wrongful convictions. "My point with them was that they are going to be fooled—that confessions that look real can actually be false, even if they're corroborated by informants and forensic science," he says. "I wanted to let them know that alarm bells should go off when they see a confession case.""

The entire story can be  read at:
 https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/14_june_2019/MobilePagedArticle.action?articleId=1496999#articleId1496999

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, July 12, 2019

Glen Assoun: Innocence Canada's detailed backgrounder takes us into the heart of today's startling revelations. (It is well worth the read. I promise! HL)..."Today, Mr. Justice James Chipman of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court ordered the release of the Court’s previously sealed files respecting an application for bail made on behalf of Glen Assoun in 2014. In the files are documents which tell an extraordinary story about a failed police investigation, the suppression of exculpatory evidence, and a profound miscarriage of justice."..." Justice Chipman also lifted a five-year-old publication ban which has prevented this story from being told until today Glen Assoun is an innocent man whose case represents one of the most disturbing examples of wrongful conviction in Canadian history. From 1995 when he was first interviewed by police, through his arrest in 1998 and his ultimate exoneration, 21 years later in March 2019, he has steadfastly asserted his innocence. His case represents a shocking failure of accountability on the part of many individuals and institutions."


PASSAGE  ONE OF THE DAY: "Prosecution Witnesses: The evidence given by these five witnesses, and the results of Innocence Canada's investigation into their testimony, are detailed in the Memorandum on Behalf of Glen Eugene Assoun, submitted in 2013 under s.696.1 of the Criminal Code to the federal Minister of Justice which is being released today by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. This Memorandum, and the Preliminary Assessment of the case by Mark Green, of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Conviction Review Group (CCRG), dismantle the prosecution case presented at trial, and expose evidence that was based on collusion, perjury, undisclosed particulars of a deal with a jailhouse informant, and a witness prone to relating her "psychic visions" as evidence to the police."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Finally, in 2004, Jerome Kennedy, a distinguished criminal lawyer from Newfoundland and Labrador, was appointed to act for him. Mr. Kennedy began by trying to acquire fresh evidence. One of his primary strategies was to attempt to identify Brenda Way’s real killer. He made requests for disclosure from the Crown for information about criminal profiling of the murder by the RCMP ViCLAS Unit, which worked cooperatively with the Halifax Regional Police on major murder investigations. He posed direct questions to the Crown about ViCLAS’s work regarding a possible suspect, Michael McGray, who had recently been exposed as a prolific serial killer based in Nova Scotia with victims in four provinces. It is clear that incomplete and misleading answers were provided to these requests for disclosure, specifically with respect to the inquiries about the police investigation of Michael McGray. Without significant evidence establishing anyone else as the killer, and with his legal arguments rejected by the Court of Appeal, Glen Assoun’s appeal was dismissed on April 20, 2006. The Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear a further appeal on September 14, 2006. Glen had been in custody for eight years by this point."

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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Innocence Canada spent years re-examining the physical evidence, re-interviewing the key trial witnesses, attempting to uncover previously undisclosed documentation and looking for the real killer of Brenda Way. The investigation by Innocence Canada led to compelling evidence that convicted serial killer Michael McGray was likely the real killer. For example, at the time of the murder, he lived just a few houses from the location where Brenda's body was found, on Jackson Road, the neighbouring street. He told his own family that he attacked prostitutes for his own amusement and would “leave them for dead”. Beating, stabbing and throat-cutting were prominent among his modes of murder. In a police interview, while denying that he had killed Brenda, he admitted that he had been personally acquainted with her.Significantly, one of the trial witnesses, a young, vulnerable prostitute, who had recounted at trial being attacked in a remote industrial park by a man who admitted that he had killed Brenda, subsequently expressed doubts about whether Glen Assoun was the man who assaulted her. She testified that she had seen the arrest of Glen Assoun on television, and initially told the police that Glen was the man who had attacked her and boasted about Brenda's murder. McGray, like Glen Assoun, broadly fit the description of her attacker—the man who had admitted killing Brenda. McGray, however, was a much bigger man than Glen. She recollected in a subsequent interview that during her testimony in court she had felt that Glen was smaller than her assailant. The most striking aspect of her original description of her attacker to the police was that, in the winter, with snow covering the ground, her attacker had been wearing socks and sandals on his feet. This very distinctive form of footwear, multiple witnesses confirmed, was characteristic of Michael McGray."

