Brenda Jones: Wisconsin. Arson 'science.'...Having been exonerated of an arson conviction, she claims in a recently filed federal compaint that the Wisconsin sheriff’s office that handled the case and pushed for her prosecution denied her due process throughout the investigation and subsequent trial.

PASSAGE ONE  OF THE DAY: "According to the 21-page federal complaint filed Wednesday in Madison, Brenda Jones was wrongfully convicted of arson after her house in Quincy, Wisconsin, burned down due to what was determined by an insurance claims adjuster to be an electrical fire. “Her house burned down, destroying all of her worldly possession[s] when she was 51 years old, suffering from cancer, legally disabled, and with disability as her sole source of income,” the complaint states. “The then middle-aged woman was forced to defend herself in a court of law, falsely accused and labeled an arsonist in the small Town of Quincy, Wisconsin, with a population of less than 1,200 people.” Jones – represented by Lisa Goldman of the Madison-based firm Davey and Goldman – said the investigation, two-day trial and conviction surrounding the fire were negligently carried out in violation of her constitutional right to due process, resulting in her railroad conviction and nine-month jail sentence and seven years probation. All of the charges against Jones – who is now 56 and living in Florida – were dismissed in October 2018 after she appealed and was granted a new trial.  Jones claims in her complaint that even though the charges were dismissed, and “in the face of overwhelming evidence of her innocence … Ms. Jones, a quiet and gentle woman, must now attempt to resume her life without her beloved home and reestablish her good name.”

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PASSAGE TWO  OF THE DAY:  "The alleged confession, according to Onopa, took place in a motel room in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Jones averred at trial that she had never been there and that the voice in the recording was not hers. At her trial, “the only evidence offered to convict Ms. Jones was the manipulated evidence supplied by Investigator York that the fire was the result of arson and not an accident; and the hiding of exculpatory evidence by Investigator York,” the complaint states."

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PASSAGE  THREE OF THE DAY: (National Registry of Exonerations); "Jones testified and denied setting the fire. She also denied that the voice on the tape was hers. She said she had never stayed with Onopa at a motel in Arlington Heights, Illinois. She said she had been concerned about electrical problems in the home—ice dams in the gutters were causing water to seep into the house, causing circuit breakers to pop. An electrician scheduled to come to the house to investigate the day before the fire failed to show up, she said. Family members testified that the house had electrical problems for several years. Jones’s brother, Billie Mills, said there were light switches next to water faucets and a light pole in the yard with bare wires. Mary Pasholk, one of Jones’s sisters, said water was leaking through the ceiling into electrical sockets. And another sister, Ellen Anderson, testified that she got an electrical shock when she turned on a light. Steve Wozniak testified he had done roofing work for Jones in 2008—five years before the fire—and took care of some mold problems caused by the leaking water. He said Jones talked to him about electrical problems at the time and noticed that outlets were wet. He said that he replaced part of the roof, but that the whole roof should have been replaced."

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STORY: "Exonerated Woman Seeks Damages for Arson Conviction," by reporter Joe Kelly, published by Courthouse News on August 28, 2019.

GIST: "A woman exonerated of an arson conviction claims in court that the Wisconsin sheriff’s office that handled the case and pushed for her prosecution denied her due process throughout the investigation and subsequent trial.  According to the 21-page federal complaint filed Wednesday in Madison, Brenda Jones was wrongfully convicted of arson after her house in Quincy, Wisconsin, burned down due to what was determined by an insurance claims adjuster to be an electrical fire. “Her house burned down, destroying all of her worldly possession[s] when she was 51 years old, suffering from cancer, legally disabled, and with disability as her sole source of income,” the complaint states. “The then middle-aged woman was forced to defend herself in a court of law, falsely accused and labeled an arsonist in the small Town of Quincy, Wisconsin, with a population of less than 1,200 people.” Jones – represented by Lisa Goldman of the Madison-based firm Davey and Goldman – said the investigation, two-day trial and conviction surrounding the fire were negligently carried out in violation of her constitutional right to due process, resulting in her railroad conviction and nine-month jail sentence and seven years probation. All of the charges against Jones – who is now 56 and living in Florida – were dismissed in October 2018 after she appealed and was granted a new trial.  Jones claims in her complaint that even though the charges were dismissed, and “in the face of overwhelming evidence of her innocence … Ms. Jones, a quiet and gentle woman, must now attempt to resume her life without her beloved home and reestablish her good name.” The arson investigation was led by Brent York, an investigator with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office at the time. York and the sheriff’s office are named as defendants in Jones’ suit. In the early morning hours of Feb. 17, 2013, the fire department in Quincy responded to an emergency call to find Jones’ home almost completely burned to the ground. Jones was at her sister’s home about an hour away in Reedsburg at the time of the fire. Rural Mutual Insurance’s claims adjuster concluded after his investigation that the electrical fire was “not suspect,” and other investigators specializing in arson “did not find any accelerants, burn degree, or burn patterns” to indicate criminal activity. Less than a month after the fire, Alan Onopa, an acquaintance of Jones’, allegedly grabbed her by the neck and threatened her if she did not pay him a portion of the insurance proceeds, according to the complaint. 
Jones reported this incident to the Marshfield Police Department within 24 hours and warned the police that “Onopa may call and lie to them about the fire.” York then investigated and had Jones make a recorded call to Onopa, at which point Onopa threatened Jones with extortion again. York claimed at trial to have “lost” the recording of this call and never turned a copy of it over to the prosecutor or Jones’ defense counsel. York also allegedly never got copies of and denied details of the Marshfield police report, and the complaint claims he falsely testified at trial that Jones told him Onopa never attacked her. The complaint also claims that the then-investigator falsely testified as to the veracity of an alleged confession recorded by Onopa in which he asserted a “whispering inaudible voice” was Jones admitting to committing arson for the insurance pay out. The complaint alleges York did all this even though he should have known the timeline was not correct: Onopa had contacted the insurance claims adjuster claiming to have a recording of Jones’ confession eight days before he supposedly recorded it. The alleged confession, according to Onopa, took place in a motel room in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Jones averred at trial that she had never been there and that the voice in the recording was not hers. At her trial, “the only evidence offered to convict Ms. Jones was the manipulated evidence supplied by Investigator York that the fire was the result of arson and not an accident; and the hiding of exculpatory evidence by Investigator York,” the complaint states. 
Jones was convicted despite providing a verifiable description of her whereabouts and calling witnesses to corroborate her alibi. Wednesday’s complaint includes claims of due process violations, negligent misrepresentation on the part of York, and malicious prosecution, among others. Jones is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.  The Adams County Sheriff’s Office and Jones’ counsel did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, two days after Jones’ new trial was granted in October 2018, York was placed on administrative leave by former Sheriff Sam Wollin during the investigation of a separate 2001 incident, relating to an alleged cover up of the beating of a prisoner in the Adams County Jail. 
A civil suit brought by the prisoner was settled for $72,000, according to the registry. 
On November 7, 2018, York defeated Wollin in an election and now serves as Adams County Sheriff himself."

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.courthousenews.com/exonerated-wisconsin-woman-seeks-damages-for-wrongful-arson-conviction/

Read the National Registry of Exonerations entry  by Maurice Possley  at the link below:

"In the early morning hours of February 17, 2013, fire destroyed the home and garage of 49-year-old Brenda Jones in Friendship, Wisconsin. Jones was spending the night with her sister in Reedsburg, Wisconsin when the fire broke out. She told authorities she had been home that afternoon. She also said the roof leaked, that water seeped into electrical outlets, and lights had been flickering. She said she had called an electrician, but he had not yet come to investigate. On February 28, 2013, the Rural Mutual Insurance Company, which insured the property, declared the home, garage, and contents a total loss. “The fire was electrical in nature,” the insurance investigator wrote in his report. “This is a total loss. Dwelling is gone to ashes, contents are also gone…Detached garage is also gone.” Adams County Sheriff’s Investigator Brent York interviewed Jones and contacted the local electric company, which said that the power went out around 4:30 a.m. York concluded that an electrical problem caused the fire. However, more than two years later in April 2015, Jones was charged with arson of a building with intent to commit fraud—to collect about $86,000 in insurance money. At the time, the mortgage on the property had a balance of $73,000. The complaint alleged that on March 7, 2013, after the fire was declared an accident, Richard Pohlrud, the insurance company investigator who handled the claim, contacted York. Pohlrud reported that Alan Onopa, who had lived with Jones prior to the fire, claimed that he had a tape recording of Jones admitting that she set the fire. Jones went to trial in Adams County Circuit Court in May 2016. The prosecution claimed that Jones set the fire for the insurance. The defense contended that Onopa had assaulted Jones in an attempt to force her to share the insurance proceeds and when she refused, he fabricated the tape. York testified that on March 21, 2013, after the insurance investigator told him of Onopa’s claim, he interviewed Jones. She told him she met Onopa in May 2012 and they had lived together for a while. He said she reported that Onopa was trying to extort money from her. According to York, Jones said that on March 4, 2013, Onopa came to the Stardust Motel in Marshfield, Wisconsin where Jones was staying after the fire. York said Jones told him Onopa threatened to tell police that she burned her house down unless she paid him a portion of her insurance settlement. York said he listened to some threatening voicemails that Onopa had left for Jones. York said he then asked Jones to set up a call with Onopa. During the call, which York said he overheard, Onopa threatened to take his recording of Jones to the insurance company unless Jones paid him $3,500. During cross-examination, York denied that Jones told him that Onopa had physically assaulted her at the Stardust Motel. York acknowledged Jones told him she had filed a police report of Onopa’s threats. York said he talked to Marshfield Police officer Caleb Bornbach, who took the report, but denied that Bornbach ever mentioned that Jones said Onopa had assaulted her. The prosecutor asked York, “And have you ever heard anything in terms of this physical altercation that apparently has been stated?” “No,” York replied. York also testified that on April 2013, he got the tape after talking to Onopa. During their conversation, Onopa told York that he had recorded Jones talking about burning her house down while they were in a motel in Arlington Heights, Illinois. York interviewed Jones again on April 30, 2013. She said she was home on the afternoon of February 16, 2013 waiting for electrician Greg Moyer to check on her electricity problem. When he did not show up, she went to her sister’s home. She again denied setting the fire, York said. Onopa testified and said he had lived with Jones for about two months before the fire. He said the house was rundown, but he was unaware of any fire hazards. Onopa told the jury that Jones told him prior to the fire that she intended to burn the house down to collect the insurance. In the recording, Onopa said, “But you said earlier, you waited until it got - what did you do, just put a blanket in the heater?” The voice that Onopa said was Jones replied, “No, lit a match.” Onopa said, “Babe, so I can’t believe you lit that and it did all that damage. You just lit it with a match?” “Yeah,” the female voice replied. Jones’s defense lawyer attacked Onopa’s credibility, noting that he had prior convictions for battery to a police officer and possession of narcotics. Onopa denied he fabricated the tape in an attempt to extort money from Jones. Jones testified and denied setting the fire. She also denied that the voice on the tape was hers. She said she had never stayed with Onopa at a motel in Arlington Heights, Illinois. She said she had been concerned about electrical problems in the home—ice dams in the gutters were causing water to seep into the house, causing circuit breakers to pop. An electrician scheduled to come to the house to investigate the day before the fire failed to show up, she said. Family members testified that the house had electrical problems for several years. Jones’s brother, Billie Mills, said there were light switches next to water faucets and a light pole in the yard with bare wires. Mary Pasholk, one of Jones’s sisters, said water was leaking through the ceiling into electrical sockets. And another sister, Ellen Anderson, testified that she got an electrical shock when she turned on a light. Steve Wozniak testified he had done roofing work for Jones in 2008—five years before the fire—and took care of some mold problems caused by the leaking water. He said Jones talked to him about electrical problems at the time and noticed that outlets were wet. He said that he replaced part of the roof, but that the whole roof should have been replaced. Jones also told the jury that on March 4, 2013, Onopa visited her at the Stardust Motel and threatened her. During an argument, she said, Onopa grabbed her by the throat and threatened to report her for setting the fire. After Onopa left, she called Marshfield police and told officer Caleb Bornbach that Onopa had threatened to accuse her of admitting she set the fire unless she paid him money and that he had grabbed her by the throat. Jones also testified that she reported this assault and Onopa’s threats to York during their meeting to discuss Onopa’s claim that he had a tape recording. John Rainey, the owner of the Arlington Heights motel where Onopa claimed he made the tape recording of Jones’s admissions, testified there were no records of Jones or Onopa staying there after the fire. On May 6, 2016, the jury convicted Jones of arson of a building for profit. She was sentenced to nine months in jail and seven years of probation. Andrew Hinkel, an appellate public defender, was appointed to handle the appeal and persuaded the trial judge to delay the jail sentence pending appeal. When Hinkel concluded there was evidence that Jones’s trial lawyer, who was also a public defender, had not provided an adequate legal defense, Hinkel stepped aside. Cole Ruby, a private attorney, was then appointed to the case. Ruby filed a motion for new trial in January 2018. The motion claimed that Jones’s trial lawyer had provided an inadequate legal defense by failing to challenge the admission of the recording into evidence. The motion said that because Onopa made the recording in furtherance of a crime—to extort money from Jones—it should have been excluded from the trial. The motion also said that the defense failed to locate and the prosecution failed to disclose the Marshfield police report Jones made, as well as follow-up reports made by Bornbach, the Marshfield officer Jones called. Ruby located reports from Bornbach saying he had informed York that Jones said Onopa assaulted her—contradicting York’s denials at the trial. In fact, Bornbach reported that “York stated that Brenda had also told him that Alan (Onopa) had grabbed onto her neck.” The reports showed that Jones reached out to police before Onopa ever went to the insurance company or police. The reports bolstered her claim that Onopa was trying to frame her for her refusal to pay him, instead of claiming she was being extorted only after police began investigating. The motion for new trial said the prosecution also failed to disclose several more of Onopa’s past convictions, which could have been used to further impeach his testimony. In addition, the motion claimed the prosecution failed to disclose a statement Onopa made to his probation officer that was inconsistent with his trial testimony. The defense investigator also spoke with Dennis Quinnell, a neighbor of Jones. Quinnell said he had been a neighbor for 8 to 10 years. He had installed the well and septic system on the property before Jones bought the home. Quinnell said that he came to the home once when Jones said she had no running water. Quinnell said that the water pump had been moved inside the house, apparently to keep it from freezing. He saw electrical cables “running all over the place” and heat-tape around the pipe that led from the well outside to the house. The tape, which was designed to keep the water from freezing before it came into the house, was a fire hazard, Quinnell said. The motion quoted Quinnell as saying that “if wired wrong or wrapped on itself, or if these electrical cables were too thin for the amount of current that would be drawn by the heat-tape and pump, they would get hot and could start a fire.” Adams County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Wood held a hearing in July 2018 to hear testimony from the witnesses and view the police reports. On October 5, 2018, the prosecution filed a motion saying that it agreed that had the defense challenged the admission of the tape recording, it likely would have been excluded. “Onopa may have still been allowed to testify as to the contents of the conversation, but his testimony would have lacked corroboration,” the prosecution said. “Since he was successfully impeached on his memory of the circumstances surrounding the recording, including the location where the conversation took place, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different.” The prosecution also noted that had the defense obtained the Marshfield police reports, it could have impeached York for testifying inconsistently with what the Marshfield police officer said York told him. The reports “could also have been used to demonstrate that Onopa had a bias and a motive to fabricate evidence against the defendant in the form of a falsified recording or his testimony about the confession. This evidence could have undermined the reliability of both Onopa and York’s identification of the defendant as the voice on the recording.” The prosecution added, “Since there was no direct evidence of arson in this case, and the fire had in fact been ruled an accident by investigators until Onopa inserted himself in the case, any successful impeachment of a state’s witness bearing on the reliability of the confession is reasonably probable to have changed the outcome of the trial.” On October 8, 2018, Judge Wood granted the defense motion for a new trial and vacated Jones’s conviction. Two days later, Adams County Sheriff Sam Wollin placed York—who was seeking election as Adams County Sheriff—on administrative leave. The action was the result of an investigation of an unrelated 2001 incident involving a prisoner who claimed that he was beaten in the Adams County Jail and that York and other officers had covered it up. During a subsequent civil lawsuit brought by the prisoner (which was settled for $72,000), York gave inconsistent testimony about what occurred, prompting the Wisconsin Department of Justice to notify the Adams County State’s Attorney’s Office that York should not be called as a witness unless the evidence about his inconsistent testimony was disclosed. Following the notification, York was placed on leave. Nonetheless, York defeated Wollin on November 7 and was elected Adams County Sheriff with 4,860 votes to Wollin’s 4,472 votes. On November 12, 2018, the prosecution dismissed the charge against Jones. In August 2019, Jones filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking compensation from York and Adams County for her wrongful conviction."  https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5410