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PASSAGE FOUR OF THE DAY: "The determined inquiries of Mr. Green, on behalf of the Minister, ultimately revealed that the reason behind this was that the digital files recording Moore's work had been deliberately deleted by his ViCLAS colleagues, on order of their superiors, and his hard copy files had been destroyed or irretrievably lost. Given the passage of time, the information he acquired during his extensive investigation into McGray has become permanently unrecoverable and we will never know everything Constable Moore uncovered in his ViCLAS analysis and his follow-up investigation. This systematic destruction of files (hard copies and digital) was directly contrary to ViCLAS policy; some of the analysts directed to do it protested at the time. It was also a tragic loss to the administration of justice—Constable Moore told Mark Green that he believed he would have solved Brenda’s murder if permitted to keep working on it. Unfortunately, he was not.
While Mr. Kennedy was seeking disclosure of ViCLAS information related to McGray from the outside, Constable Moore was imploring his RCMP and HRP superiors to share his analysis from the inside. Rather than making the information available, however, his superiors told him that he was "wasting his time". He was directed to stop working on Brenda's murder. He took his concerns up the RCMP chain of command and eventually to Inspector Leo O’Brien, the head of ViCLAS in Ottawa. No one authorized disclosure of his work, nor of the fact that it had been deleted and destroyed.
Glen’s lawyer and the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal were deliberately denied highly probative information, from an objective expert analyst, about a brutal serial killer, acquainted with the victim and living in her neighbourhood at the time of her murder – despite diligent efforts by appellate counsel to acquire exactly that information. If the Court of Appeal had known in 2006 about the profiling of Michael McGray (and Avery Greenough), it would never have upheld Glen’s conviction and life sentence. As it was Glen remained in custody for eight more years following an appeal that ought to have freed him. The RCMP have attempted, since the CCRG investigation, to distance themselves from Constable Moore with challenges to his character and competence. He was moved out of ViCLAS in 2004 after a negative performance appraisal. This occurred, however, when it was clear that Constable Moore's work on McGray and Brenda Way was going to be very awkward for the Crown and police on the pending appeal."

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PASSAGE FIVE OF THE DAY: "Responsibility for the decisions made during the initial police investigation and the subsequent decision-making regarding the destruction of Constable Moore's work and the failure to make disclosure of it upon request lies with both Halifax Regional Police and RCMP officers. It extended to senior officers in the two agencies. Suppression of the information collected by Constable Moore occurred in the face of specific requests by the defence for the very information that had been destroyed. The impact of this outrageous behavior distorted and subverted the judicial process. For Glen Assoun, the effects were catastrophic. He and Innocence Canada are grateful for the efforts of the individuals whose commitment to the pursuit of justice assisted in his exoneration. These include the CCRG for their highly professional and comprehensive investigation, former Minister of Justice Peter MacKay who oversaw the investigation at its most critical point, current Minister of Justice David Lametti for immediately recognizing the gravity of the injustice and taking swift and decisive action to remedy it, and Justice James Chipman for judicially restoring the integrity of the process. The quest for accountability should not, however, end with the release of the court file today............" Today, Justice Chipman, on application by the CBC, Canadian Press and the Halifax Examiner, has opened to the public the previously sealed files of the court which set out at length the information summarized here. It is hoped that today marks the conclusion of legal proceedings involving Glen Assoun and the beginning of a searching examination by the public and the agencies involved of how his case led to such a terrible and prolonged injustice. It is long past time for a proper investigation into the murder of Brenda Way to identify and bring to justice her murderer. This is also a day for those responsible for upholding the administration of justice in Canada and in Nova Scotia to reflect on how Glen Assoun can be fairly and quickly compensated for the wrongs done to him. He is unable to work, his health is poor, he lives in near-penury, and the blame lies squarely with those who are responsible for the failings of the police and Crown from the time of Brenda’s murder in 1995 until today."

MEDIA BACKGROUNDER:  Released by Innocence Canada today,  July 12, 2019, following the release of previously sealed files from the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in the case of R. v. Glen Assoun.