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;

Indicted Former Veterans Administration Pathologist Robert Morris Levy: (Arkansas); Important Washington Post (Reporter Lisa Rein) story on, "How Veterans Affairs failed to stop a pathologist who misdiagnosed 3,000 cases.' ...From Background: "The indictment of a former doctor at a VA hospital in Arkansas is sending shock waves through the nation's largest health care system. Dr. Robert Morris Levy, 53, is accused of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of three patients — and he could be responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen others."

BACKGROUND: (Indictment story): "Veteran's widow speaks out after former VA doctor charged in 3 deaths," by reporter Omar Villafranca, published by CBS News on August 21, 2019. "The indictment of a former doctor at a VA hospital in Arkansas is sending shock waves through the nation's largest health care system. Dr. Robert Morris Levy, 53, is accused of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of three patients — and he could be responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen others. Kathy McCoy's husband, Michael, died late last year. He was a proud grandfather of 10 and a retired Army sergeant. In 2014, he went to an Arkansas VA complaining of pain in his leg.

"He was in constant pain. It got to where at the end he couldn't walk … he would crawl a lot," McCoy told CBS News. "They kept saying it was arthritis." She said it ended up being a blood clot in the legg. McCoy's case is one of thousands under review after VA pathologist Robert Levy was accused of manslaughter in the deaths of at least three veterans by misdiagnosis or falsifying their diagnoses. "We looked at the most serious cases and the cases that were the most prosecutable and those are the three cases that we feel confident that we can take into court and get a conviction," Duane Kees, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, said. Levy was chief pathologist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center of the Ozarks for more than a decade, but he was fired last year after he was accused of working while drunk. The federal indictment accuses him of practicing while intoxicated by drinking a potent form of alcohol called 2-methyl-2-butanol — or 2M2B — a form of alcohol that can't be detected in a common drug and alcohol test. Levy can be  seen in police bodycam footage said to be from a 2018 DUI stop. It was released by a law firm representing some of his alleged victims. An 18-month VA investigation into more than 30,000 cases under Levy's supervision found 3,029 showed errors or misdiagnoses, and concluded they may have led to at least 15 deaths, some from cancer. McCoy explained that her husband felt like he trusted a system that ultimately failed him. "I think there, at the end, he knew they had failed him," she said. McCoy is buried here at the Fort Smith National Cemetery. But his family wonders if a proper diagnosis could have saved his life. In a statement, Levy said he's innocent and will defend himself vigorously.
If convicted of all counts, Levy faces a sentence of up to 524 years in prison and $7.75 million in fines, Kees said."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/veterans-affairs-pathologist-charged-robert-levy-involuntary-manslaughter-widow-speaks-out-today-2019-08-21/

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The assurances and apologies have come as cold comfort to the families of 21,000 veterans diagnosed by chief pathologist Robert Morris Levy over 12 years, many of whom will live for years with the consequences of his mistakes. Compounding their pain is a sense of betrayal that VA officials did not intervene sooner, firing Levy only after he was arrested in the spring of 2018 for driving under the influence. On the Fayetteville campus, rated one of VA’s best, Levy’s supervisors failed to heed early warnings that he was endangering patients and then were slow to act, according to internal VA documents, court filings and interviews with 20 congressional officials, veterans and current and former VA employees. Federal prosecutors charged Levy, 53, last week with three counts of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of three veterans. VA officials now acknowledge that he botched diagnoses of at least 15 patients who later died and 15 others whose health was seriously harmed. The number of those affected, however, is much greater, and the full repercussions of Levy’s actions may not be known for years. VA officials say Levy made 3,000 errors or misdiagnoses dating to 2005."

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PHOTO CAPTION: "Former pathologist Robert Morris Levy has been charged with three counts of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of three veterans." (Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

STORY: "How Veterans Affairs failed to stop a pathologist who misdiagnosed 3,000 cases," by reporter Lisa Rein, published by The Washington Post on August 30, 2019. (Reporter covering federal agencies and the management of government in the Trump administration.) 

GIST:  "By the time he and his wife Sara faced Veterans Affairs medical staff across a conference table in September, Kelly Copelin had lost 75 pounds and could swallow only small pieces of solid food. Radiation therapy had blistered his throat. This was the moment they would finally learn why their lives were so changed. Why when he went to the Fayetteville VA three years earlier with a severe earache, the biopsy came back negative — and he was given antibiotics instead of treatment for what was diagnosed 13 months later as late-stage neck and throat cancer. The pathologist who had misdiagnosed Copelin’s diseased tissue in 2015 was intoxicated, the hospital’s chief physician told the couple. He had failed to see the squamous cell carcinoma on the slide before him, the doctor said. “We are so sorry,” Copelin, 63, remembers him saying. Sobbing, the retired Air Force master sergeant said he asked whether he would be suffering this much if the cancer had been caught before he was at stage 4, with tumors spread to both sides of his face. The treatment would have been the same, doctors told him, stopping short of answering his question directly. The assurances and apologies have come as cold comfort to the families of 21,000 veterans diagnosed by chief pathologist Robert Morris Levy over 12 years, many of whom will live for years with the consequences of his mistakes. Compounding their pain is a sense of betrayal that VA officials did not intervene sooner, firing Levy only after he was arrested in the spring of 2018 for driving under the influence. On the Fayetteville campus, rated one of VA’s best, Levy’s supervisors failed to heed early warnings that he was endangering patients and then were slow to act, according to internal VA documents, court filings and interviews with 20 congressional officials, veterans and current and former VA employees. Federal prosecutors charged Levy, 53, last week with three counts of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of three veterans. VA officials now acknowledge that he botched diagnoses of at least 15 patients who later died and 15 others whose health was seriously harmed. The number of those affected, however, is much greater, and the full repercussions of Levy’s actions may not be known for years. VA officials say Levy made 3,000 errors or misdiagnoses dating to 2005. VA officials say they have added oversight of small specialty staffs across the system — as was the case in Fayetteville — to ensure “independent and objective oversight.” The Fayetteville medical center has also increased monitoring of its clinical lab. “VA grieves for all of the Veterans and loved ones affected by this heartbreaking situation,” VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said in a statement to The Washington Post. “It’s hard to fathom how a physician sworn to do no harm could be so reckless, and the fact that his behavior continued for some time is testament to his shameless duplicity.” He said the agency has made systemwide changes to prevent similar situations in the future. “Like all health care providers, VA occasionally experiences unexpected adverse outcomes in a small percentage of cases. When that happens, we hold ourselves accountable,” Wilkie said, adding that Fayetteville VA officials are working to “regain the trust” of veterans “while helping bring two things to this situation that have been lacking for far too long: accountability and justice.” Levy is now in jail in Fayetteville, pending a bond hearing. His attorney, Darren O’Quinn, said his client “did what VA said and got treatment” for his addiction. “People aren’t perfect, and medical doctors aren’t perfect,” O’Quinn said. “You’re going to have some errors. That doesn’t mean you’re a criminal.” He said he plans to dispute the number of misdiagnoses. The mistakes of a physician they never saw has sowed anger among an aging population of veterans whose illnesses Levy was charged with diagnosing and monitoring. Many had cancers he missed. Others were told they were sick when they were healthy — and mistakenly given invasive treatment. Prosecutors say Levy concealed his errors by altering patient records and evaded detection by swallowing a dangerous substance that gave him a quick and powerful high, but that was indiscernible on common drug and alcohol tests. His patients and their relatives say they blame VA for allowing him to continue to practice. “I went from, ‘Your earache isn’t anything’ to stage 4,” Copelin said. “With VA, it’s competence and integrity. Both of those have been shot right out the door.” A VA spokeswoman said the agency “used all legal measures in its control to fire the employee as quickly as possible.” But even after he arrived at the lab impaired at least twice, VA awarded Levy two performance bonuses on top of his $225,000 salary based on peer reviews that appeared to show that he had a minuscule clinical error rate, according to the indictment. The truth was just the opposite. "

 (This is just a portion of a very significant  article which is lengthy but well worth the read. Journalism at its best. HL;) The entire story can be read at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-veterans-affairs-failed-to-stop-a-pathologist-who-misdiagnosed-3000-cases/2019/08/30/d66fc098-c5b9-11e9-9986-1fb3e4397be4_story.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;

Curtis Flowers: Mississippi: Extraordinary Development: As reporter Mihit Zaveri reported in yesterday's New York Times: "The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the murder conviction of Curtis Flowers, a black man who has been tried six times for the same crimes, two months after the United States Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutor, who is white, unconstitutionally kept black people off the jury." From Publisher's Note: "Unconstitutional jury selection is nothing new in the American South (as evidenced recently on the pages of this Blog in the Rodricus Crawford Case. (Louisiana); But going to the heart of the Flower's case is the haunting possibility that the man Mississippi Prosecutor Doug Evans is trying so hard to kill is innocent.) Check out this APM story (about a missing gun) by Dave Mann, a senior editor for APM Reports: It's headed: "What happened to the gun? Lots of questions, little evidence in Curtis Flowers."

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:  Unconstitutional jury selection is nothing new in  the American South (as evidenced recently on the pages of this Blog  the Rodricus Crawford Case. (Louisiana);  But going to the heart of the Flower's of the case is the haunting possibility that  the man Mississippi  is trying so hard to kill is innocent - as is indicated by American Public Media (APM) and it's  phenomenal podcast 'In The Dark.  Check out this APM story by Dave Mann, a senior editor for APM Reports: It's headed: "What happened to the gun? Lots of questions, little evidence in Curtis Flowers."
Read the New York Times story at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/us/curtis-flowers-doug-evans.html

Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Prosecutors have said that Flowers was the only serious suspect from the beginning of the case. But a yearlong investigation by APM Reports has found compelling evidence that points away from Flowers. APM Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who said he was a suspect early in the investigation. And the gun that Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important because of where it was found — in the opposite direction from where the prosecution claims Flowers fled from Tardy Furniture. If the gun is the murder weapon, it indicates that perhaps someone else committed the crime. The revelations are among a number of discoveries by APM Reports journalists investigating the 22-year-old case. Previous stories have reported that there’s no direct evidence against Flowers, including no reliable evidence placing him near the scene or linking him to the murder weapon. Moreover, all three jailhouse informants who testified against Flowers have recanted, one directly to a reporter."

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STORY: "What happened to the gun? Lots of questions, little evidence in Curtis Flowers," by Dave Mann, published by The Clarion Ledger on July 7, 2018.

BACKGROUND: This is the last story in a five-part series, produced in collaboration with APM Reports, examining the case of Curtis Flowers. This series is adapted from "In the Dark," a truly excellent investigative podcast by APM Reports."

GIST: One day in 2001, Jeffrey Armstrong was at his mother’s house on the east side of Winona when he heard his dog barking in the backyard. He walked out and saw that the dog had dug up something from under the house. It was a gun — a .380 automatic, rusting and dirty on one side. Armstrong immediately thought of the Tardy Furniture murders five years earlier, a crime for which Curtis Flowers had been convicted and sentenced to death. Armstrong knew that the gun used to shoot the four Tardy employees on July 16, 1996, was a .380, and that the murder weapon had never been found. He gave the gun to investigators. Then, he says, it disappeared. Prosecutors have said that Flowers was the only serious suspect from the beginning of the case. But a yearlong investigation by APM Reports has found compelling evidence that points away from Flowers. APM Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who said he was a suspect early in the investigation. And the gun that Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important because of where it was found — in the opposite direction from where the prosecution claims Flowers fled from Tardy Furniture. If the gun is the murder weapon, it indicates that perhaps someone else committed the crime. The revelations are among a number of discoveries by APM Reports journalists investigating the 22-year-old case. Previous stories have reported that there’s no direct evidence against Flowers, including no reliable evidence placing him near the scene or linking him to the murder weapon. Moreover, all three jailhouse informants who testified against Flowers have recanted, one directly to a reporter. "A gun found on an alternate escape route:  The question of what happened to the .380 lingers. Armstrong says he turned the gun over to the Winona Police Department. Police Chief Tommy Bibbs and Dan Herod, the department’s chief investigator, told APM Reports that Armstrong had turned in a gun. They said the pistol was sent to the district attorney’s office for testing by the Mississippi crime lab. The state crime lab told APM Reports that it has no record of receiving the gun. It’s not clear if the gun was tested or whether it’s the murder weapon.  “They'll never know the whole truth,” said Armstrong, who’s long believed that Flowers is innocent. “This thing has been a mess since the day it happened.” District Attorney Doug Evans has refused to answer specific questions from APM Reports about evidence in the Flowers case.  In 2016, Flowers’ defense team asked a state judge to order prosecutors to produce the gun for testing. At the hearing, Evans and a lawyer with the Mississippi Attorney General’s office assisting on the case denied that prosecutors had the gun. The judge ruled against the defense. The gun’s present whereabouts are unknown. If the gun was the murder weapon, it could have undermined the case against Flowers. The gun, said Armstrong, was found just 700 feet east of Tardy Furniture. That’s the opposite direction that prosecutors say Flowers fled. One key prosecution witness said she saw Flowers running west from the store not long after the murders, though other witnesses later questioned the veracity of her claims. East of Tardy Furniture — a direction an assailant could have traversed within minutes of committing the crime — there’s a direct path from the store to where the gun was found. Moreover, the path includes a drainage tunnel under railroad tracks leading to a drainage ditch, all of which could have allowed the shooter to escape largely unseen. Men with criminal histories lived just a few blocks from where the gun was found. That includes Hemphill, who lived in the neighborhood on and off during the 1990s. Hemphill questioned for hours, jailed:   As the Clarion Ledger previously reported, the APM Reports investigation found evidence that investigators considered Hemphill a suspect in the days after the Tardy Furniture murders. The investigative file compiled in Flowers' case contained only one mention of Hemphill —- the document he signed waiving his Miranda rights before questioning. Flowers' attorneys asked investigators about Hemphill briefly during the sixth trial in June 2010. Investigators said they quickly eliminated him as a suspect. “I think they talked to him for five minutes, I don’t think they learned anything,” John Johnson, an investigator for the DA’s office, testified. It wasn’t clear exactly why investigators ruled Hemphill out. It took APM Reports months to track down Hemphill, but when reporters found him — at a courthouse in Indianapolis — he said he was questioned for two or three hours about the murders and that his statements were tape recorded. No documents or transcripts about Hemphill’s questioning were turned over to the defense. Legal experts say that prosecutors are usually required to turn over to the defense information about alternative suspects. Told by reporters that investigators said they only questioned him for five minutes, Hemphill said: “It was definitely more than five minutes that they talked to me. It took five minutes to read me my Miranda rights and have me sign papers and set up the recording, the tape recorder. That takes five minutes.” He said investigators were very interested in his shoes. He wore Grant Hill Fila sneakers in size 9 or 10 — the same kind of shoe that left the bloody shoe print at the murder scene. Hemphill told APM Reports that he was shopping at a mall in Memphis at the time of the murders. His alibi witness didn’t return calls. County records uncovered by APM Reports show that Hemphill was booked into jail after his questioning in 1996 and that he remained in jail for 11 days. After Hemphill’s release, the investigation remained focused on Flowers. Regardless of why investigators ruled out Hemphill, if he was a serious suspect and if the prosecution didn’t turn over that information to Flowers’ defense, it might endanger the conviction, legal experts say. In a motion filed in the weeks since the release of the “In the Dark” podcast, Flowers’ defense team cited the Hemphill revelations as a reason the court should move forward with the latest appeal. The lawyers termed it “stunning new evidence that has come to light.” While his appeals continue, Flowers remains on death row. He will soon have spent more than half his life in prison."