GIST: "Today, Mr. Justice James Chipman of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court ordered the release of the Court’s previously sealed files respecting an application for bail made on behalf of Glen Assoun in 2014. In the files are documents which tell an extraordinary story about a failed police investigation, the suppression of exculpatory evidence, and a profound miscarriage of justice.
Specifically, Justice Chipman’s order allows for public review of the Application for Ministerial Review under s.696.1 of the Criminal Code filed on behalf of Glen Assoun in 2013, which contains details of the new evidence discovered during Innocence Canada’s investigation of this case, and the Preliminary Review by the Criminal Cases Review Group (CCRG) of the federal Department of Justice. Justice Chipman also lifted a five-year-old publication ban which has prevented this story from being told until today Glen Assoun is an innocent man whose case represents one of the most disturbing examples of wrongful conviction in Canadian history. From 1995 when he was first interviewed by police, through his arrest in 1998 and his ultimate exoneration, 21 years later in March 2019, he has steadfastly asserted his innocence. His case represents a shocking failure of accountability on the part of many individuals and institutions. The Murder of Brenda Way: In the early morning hours of November 12, 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered and her body disposed of in a parking lot behind an apartment building at 109 Albro Lake Road in Dartmouth. She had been repeatedly stabbed, her throat had been sliced and she had been viciously beaten. Brenda, age 28, had been a crack addict supporting her habit through street prostitution. The Police Investigation: Glen Assoun was Brenda’s estranged boyfriend. When the police spoke to Glen later that day, he gave them an account of his whereabouts the night before that was confirmed by a friend, Isabel Morse, and her two housemates. Glen had recently been charged with assaulting Brenda, though they remained in contact after the charge was laid. No physical evidence, at the time or since, has tied Glen Assoun to Brenda's murder. The original detectives on the case concluded that Glen Assoun was not a viable suspect in the murder and turned their attention elsewhere.
In the summer of 1996, however, two new investigators were assigned to the file and began attempting to collect evidence against Glen Assoun. They eventually came up with five witnesses whose evidence constituted the entire Crown case against Glen Assoun at his 1999 trial. Glen agreed to meet with police in 1998 and was immediately arrested and detained in custody, where he remained until released on bail in 2014. The Trial: Glen defended himself without a lawyer at his trial which ran from April to September 1999. He was unable to obtain a lawyer and was not able to get legal aid. He lacked the education and skill to act as his own counsel at a murder trial against two experienced prosecutors. Following his conviction on September 17, 1999 for second degree murder, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 18 1/2 years. Evidence of the Prosecution Witnesses: The evidence given by these five witnesses, and the results of Innocence Canada's investigation into their testimony, are detailed in the Memorandum on Behalf of Glen Eugene Assoun, submitted in 2013 under s.696.1 of the Criminal Code to the federal Minister of Justice which is being released today by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. This Memorandum, and the Preliminary Assessment of the case by Mark Green, of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Conviction Review Group (CCRG), dismantle the prosecution case presented at trial, and expose evidence that was based on collusion, perjury, undisclosed particulars of a deal with a jailhouse informant, and a witness prone to relating her "psychic visions" as evidence to the police. The Appeal: Despite the weakness of the evidence against him, and several significant grounds of appeal, Glen Assoun struggled to obtain counsel to represent him on appeal. Finally, in 2004, Jerome Kennedy, a distinguished criminal lawyer from Newfoundland and Labrador, was appointed to act for him. Mr. Kennedy began by trying to acquire fresh evidence. One of his primary strategies was to attempt to identify Brenda Way’s real killer. He made requests for disclosure from the Crown for information about criminal profiling of the murder by the RCMP ViCLAS Unit, which worked cooperatively with the Halifax Regional Police on major murder investigations. He posed direct questions to the Crown about ViCLAS’s work regarding a possible suspect, Michael McGray, who had recently been exposed as a prolific serial killer based in Nova Scotia with victims in four provinces. It is clear that incomplete and misleading answers were provided to these requests for disclosure, specifically with respect to the inquiries about the police investigation of Michael McGray. Without significant evidence establishing anyone else as the killer, and with his legal arguments rejected by the Court of Appeal, Glen Assoun’s appeal was dismissed on April 20, 2006. The Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear a further appeal on September 14, 2006. Glen had been in custody for eight years by this point. The Investigation by Innocence Canada; With his appeals exhausted, his case was taken up by Innocence Canada (at the time, the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted – AIDWYC). Innocence Canada spent years re-examining the physical evidence, re-interviewing the key trial witnesses, attempting to uncover previously undisclosed documentation and looking for the real killer of Brenda Way. The investigation by Innocence Canada led to compelling evidence that convicted serial killer Michael McGray was likely the real killer. For example, at the time of the murder, he lived just a few houses from the location where Brenda's body was found, on Jackson Road, the neighbouring street. He told his own family that he attacked prostitutes for his own amusement and would “leave them for dead”. Beating, stabbing and throat-cutting were prominent among his modes of murder. In a police interview, while denying that he had killed Brenda, he admitted that he had been personally acquainted with her.