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/07/07/curtis-flowers-death-row-missing-gun-more-questions-evidence/764197002/

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;

STORY: ," by reporter DPUBLISHER'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;
ave Mann, published by APM reports July 7, 2019.  (You can download episodes of “In thehttps://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/07/07/curtis-flowers-death-row-missing-gun-more-questions-evidence/764197002/ Dark” on iTunes. You can also read more about the Flowers case at inthedarkpodcast.org. APM Reports is the investigative and documentary reporting team at American Public Media, which is based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dave Mann is a senior digital editor for APM Reports.)

BACKGROUND: "This is the last story in a five-part series, produced in collaboration with APM Reports, examining the case of Curtis Flowers. This series is adapted from "In the Dark," an investigative podcast by APM Reports."

GIST: "One day in 2001, Jeffrey Armstrong was at his mother’s house on the east side of Winona when he heard his dog barking in the backyard. He walked out and saw that the dog had dug up something from under the house. It was a gun — a .380 automatic, rusting and dirty on one side. Armstrong immediately thought of the Tardy Furniture murders five years earlier, a crime for which Curtis Flowers had been convicted and sentenced to death. Armstrong knew that the gun used to shoot the four Tardy employees on July 16, 1996, was a .380, and that the murder weapon had never been found. He gave the gun to investigators. Then, he says, it disappeared. Prosecutors have said that Flowers was the only serious suspect from the beginning of the case. But a yearlong investigation by APM Reports has found compelling evidence that points away from Flowers. APM Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who said he was a suspect early in the investigation. And the gun that Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important because of where it was found — in the opposite direction from where the prosecution claims Flowers fled from Tardy Furniture. If the gun is the murder weapon, it indicates that perhaps someone else committed the crime. The revelations are among a number of discoveries by APM Reports journalists investigating the 22-year-old case. Previous stories have reported that there’s no direct evidence against Flowers, including no reliable evidence placing him near the scene or linking him to the murder weapon. Moreover, all three jailhouse informants who testified against Flowers have recanted, one directly to a reporter. A gun found on an alternate escape route:  The question of what happened to the .380 lingers. Armstrong says he turned the gun over to the Winona Police Department. Police Chief Tommy Bibbs and Dan Herod, the department’s chief investigator, told APM Reports that Armstrong had turned in a gun. They said the pistol was sent to the district attorney’s office for testing by the Mississippi crime lab. The state crime lab told APM Reports that it has no record of receiving the gun. It’s not clear if the gun was tested or whether it’s the murder weapon.

“They'll never know the whole truth,” said Armstrong, who’s long believed that Flowers is innocent. “This thing has been a mess since the day it happened.” District Attorney Doug Evans has refused to answer specific questions from APM Reports about evidence in the Flowers case. In 2016, Flowers’ defense team asked a state judge to order prosecutors to produce the gun for testing. At the hearing, Evans and a lawyer with the Mississippi Attorney General’s office assisting on the case denied that prosecutors had the gun. The judge ruled against the defense. The gun’s present whereabouts are unknown. If the gun was the murder weapon, it could have undermined the case against Flowers. The gun, said Armstrong, was found just 700 feet east of Tardy Furniture. That’s the opposite direction that prosecutors say Flowers fled. One key prosecution witness said she saw Flowers running west from the store not long after the murders, though other witnesses later questioned the veracity of her claims. East of Tardy Furniture — a direction an assailant could have traversed within minutes of committing the crime — there’s a direct path from the store to where the gun was found. Moreover, the path includes a drainage tunnel under railroad tracks leading to a drainage ditch, all of which could have allowed the shooter to escape largely unseen. Men with criminal histories lived just a few blocks from where the gun was found. That includes Hemphill, who lived in the neighborhood on and off during the 1990s. Hemphill questioned for hours, jailed: As the Clarion Ledger previously reported, the APM Reports investigation found evidence that investigators considered Hemphill a suspect in the days after the Tardy Furniture murders. The investigative file compiled in Flowers' case contained only one mention of Hemphill —- the document he signed waiving his Miranda rights before questioning. Flowers' attorneys asked investigators about Hemphill briefly during the sixth trial in June 2010. Investigators said they quickly eliminated him as a suspect. “I think they talked to him for five minutes, I don’t think they learned anything,” John Johnson, an investigator for the DA’s office, testified. It wasn’t clear exactly why investigators ruled Hemphill out. It took APM Reports months to track down Hemphill, but when reporters found him — at a courthouse in Indianapolis — he said he was questioned for two or three hours about the murders and that his statements were tape recorded. No documents or transcripts about Hemphill’s questioning were turned over to the defense. Legal experts say that prosecutors are usually required to turn over to the defense information about alternative suspects. Told by reporters that investigators said they only questioned him for five minutes, Hemphill said: “It was definitely more than five minutes that they talked to me. It took five minutes to read me my Miranda rights and have me sign papers and set up the recording, the tape recorder. That takes five minutes.” He said investigators were very interested in his shoes. He wore Grant Hill Fila sneakers in size 9 or 10 — the same kind of shoe that left the bloody shoe print at the murder scene. Hemphill told APM Reports that he was shopping at a mall in Memphis at the time of the murders. His alibi witness didn’t return calls. County records uncovered by APM Reports show that Hemphill was booked into jail after his questioning in 1996 and that he remained in jail for 11 days. After Hemphill’s release, the investigation remained focused on Flowers. Regardless of why investigators ruled out Hemphill, if he was a serious suspect and if the prosecution didn’t turn over that information to Flowers’ defense, it might endanger the conviction, legal experts say. In a motion filed in the weeks since the release of the “In the Dark” podcast, Flowers’ defense team cited the Hemphill revelations as a reason the court should move forward with the latest appeal. The lawyers termed it “stunning new evidence that has come to light.” While his appeals continue, Flowers remains on death row. He will soon have spent more than half his life in prison."