Significantly, one of the trial witnesses, a young, vulnerable prostitute, who had recounted at trial being attacked in a remote industrial park by a man who admitted that he had killed Brenda, subsequently expressed doubts about whether Glen Assoun was the man who assaulted her. She testified that she had seen the arrest of Glen Assoun on television, and initially told the police that Glen was the man who had attacked her and boasted about Brenda's murder. McGray, like Glen Assoun, broadly fit the description of her attacker—the man who had admitted killing Brenda. McGray, however, was a much bigger man than Glen. She recollected in a subsequent interview that during her testimony in court she had felt that Glen was smaller than her assailant. The most striking aspect of her original description of her attacker to the police was that, in the winter, with snow covering the ground, her attacker had been wearing socks and sandals on his feet. This very distinctive form of footwear, multiple witnesses confirmed, was characteristic of Michael McGray. Meanwhile, the evidence at trial showed Glen had been living in British Columbia when the young prostitute was attacked in Halifax. New evidence collected by Innocence Canada disproved the Crown’s speculation about how he might have made it to Nova Scotia to commit the attack.
During the course of Innocence Canada’s investigation, two people who had known McGray in prison came forward to say he had admitted to them that he killed Brenda Way. Matters of new significance submitted to the Minister of Justice by Innocence Canada pursuant to s. 696.1 of the Criminal Code Innocence Canada’s Memorandum was submitted to the Minister of Justice on April 14, 2013 along with a multi-volume application record. It quickly became the subject of an investigation spearheaded by Mark Green, of the Minister’s Criminal Conviction Review Group.
During the CCRG investigation, an extraordinary story began to emerge. Initially Glen Assoun’s lawyers thought the additional new evidence regarding serial killer Michael McGray was extremely cogent and provided sufficient grounds for overturning Glen Assoun's conviction. At the time they submitted the application to the Minister, however, they had no reason to believe that any police agency had seriously investigated McGray as a possible suspect in Brenda’s murder, much less developed any grounds to believe he had killed her. The position of the Crown at the 2006 appeal had been that McGray denied his culpability in Brenda's murder and was not regarded as a suspect by the officer-in-charge of the case, Constable Dave MacDonald. The CCRG’s Preliminary Assessment by Mr. Green sets out in detail the requests made by Jerome Kennedy to the Crown during the 2004-2006 appellate process. It also documents internal discussions by the RCMP and HRP about how to address these inquiries and makes clear that they never contemplated providing all of the relevant information. The truth was that a criminal profiling specialist in the ViCLAS Unit, RCMP Constable Dave Moore, had concluded in 2002-03, while looking into behavioural patterns in the murders of Michael McGray, that McGray was the top suspect in Brenda's murder even though by that time Glen Assoun had been tried and convicted for the crime and had been in custody since 1998. Constable Moore had conducted an independent and wide-ranging investigation, going beyond the ViCLAS mode of analysis, and communicating by mail with McGray personally. He had produced an in-depth investigative digital file alongside boxes of hard copy evidence that charted McGray’s movements, associates and patterns of behaviour. In the course of his inquiries, Constable Moore also developed other potential suspects in Brenda's murder, one of whom – Avery Greenough – he came to view as a very strong candidate for having committed the crime. Evidence uncovered by Constable Moore suggested that Greenough, a violent sexual predator, had Brenda in his truck on the evening of her death. However, despite the specific request by Mr. Kennedy for disclosure of ViCLAS information in general, and information about Michael McGray in particular, none of Constable Moore's work was provided to the Crown or defence, or to the Court of Appeal, during the appellate process. The determined inquiries of Mr. Green, on behalf of the Minister, ultimately revealed that the reason behind this was that the digital files recording Moore's work had been deliberately deleted by his ViCLAS colleagues, on order of their superiors, and his hard copy files had been destroyed or irretrievably lost. Given the passage of time, the information he acquired during his extensive investigation into McGray has become permanently unrecoverable and we will never know everything Constable Moore uncovered in his ViCLAS analysis and his follow-up investigation. This systematic destruction of files (hard copies and digital) was directly contrary to ViCLAS policy; some of the analysts directed to do it protested at the time. It was also a tragic loss to the administration of justice—Constable Moore told Mark Green that he believed he would have solved Brenda’s murder if permitted to keep working on it. Unfortunately, he was not.
While Mr. Kennedy was seeking disclosure of ViCLAS information related to McGray from the outside, Constable Moore was imploring his RCMP and HRP superiors to share his analysis from the inside. Rather than making the information available, however, his superiors told him that he was "wasting his time". He was directed to stop working on Brenda's murder. He took his concerns up the RCMP chain of command and eventually to Inspector Leo O’Brien, the head of ViCLAS in Ottawa. No one authorized disclosure of his work, nor of the fact that it had been deleted and destroyed.
Glen’s lawyer and the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal were deliberately denied highly probative information, from an objective expert analyst, about a brutal serial killer, acquainted with the victim and living in her neighbourhood at the time of her murder – despite diligent efforts by appellate counsel to acquire exactly that information. If the Court of Appeal had known in 2006 about the profiling of Michael McGray (and Avery Greenough), it would never have upheld Glen’s conviction and life sentence. As it was Glen remained in custody for eight more years following an appeal that ought to have freed him. The RCMP have attempted, since the CCRG investigation, to distance themselves from Constable Moore with challenges to his character and competence. He was moved out of ViCLAS in 2004 after a negative performance appraisal. This occurred, however, when it was clear that Constable Moore's work on McGray and Brenda Way was going to be very awkward for the Crown and police on the pending appeal. His performance appraisal in 2003, when he was working on McGray and the Brenda Way case, was highly favourable and commended him specifically for this work. While Constable Moore was known for going beyond the strict confines of ViCLAS computer-based methodology (as he did in this case) he was widely regarded among fellow analysts as a talented and committed behavioral profiler. Innocence Canada believes that much more remains to be discovered about this case. Starting in 1998, police tunnel vision fixated on Glen Assoun leading to a seriously flawed initial police  leading ultimately to the deliberate destruction and non-disclosure of relevant information – one of the most serious breaches of public trust that it is possible to imagine. Responsibility for the decisions made during the initial police investigation and the subsequent decision-making regarding the destruction of Constable Moore's work and the failure to make disclosure of it upon request lies with both Halifax Regional Police and RCMP officers. It extended to senior officers in the two agencies. Suppression of the information collected by Constable Moore occurred in the face of specific requests by the defence for the very information that had been destroyed. The impact of this outrageous behavior distorted and subverted the judicial process.
For Glen Assoun, the effects were catastrophic. He and Innocence Canada are grateful for the efforts of the individuals whose commitment to the pursuit of justice assisted in his exoneration. These include the CCRG for their highly professional and comprehensive investigation, former Minister of Justice Peter MacKay who oversaw the investigation at its most critical point, current Minister of Justice David Lametti for immediately recognizing the gravity of the injustice and taking swift and decisive action to remedy it, and Justice James Chipman for judicially restoring the integrity of the process. The quest for accountability should not, however, end with the release of the court file today.
In September 2014, counsel for Innocence Canada, representing Glen, brought before Justice James Chipman, of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, both their original Memorandum to the Minister of Justice, establishing the unreliability of the trial evidence, and the findings of the Preliminary Assessment by the CCRG. They argued that Glen should be released from custody. On November 24, 2014, Justice Chipman agreed and Glen stepped out of the cells at the Halifax Courthouse for the first time since 1998. After his release, the Ministerial Review process continued. On February 28, 2019, the Minister of Justice, David Lametti, signed a brief order quashing the 1999 conviction and directing a new trial for Glen. The Minister noted that “there are new matters of significance as well as relevant and reliable information that was not disclosed to Mr. Glen Assoun during his criminal proceedings." Today, Justice Chipman, on application by the CBC, Canadian Press and the Halifax Examiner, has opened to the public the previously sealed files of the court which set out at length the information summarized here. It is hoped that today marks the conclusion of legal proceedings involving Glen Assoun and the beginning of a searching examination by the public and the agencies involved of how his case led to such a terrible and prolonged injustice. It is long past time for a proper investigation into the murder of Brenda Way to identify and bring to justice her murderer. This is also a day for those responsible for upholding the administration of justice in Canada and in Nova Scotia to reflect on how Glen Assoun can be fairly and quickly compensated for the wrongs done to him. He is unable to work, his health is poor, he lives in near-penury, and the blame lies squarely with those who are responsible for the failings of the police and Crown from the time of Brenda’s murder in 1995 until today."