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/07/07/curtis-flowers-death-row-missing-gun-more-questions-evidence/764197002/

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;

STORY: "What happened to the gun? Lots of questions, little evidence in Curtis Flowers," by reporter Dave Mann, published by APM Reports on

The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the murder conviction of Curtis Flowers, a black man who has been tried six times for the same crimes, two months after the United States Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutor, who is white, unconstitutionally kept black people off the jury.

Mr. Flowers, 49, has been accused of murder in the 1996 killings of four people in a furniture store in Winona, Miss. All six prosecutions have either ended in mistrial or convictions that were reversed on appeal.

The case sparked a national conversation about race in the criminal justice system after a podcast investigated the decades-long effort by the prosecutor, Doug Evans, to convict Mr. Flowers.

STORY: ," by reporter Dave Mann, published by APM reports July 7, 2019.  (You can download episodes of “In the Dark” on iTunes. You can also read more about the Flowers case at inthedarkpodcast.org. APM Reports is the investigative and documentary reporting team at American Public Media, which is based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dave Mann is a senior digital editor for APM Reports.)

BACKGROUND: "This is the last story in a five-part series, produced in collaboration with APM Reports, examining the case of Curtis Flowers. This series is adapted from "In the Dark," an investigative podcast by APM Reports."

GIST: "One day in 2001, Jeffrey Armstrong was at his mother’s house on the east side of Winona when he heard his dog barking in the backyard. He walked out and saw that the dog had dug up something from under the house. It was a gun — a .380 automatic, rusting and dirty on one side. Armstrong immediately thought of the Tardy Furniture murders five years earlier, a crime for which Curtis Flowers had been convicted and sentenced to death. Armstrong knew that the gun used to shoot the four Tardy employees on July 16, 1996, was a .380, and that the murder weapon had never been found. He gave the gun to investigators. Then, he says, it disappeared. Prosecutors have said that Flowers was the only serious suspect from the beginning of the case. But a yearlong investigation by APM Reports has found compelling evidence that points away from Flowers. APM Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who said he was a suspect early in the investigation. And the gun that Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important because of where it was found — in the opposite direction from where the prosecution claims Flowers fled from Tardy Furniture. If the gun is the murder weapon, it indicates that perhaps someone else committed the crime. The revelations are among a number of discoveries by APM Reports journalists investigating the 22-year-old case. Previous stories have reported that there’s no direct evidence against Flowers, including no reliable evidence placing him near the scene or linking him to the murder weapon. Moreover, all three jailhouse informants who testified against Flowers have recanted, one directly to a reporter. A gun found on an alternate escape route:  The question of what happened to the .380 lingers. Armstrong says he turned the gun over to the Winona Police Department. Police Chief Tommy Bibbs and Dan Herod, the department’s chief investigator, told APM Reports that Armstrong had turned in a gun. They said the pistol was sent to the district attorney’s office for testing by the Mississippi crime lab. The state crime lab told APM Reports that it has no record of receiving the gun. It’s not clear if the gun was tested or whether it’s the murder weapon.

“They'll never know the whole truth,” said Armstrong, who’s long believed that Flowers is innocent. “This thing has been a mess since the day it happened.” District Attorney Doug Evans has refused to answer specific questions from APM Reports about evidence in the Flowers case. In 2016, Flowers’ defense team asked a state judge to order prosecutors to produce the gun for testing. At the hearing, Evans and a lawyer with the Mississippi Attorney General’s office assisting on the case denied that prosecutors had the gun. The judge ruled against the defense. The gun’s present whereabouts are unknown. If the gun was the murder weapon, it could have undermined the case against Flowers. The gun, said Armstrong, was found just 700 feet east of Tardy Furniture. That’s the opposite direction that prosecutors say Flowers fled. One key prosecution witness said she saw Flowers running west from the store not long after the murders, though other witnesses later questioned the veracity of her claims. East of Tardy Furniture — a direction an assailant could have traversed within minutes of committing the crime — there’s a direct path from the store to where the gun was found. Moreover, the path includes a drainage tunnel under railroad tracks leading to a drainage ditch, all of which could have allowed the shooter to escape largely unseen. Men with criminal histories lived just a few blocks from where the gun was found. That includes Hemphill, who lived in the neighborhood on and off during the 1990s. Hemphill questioned for hours, jailed: As the Clarion Ledger previously reported, the APM Reports investigation found evidence that investigators considered Hemphill a suspect in the days after the Tardy Furniture murders. The investigative file compiled in Flowers' case contained only one mention of Hemphill —- the document he signed waiving his Miranda rights before questioning. Flowers' attorneys asked investigators about Hemphill briefly during the sixth trial in June 2010. Investigators said they quickly eliminated him as a suspect. “I think they talked to him for five minutes, I don’t think they learned anything,” John Johnson, an investigator for the DA’s office, testified. It wasn’t clear exactly why investigators ruled Hemphill out. It took APM Reports months to track down Hemphill, but when reporters found him — at a courthouse in Indianapolis — he said he was questioned for two or three hours about the murders and that his statements were tape recorded. No documents or transcripts about Hemphill’s questioning were turned over to the defense. Legal experts say that prosecutors are usually required to turn over to the defense information about alternative suspects. Told by reporters that investigators said they only questioned him for five minutes, Hemphill said: “It was definitely more than five minutes that they talked to me. It took five minutes to read me my Miranda rights and have me sign papers and set up the recording, the tape recorder. That takes five minutes.” He said investigators were very interested in his shoes. He wore Grant Hill Fila sneakers in size 9 or 10 — the same kind of shoe that left the bloody shoe print at the murder scene. Hemphill told APM Reports that he was shopping at a mall in Memphis at the time of the murders. His alibi witness didn’t return calls. County records uncovered by APM Reports show that Hemphill was booked into jail after his questioning in 1996 and that he remained in jail for 11 days. After Hemphill’s release, the investigation remained focused on Flowers. Regardless of why investigators ruled out Hemphill, if he was a serious suspect and if the prosecution didn’t turn over that information to Flowers’ defense, it might endanger the conviction, legal experts say. In a motion filed in the weeks since the release of the “In the Dark” podcast, Flowers’ defense team cited the Hemphill revelations as a reason the court should move forward with the latest appeal. The lawyers termed it “stunning new evidence that has come to light.” While his appeals continue, Flowers remains on death row. He will soon have spent more than half his life in prison."

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/07/07/curtis-flowers-death-row-missing-gun-more-questions-evidence/764197002/

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;

STORY: "What happened to the gun? Lots of questions, little evidence in Curtis Flowers," by reporter Dave Mann, published by APM Reports on

The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the murder conviction of Curtis Flowers, a black man who has been tried six times for the same crimes, two months after the United States Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutor, who is white, unconstitutionally kept black people off the jury.

Mr. Flowers, 49, has been accused of murder in the 1996 killings of four people in a furniture store in Winona, Miss. All six prosecutions have either ended in mistrial or convictions that were reversed on appeal.

The case sparked a national conversation about race in the criminal justice system after a podcast investigated the decades-long effort by the prosecutor, Doug Evans, to convict Mr. Flowers.

Radley Balko: Pre-eminent Washington Post scribe asks his panelists, 'How do we improve forensics?' Conclusion of a six-part exploration of forensic science - warts and all. (Loaded with insights from highly qualified experts in the field - most of whom have graced the pages of this Blog. HL).

COMMENTARY: "How do we improve forensics," by Radley Balko, on his Blog 'The Watch' published by The Washington Post on August 26, 2019.

BACKGROUND:  "This is part 6 of a 6-part online symposium on the use of forensics in the criminal justice system. 

Part 1 of this series: We need to fix forensics. But how?

Part 2 of this series: How much should juries rely on expert testimony?

Part 3 of this series: How do we reconcile law and science?

Part 4 of this series: Is an adversarial justice system compatible with good science?

Part 5 of this series: How much interaction should we allow between forensics analysts and law enforcement?