The entire backgrounder can be read at the link below:
https://www.innocencecanada.com/assets/Uploads/Press-backgrounder-into-the-wrongful-conviction-of-Glen-Assoun.pdf

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;
 


Glen Assoun: Nova Scotia: Extraordinary Development: The shocking truth is out: Documents unsealed: As Investigative Reporter Tim Bousquet reports in The Halifax Examiner: "BREAKING: RCMP destroyed information that would have suggested serial killer Michael McGray murdered Brenda Way - and that the destroyed information likely would have cleared Glen Assoun, who spent 17 years in prison, wrongfully convicted of her murder.


PUBLISHER'S NOTE: We now understand why the authorities fought so hard to suppress documents relating to the Assoun case - to keep them out of the public eye:  The newly released documents reveal, according to Halifax Examiner Editor Tim Bousquet, that the RCMP,  Canada's national police force,   "deleted, destroyed , and lost information which suggested that serial killer  Michael McGray  was the actual killer of Brenda Way - and that Glen Assoun,  who was convicted  of the murder, was innocent. Kudos to Investigative Reporter Bousquet, and his feisty, fearless publication   for  his role in bringing this shocking case to the attention of the public. Keep an eye on this developing story  which is expected to be up-date at the link below.

Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.

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 STORY: "RCMP destroyed information that would have suggested serial killer Michael McGray murdered Brenda Way; that destroyed information likely would have cleared Glen Assoun in the murder," by Tim Bousquet, published by The Halifax Examiner on Juy 12, 2019.

https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/breaking-rcmp-destroyed-information-that-would-have-suggested-serial-killer-michael-mcgray-murdered-brenda-way-that-destroyed-information-likely-would-have-cleared-glen-assoun-in-the-murder/

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;

Dr. Henry Lee: Connecticut: The famed forensic scientist is defending his work in the 1985 murder case that helped send Wendal(l) Hasan to prison, NBC Connecticut reports..."Now, a third convicted murderer, Wendal(l) Hasan, is asking the court to review his case based on a key piece of evidence that Dr. Lee testified about. Hasan has been in prison since 1986 for the murder of George Tyler in his Darien home. At the time, Dr. Lee said he tested a pair of Puma sneakers and found the victim’s blood. When the sneakers were retested in July of 2014, the state police forensic lab found the stains were not blood. On Thursday, Dr. Lee said he stands by his testing and testimony."


PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Do you know how many people touched that piece [of] evidence? Starting from the crime scene, to the laboratory, to the courtroom, lawyers, juries, everybody touched the evidence,” Lee said. Lee went on to say that the sneakers may not only have been mishandled, but stored improperly over these years. It is also possible that after all the lab tests, there was no blood left on the sneakers, according to Lee. “Of course no blood was found. Already used up. You cannot say 30 years ago it wasn’t there. That doesn’t make any sense because early days everything we used bare hand, we removed the sample,” Lee said. Lee asked that the public remember that investigators found the victim’s credit card in Hasan’s toilet bowl."

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STORY: "Dr. Henry Lee Defends Work in 1985 Murder Case," published by NBC  Connecticut on July 11, 2019.

PHOTO CAPTION:  "Famed forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee is defending his work in a 1985 murder case that helped send a man to prison, by reporter, published by  on  July 11, 2019."
GIST: "Famed forensic scientist, Dr. Henry Lee, who testified on thousands of trails from O.J. Simpson to JonBenet Ramsey, is once again being challenged on his previous testing and testimony. In June, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled his testimony was incorrect in the 1985 murder of Everett Carr. That testimony led to the conviction of two men, Sean Henning and Ralph Birch in 1989. They have both since been released from prison and ordered to have new trials. In the 1984 murder of Joyce Stochmal, her convicted killer, David Weinberg, was also released from prison based on newly tested evidence that refuted Dr. Lee’s findings. Now, a third convicted murderer, Wendal(l) Hasan, is asking the court to review his case based on a key piece of evidence that Dr. Lee testified about. Hasan has been in prison since 1986 for the murder of George Tyler in his Darien home. At the time, Dr. Lee said he tested a pair of Puma sneakers and found the victim’s blood. When the sneakers were retested in July of 2014, the state police forensic lab found the stains were not blood. On Thursday, Dr. Lee said he stands by his testing and testimony. “Do you know how many people touched that piece [of] evidence? Starting from the crime scene, to the laboratory, to the courtroom, lawyers, juries, everybody touched the evidence,” Lee said. Lee went on to say that the sneakers may not only have been mishandled, but stored improperly over these years. It is also possible that after all the lab tests, there was no blood left on the sneakers, according to Lee. “Of course no blood was found. Already used up. You cannot say 30 years ago it wasn’t there. That doesn’t make any sense because early days everything we used bare hand, we removed the sample,” Lee said. Lee asked that the public remember that investigators found the victim’s credit card in Hasan’s toilet bowl. “I feel sorry for all those victims’ families. If the person really [is] innocent, definitely we should set them free. If [they are] just trying to smear my reputation, they shouldn’t do that.” During the news conference, Dr. Lee also urged the state to set up a review committee where convicted felons can request the committee look at their case. He also said he feels anyone directly involved with the case should have access to the files."



The entire story can be read at:
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Dr-Henry-Lee-Defends-Work-in-1985-Murder-Case-512586111.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic"  section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com.  Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;

False Confessions: Reid Technique; Central Park Five: 'Oxygen' asks: "What Is The 'Reid Technique,' And Was It Used In The Interrogation Of The Central Park 5?"..."The boys, now men, say they were coerced into confessing to a rape that they didn’t commit. The new series depicts authorities promising the boys that they can go home if they confess, all without adults present; they are also deprived of food and bathroom visits. In both the series and reality, all five were exonerated of the crime after the real rapist came forward. If the depictions of the interrogations are indeed accurate, they cast some police interrogation techniques in a pretty unfavorable light. “It shows you the errors of police investigation — of manipulative Reid technique interrogation,” Criminal defense attorney and blogger Scott H. Greenfield told Oxygen.com."


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  (as well as false identification and jailhouse informants) – and because of the growing body of  scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects (especially juveniles)  are to widely used interrogation methods  such as  the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’"

Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: " Indeed, the technique has been rejected — at least by one firm that trains investigators in how to interview suspects. Wicklander-Zulawski and Associates, Inc., stopped teaching the Reid technique, as well as any other technique falling under the umbrella of confrontational methods of interrogations, in 2017. The consulting group had been teaching the Reid technique since 1984, but now trains investigators with alternatives, in light of recent research findings. “It wasn’t just the obvious misuse of this technique that has resulted in so many wrongful convictions and false confessions,” Wicklander-Zulawski and Associates VP David Thompson told Oxygen, speaking about confrontational methods as a whole, “but, really, the amount of our … that were asking for different measures, because of their discomfort and knowledge of the possible dangerous outcomes of using such methods.”

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Thompson agreed that, if the Reid technique was in fact used to some degree, it was misused. Regardless of whether confrontational interrogations are being used exactly as taught or twisted from their original intentions, Thompson told Oxygen.com that evidence proves confrontational interrogations can yield false confessions. He pointed to Brendan Dassey, of “Making a Murderer” fame. That documentary suggested that investigators took advantage of Dassey’s limited intellect and a confrontational interrogation to coax him into confessing."

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STORY:  "