You can read the full biographies of the panel members here."

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Question 6:

Suggest three reforms — low-, mid- and high-hanging fruit — that would improve the quality of expert testimony in criminal cases. The first should be a common-sense, slam-dunk reform — something that every jurisdiction should be doing that would improve the system, but at little cost and with few repercussions for those likely to resist change. The second should be a reform that isn’t quite as far-fetched but would require some convincing of policymakers and the public. For the third, assume you are dictator and could make any change you wish, regardless of cost, political feasibility or degree to which it would unsettle the current system.

Sandra Guerra Thompson, University of Houston Law Center, Houston Forensic Science Center

Easiest reforms:

Lab transparency: Forensic laboratories process evidence in order to produce information. As we move forward in an attempt to prevent scandals and wrongful convictions, policymakers should demand transparency by forensic labs. They should post critical documents on their websites, including accreditation certificates, standard operating procedures for each discipline, validation studies, corrective action reports, budget information, and statistics on testing requests, turnaround times, and backlogs. The public has a right to this information, and should not have to file public information requests to get it.

Mid-level reforms:

Independent labs: In my previous answers, I have argued in favor of lab independence from law enforcement. However, the most important reasons for independence have nothing to do with eliminating bias. In my experience with the Houston Forensic Science Center, I have learned that lab independence makes the organization more agile in terms of setting priorities, procurement and hiring. Independence enables the lab to be transparent without the need to get approval from law enforcement authorities. It also eliminates the appearance of pro-police bias.

Independence puts the lab on par with the other critical stakeholders in the criminal justice system so that it can be more responsive to law enforcement, victims and the defense bar. The model used for HFSC was to make the lab a “local government corporation,” and having a corporate board of directors for a government agency has proved to spur innovation and efficiency. A public corporate structure also positions board members to advocate externally on behalf of the lab in obtaining adequate funding, and in handling public relations.

Crime scene units are called into action when serious crimes occur, such as murders and officer-involved shootings. They collect evidence for testing in crime labs and document crime scenes. It is imperative that they follow scientific protocols in handling evidence, and I have come to appreciate the importance of having civilians (not law enforcement) working in these positions. In Houston, we no longer employ police officers to collect evidence in major cases. This work is now done by an accredited crime scene unit that is a division of the laboratory. It is especially important for restoring the public’s trust in the integrity of investigations of officer-involved shootings that the individuals gathering the evidence have scientific training and are not law enforcement personnel.

If I were dictator:

Limitations on testimony. Courts should stop admitting fingerprint and firearm testimony as “scientific” evidence. The Supreme Court declined to make a distinction between “scientific” and subjective expertise, requiring that all types of expertise meet the same reliability test, but the court acknowledged that some of the test’s factors were less relevant to some types of expertise than others. Until we develop the statistical foundations for these disciplines and other comparative (pattern-matching) disciplines, we should make it clear to jurors that the conclusions drawn by these experts, while helpful and worthy of some consideration, are not scientific results backed by objective measurements and standards.

--------------------------------------------------

Jules Epstein, Temple University Beasley School of Law, National Commission on Forensic Science

Easiest reform:

Funded forensic teams for statewide indigent defense.

Mid-level reform:

We need the National Institute of Standards and Technology — or some other fully funded forensic discipline institute separate from prosecuting agencies — to set standards for forensic testimony.

If I were dictator:

No forensic evidence in courtrooms (and maybe in prosecution decision-making) without it being fully vetted by an independent entity; and no judicial or attorney involvement in such cases without mandatory education.

Barbara A. Spellman, University of Virginia School of Law

Easiest reforms:

— Implement case management systems that keep forensic examiners away from information that may bias their analyses.

— Forensic reports should be more complete, including information on how the type of evidence can best be questioned.

Mid-level reforms:

— Get the forensics lab out from under the control of the police/prosecutor’s office. And move it physically away.

— Give defense lawyers access to the reports. In fact, tell them when reports have been generated. Suspects should know what evidence there is against them well before trial, e.g., in bail and plea bargaining stages.

If I were dictator:

To every case for which there is forensic evidence, assign three professional forensic experts. They would examine the evidence together but, by lottery, one would be the consultant to the plaintiff, one to the defendant, and one would be the witness at trial. The consultants would give information about content and strategy for questioning the expert witness. The parties could of course hire their own experts to give them such advice as well, but only the court-assigned expert would testify.

------------------------------------------------------

Simon A. Cole, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, Irvine; National Registry of Exonerations

Easiest reforms:

Certification of all examiners and accreditation of all laboratories. The National Commission on Forensic Science already passed these requirements for [Department of Justice] labs. The disciplinary organizations (e.g., IAI, AAFS, etc.) could take public positions that you should not be practicing X discipline with certification from X. Such statements can be used by defense attorneys and/or judges to eradicate uncertified experts and unaccredited providers from the courtroom. At least then we would have a common set of experts/providers, which are all in some sense responsible to and controlled by some body.

Medium-level reforms:

Adoption of an anti-bias protocol akin to what the FBI fingerprint unit calls “linear ACE-V” across all providers and all disciplines (for which it is feasible). Essentially, this mandates: (1) interpretation of unknown samples before exposure to known samples; and (2) documentation of what features were seen in those unknown samples at the time of that “blind” or “masked” analysis.

If I were dictator:

Get forensic science service providers out of law enforcement agencies! People don’t talk about this much anymore, probably because they perceive it as too hard, but you can argue it is at the root of all of the above problems. If forensic science were invented today, we probably would not choose to locate it in law enforcement agencies.

-----------------------------------------------------

Judy Melinek, forensic pathologist, author of “Working Stiff”

Easiest reforms:

Require that all prosecutors get training and experience in criminal defense work, and that all criminal defense attorneys work for a time as prosecutors. This is the basis of the Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) system in the military. I have noticed, as an expert working in military tribunals, that there is more collegiality and respect between the prosecutors and defense. They don’t have the “win at all costs” mentality I see in civilian trials. They work collaboratively to collect and share the evidence they need to present at trial, and then make their opposing arguments. There also appears to be a lot less prosecutorial misconduct due to inadequate disclosure of evidence. I believe this is largely due to the mandatory lawyer cross-training in the JAG system. Walk a mile in your opponent’s shoes, and an adversarial legal system becomes far less antagonistic and — perhaps — measurably more just.

Mid-level reforms:

Require a minimum per capita expenditure on all death investigation systems nationwide. Right now we have a national crisis in forensic pathology staffing. A hospital pathologist can finish residency and earn, on average, $50,000 to $100,000 a year more for the rest of their career than one who does additional subspecialty training in forensic pathology and goes into that field. It’s hard to attract the country’s best and brightest doctors into my profession if it means they can’t pay back their medical school loans, or that they end up working for an underfunded and understaffed government office where they are doomed to burn out after a few years.

If I were dictator:

Require that all forensic laboratories and death investigation agencies be independent of law enforcement agencies, including the nationwide elimination of the coroner system. Forensic labs will be run by scientists and will be accountable to the public. The public needs to trust that scientists are not being incentivized to aid in convictions, and to trust that they are not “prosecution witnesses” operating as a branch of law enforcement.

--------------------------------------------------

Roger Koppl, Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute, Syracuse University

Easiest reforms:

— Don’t let crime labs work on commission! In at least 24 states (as of 2013) public crime lab budgets come at least in part from “court-assessed fees,” which are assessed upon conviction. Thus, if your lab’s work leads to a conviction, the lab gets money. If your lab’s work leads to exoneration, you get no money. This monetary incentive creates an unfortunate bias toward conviction, which can create false convictions. This bad incentive can be eliminated in any state that has it by passing a simple law forbidding courts from collecting such fees and forbidding the state from returning any such fees to the crime lab involved in the case.