GIST: "While the average person may not know the term “Reid technique,” they probably would recognize some of the tactics involved. It and other controversial methods have been used to extract confessions from suspects for decades. Some believe it may have been used — or, rather, misused — in getting the suspects to confess in the controversial “Central Park 5” case.” “When They See Us," Ava DuVernay's four-part Netflix film, revisits a painful chapter in the New York City’s history, one in which five teens of color were wrongfully accused, convicted and imprisoned for the brutal 1989 rape of a white woman jogging in Central Park. It illuminates the questionable tactics used by investigators and prosecutors to elicit confessions from the boys at the time. The boys, now men, say they were coerced into confessing to a rape that they didn’t commit. The new series depicts authorities promising the boys that they can go home if they confess, all without adults present; they are also deprived of food and bathroom visits.  In both the series and reality, all five were exonerated of the crime after the real rapist came forward. If the depictions of the interrogations are indeed accurate, they cast some police interrogation techniques in a pretty unfavorable light. “It shows you the errors of police investigation — of manipulative Reid technique interrogation,” Criminal defense attorney and blogger Scott H. Greenfield told Oxygen.com. “The Reid technique has been universally rejected,” the character based on Detective Michael Sheehan, who interrogated the boys, is told after the real rapist confesses in Part Four of the series. Indeed, the technique has been rejected — at least by one firm that trains investigators in how to interview suspects. Wicklander-Zulawski and Associates, Inc., stopped teaching the Reid technique, as well as any other technique falling under the umbrella of confrontational methods of interrogations, in 2017. The consulting group had been teaching the Reid technique since 1984, but now trains investigators with alternatives, in light of recent research findings. “It wasn’t just the obvious misuse of this technique that has resulted in so many wrongful convictions and false confessions,” Wicklander-Zulawski and Associates VP David Thompson told Oxygen, speaking about confrontational methods as a whole, “but, really, the amount of our … that were asking for different measures, because of their discomfort and knowledge of the possible dangerous outcomes of using such methods.” In “When They See Us,” Sheehan’s character argues he didn’t even know what the Reid technique was when he is questioned, arguing that he was just doing what he was taught to do. What exactly is the Reid technique?: Consultant and polygraph expert John Reid, who runs the private practice John E. Ried and Associates, developed the technique as a way of extracting information from unwilling suspects. The firm offers seminars and training programs to law enforcement. The technique involves a three-phase process, the first two steps being Fact Analysis and Behavior Analysis Interview. The third step, which is what is usually referenced when the Reid technique is discussed, is the Reid Nine Steps of Interrogation. Those nine steps, as described in the 2001 book “Practical Aspects of Interview and Interrogation,” are:
  1. Direct confrontation. Advise the suspect that the evidence has led the police to the individual as a suspect. Offer the person an early opportunity to explain why the offense took place.
  2. Try to shift the blame away from the suspect to some other person or set of circumstances that prompted the suspect to commit the crime. That is, develop themes containing reasons that will psychologically justify or excuse the crime. Themes may be developed or changed to find one to which the accused is most responsive.
  3. Try to minimize the frequency of suspect denials.
  4. At this point, the accused will often give a reason why he or she did not or could not commit the crime. Try to use this to move towards the acknowledgement of what they did.
  5. Reinforce sincerity to ensure that the suspect is receptive.
  6. The suspect will become quieter and listen. Move the theme of the discussion towards offering alternatives. If the suspect cries at this point, infer guilt.
  7. Pose the "alternative question", giving two choices for what happened; one more socially acceptable than the other. The suspect is expected to choose the easier option, but, whichever alternative the suspect chooses, guilt is admitted. As stated above, there is always a third option, which is to maintain that they did not commit the crime.
  8. Lead the suspect to repeat the admission of guilt in front of witnesses and develop corroborating information to establish the validity of the confession.
  9. Document the suspect's admission or confession and have him or her prepare a recorded statement (audio, video or written).
Was the Reid technique used with the Central Park Five? While the technique is alleged to have led to false confessions, John E. Reid President Joseph P. Buckley told Oxygen.com that he disputes that. Buckley claims that false confessions are not the result of the Reid technique, but of the abuse or misuse of the technique. His firm has stated that the process does not create false confessions. In a 53-page John E. Reid document entitled “Clarifying Misrepresentations About Law Enforcement Interrogation Techniques” obtained by Oxygen.com, the firm states that the minimization of legal consequences is something “we teach never to do.” If the investigators on the Central Park 5 case interrogated the boys, as depicted in “When They See Us,” they promised them fewer legal consequences if they gave the authorities what they wanted. They also threatened the boys if they did not comply. That, in theory, led to the false confessions. In an email, Buckley wrote, “If the investigators in this case had followed the Core Principles of the Reid Technique and the Best Practices that we teach ... [the] end result would have been very different.” Among those Core Principles: “Do not threaten the subject with any physical harm or inevitable consequences” and “Do not conduct interrogations for an excessively lengthy period of time.” Thompson agreed that, if the Reid technique was in fact used to some degree, it was misused. Regardless of whether confrontational interrogations are being used exactly as taught or twisted from their original intentions, Thompson told Oxygen.com that evidence proves confrontational interrogations can yield false confessions. He pointed to Brendan Dassey, of “Making a Murderer” fame. That documentary suggested that investigators took advantage of Dassey’s limited intellect and a confrontational interrogation to coax him into confessing. Thompson said there are three things that could go wrong in an interrogation room and lead someone to falsely confess: Misclassification, coercion and contamination. Coersion, and explicit threats and promises made to Dassey by law enforcement, Thompson said, were obvious in the video of his interrogation. As for misclassification, he believes that law enforcement may have misclassified the body language and behavior of Dassey, who has developmental challenges, as indications of guilt. He said the tactics mirrored what happened in the depiction of the Central Park 5 suspects in “When They See Us,” adding that misclassification can also occur when it comes to racial and age bias. He said that such “heartbreaking” high-profile cases prompted his firm to stop teaching confrontational interrogations. What is being taught to law enforcement now? While Thompson couldn’t give an exact number on how many police departments still use confrontational techniques, or have stopped doing so since 2017, many have been receptive to using alternate approaches to interviewing suspect, he said. “There should never be a one-size-fits-all approach to conducting an interview or interrogation,” he said. It should be noted that the John E. Reid and Associates website noted that Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates was only licensed to teach their material as it existed in 1984, and that they haven’t been allowed to teach or use any of their material or advancements since then. They have stated “we teach never to engage in the coercive tactics.” John E. Reid and Associates still offers one to three-day training programs for the Reid technique. Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates now teaches non-confrontational methods only. They offer several types of fact and information-gathering techniques, including one called the participatory method, the goal of which “is to detect as much information as possible to potentially eliminate any explanations for that evidence,” according to Thompson. He said that, based on the evidence gathered in those types of interviews, “if there is a decision to make an accusation we use a non-confrontational approach to that conversation. We offer investigators multiple options which depends on the crime and suspect.” Thompson said Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates urges electronic recording of everything — the interview process from from start to finish, and not just the confessions. In the Central Park 5 case, only the confessions were videotaped. Thompson said that many law enforcement officials he has spoken to are relieved to change methods. Even though Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates only stopped teaching confrontational techniques to law enforcement about two years ago, they stopped teaching them to their non-law enforcement clients, like human resource departments, decades ago. “It’s already been kind of acknowledged for decades that many of our clients don’t like to talk to some of our clients using those methods,” Thompson said, adding, “about two years ago, we decided if we are leaders in the [law enforcement] industry we have to take a stand.” He said that “When They See Us” does a great job of depicting interrogations gone wrong. “I’m hoping that it’s inspiring for people to advocate for change, to learn how to do things the right way, and to take a stand, even when you are in a position where it might be difficult to do so,” he said.""

The entire story can be read at:
https://www.oxygen.com/martinis-murder/what-is-reid-technique-interrogation-central-park-5-netflix-ava-duvernay

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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;