— Masking! Forensic scientists should not know whom the police suspect, or even what crime has been committed. If I know that I’m working on the theft of a desk lamp, I won’t be motivated to find a match when there is no match. But if I know that I am working on a heinous double murder, pressure to solve the crime might induce me to see a match when there is no match at all. Certain information should be “masked” from the forensic examiner. And the examiner should thoroughly examine and report on the crime scene evidence before comparing it to the suspect’s sample. Proposals for “sequential unmasking” go back many years. And some labs have adopted sequential unmasking protocols. This is something we can do relatively easily and relatively quickly. Implementing sequential unmasking would reduce unconscious bias.

Mid-level reforms:

— Redundancy! We should sometimes send evidence to three separate labs instead of just one lab. If they send back different answers, we had better find out why. This is a form of checks and balances. The pilot in a jetliner has a co-pilot. Your car has both air bags and safety belts. Roads often have guard rails. And so on. We have redundant safety systems everywhere, but not in forensic science.

— Blind proficiency exams. If we don’t have a good measure of lab error rates, we cannot expect labs to improve their performance over time. Nor can we know how much confidence to put in the lab’s evaluations of the evidence it gets. Blind proficiency tests would give us the information we need to improve operations over time and to evaluate the level of performance at a given time.

If I were dictator:

A real and substantive defense right to expertise. I view this as the lynchpin reform. In any case, one side or the other will have an incentive to reveal any known infirmities in the forensic evidence coming to court. Thus, crime labs will be under constant pressure to improve and to be open and honest about their procedures and error rates. In today’s system, in which the labs tend to be aligned only with the prosecution, there is no such pressure to improve.

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Chris Fabricant, the Innocence Project

Easiest reform:

Eliminate bite mark evidence.

Mid-level reform:

State forensic science commissions, staffed by career scientists, that produce rigorous basic and applied research, and, based on that research, issue mandatory guidelines for the introduction of and the testimonial limitations of all forensic evidence.

If I were dictator:

The same, only at the national level.

Itiel Dror, University College London, Cognitive Consultants International

In addition to the solutions I have already suggested in my answers to previous questions . . .

Easiest reform:

Experts need to make their decisions based only on the relevant data, and should not be exposed to irrelevant contextual information.

Medium-level reforms:

— All forensic decisions should be verified (not only identifications), and the verifications need to be totally blind (not knowing who did the first analysis, what they concluded, how, etc.).

— Every state needs to establish a forensic oversight board or a forensic commission (such as those in Massachusetts, Texas and New York). These boards should include representatives from all stakeholders, including experts on bias, and make sure best practices are developed and implemented throughout the state.

If I were dictator:

Move the science out from under the police (they have enough to deal with without doing the science). Instead, establish separate scientific institutions (not private for-profit labs) to take over forensic work. That is, governments should establish independent scientific “forensic science institutions” [that] will work with law enforcement, [district attorneys] and defense lawyers.

Michael Risinger, Seton Hall University School of Law, the Last Resort Exoneration Project

There was never any low-hanging fruit. Perhaps the most low-hanging fruit should have been to eliminate testimony by subjective pattern matching disciplines that “the source of the markings on this bullet (or this crime scene fingerprint, or these tooth marks on the victim’s skin, or whatever) came from defendant’s gun (or fingers, or teeth) to the exclusion of all other guns (or fingers, or teeth) in the world.” There could be no more unjustified overstatement than this. Still, it took a couple of decades to kill it off, and what has been substituted is often not that much better.

Where I do hope to see progress (unfortunately likely to evolve at a glacial pace) is in better judicial understanding of these issues, more deployment of effective protocols to control context bias, and better laboratory management practices that will allow us to learn from and correct mistakes rather than incentivize people to cover them up.

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Brandon L. Garrett, Duke University School of Law

Proficiency tests! That would be my main reform. It is extremely important that crime labs error-test themselves using blind proficiency tests as a method of quality control. Right now, only the Houston Forensic Science Center is doing that at scale. Every lab should. The Houston lab is showing that it can be done affordably, even on a large scale.

In most cases, labs generate forensics reports, but the case ends with a plea bargain. That makes it especially important that evidence is analyzed reliably and that the conclusions produced in lab reports be clear and accurate.

Show us the limits of an analysis. Show us the error rates. Jurors will not throw out the evidence, and experts will not be “ruined.” Even for techniques that have not been rigorously error-tested, jurors should know how good a particular expert is at his or her job. And they can only know that if the expert has been subjected to routine, blind proficiency tests.

Keith A. Findley, Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, University of Wisconsin Law School

Easiest reforms:

If forensic science wants to claim the mantle of “science,” it must follow fundamental scientific principles, like double-blind testing. Systems should be created to at least shield analysts from domain-irrelevant but contextually biasing information. This can be complicated at times, but it can be done without disclosing the vast array of information that analysts routinely receive today. Proper case management and intake systems can ensure that analysts receive only the information they need, and only when they need it.

Mid-level reforms:

Remove all crime laboratories from the administrative control of law enforcement. This was another important recommendation of the 2009 NAS Report. Science, if it is real science, should be neutral and objective. It should not favor or uniquely serve one side or the other. Only by fully removing all laboratories from the administrative control of law enforcement can the laboratories begin to develop a real ethic of scientific neutrality and objectivity, and can the analysts have a realistic hope of avoiding the pressures and biases when one is perceived as part of the law enforcement team. In many jurisdictions, this suggestion is a nonstarter, as police and prosecutors typically jealously protect “their” laboratories as the source for “their” evidence. But there are examples to show it can work, most notably the Houston Crime Laboratory, which was rebuilt as an independent entity after the old Houston police laboratory imploded.

If I were dictator:

Follow the central recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences in its 2009 report and create a truly independent new federal agency (the “National Institute of Forensic Science”) tasked with establishing and enforcing best practices; establish standards for mandatory accreditation of laboratories and certification of forensic scientists; promote scholarly, competitive, peer-reviewed research; develop a strategy to improve forensic science research and educational programs; fund independent research projects and educational projects; oversee education standards and accreditation of forensic science programs in colleges and universities; assess the development and introduction of new technologies; and the like.

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John Lentini, arson/fire expert

This is a fun question.

Easiest reforms:

For the low-hanging fruit, allowing depositions in all criminal cases could be accomplished very easily.

Mid-level reforms:

Judges should be required to consult independent experts when there are competing interpretations of forensic evidence.

If I were dictator:

The law should hold experts liable for opinions that lead to wrongful convictions. This would deter experts from offering unsupported opinions. While they’re at it, the court could reverse the Connick v. Thompson decision and hold prosecutors liable for intentional Brady violations [a Brady violation is when a prosecutor illegally withholds exculpatory information from defense attorneys].

Frederic Whitehurst, FBI crime lab whistleblower, Forensic Justice Project

Easiest reform:

No forensic lab analyst will testify without having fully displayed his academic transcripts, all training materials, and being able to point specifically to something in those transcripts and training that supports his opinion. At this time in this country, privacy trumps due process. Anyone can fail courses in college, sleep through training classes, and still testify without triers of fact having any idea if that analyst has any aptitude at all in his field. Any other field in which one seeks employment will require a full disclosure of academic records, experience and training. That is not true in U.S. courts.

Mid-level reform:

Every crime lab should make its protocols, validation studies and quality assurance documentation easily accessible on the Internet. If a lab refuses, courts should refuse to accept expert witnesses from that lab.

If I were dictator:

Analysts found to have committed malfeasance should be held accountable even into retirement. That retirement check given each month to a serial liar who once worked at a crime lab should be given [instead] to making that liar’s victims whole again. Accountability will help counter the constant pressures put on lab analysts by police and prosecutors.

The entire segment  can be read at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/26/how-do-we-improve-forensics/

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;