Billy Joe Wardlow: Texas: His pending execution (April 29, 2020) is based on bogus "future dangerousness" junk science testimony: Some big lessons from 'Grits for breakfast': (1) Not all expert witnesses spouting junk science in the courtroom wear lab coats: (The ones testifying for prosecutors at death penalty 'future dangerousness' hearings don't wear them); (2): Overstated evidence in Texas kills; (3) Junk science on future dangerousness hearings is not restricted to "a couple of over-zealous testifiers." Another example of astute criminal justice analysis by 'Grits for Breakfast' - a very high power Blog...PS: There are many other compelling reasons why Billy Joe Wardlow should not be executed on April 29th or any other day in addition to the fact that the death penalty does not belong in any civilized society. Check out Lincoln Caplan's article in The American Scholar at the link below.

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "This blog has complained about "junk science" many times over the years. But not all expert witnesses testifying to "junk" wear lab coats. Many of the complaints by the National Academies of Sciences about forensics amounted to critiques of overstated testimony - e.g., declaring they could "match" evidence to a degree of scientific certainty. In reality, these experts were offering subjective opinions - ones based on observation and experience, to be sure, but also infused with a prosecution-centric agenda. The example of "experts" predicting future dangerousness in Texas death-penalty cases demonstrate that overstated testimony isn't just a problem with the bite-mark or hair-and-fiber folks. And it certainly goes deeper than just a couple of over-zealous testifiers like Smithey and Merillat."


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POST: Execution scheduled based on bogus future dangerousness,"published by Grits for Breakfast on January 18, 2020.



GIST: "Much attention has been drawn to the example of A.P. Merillat, the Montgomery County DA investigator and TDCAA favorite son (Texas District and County Crown Attornies Association) who repeatedly overstated the dangers to inmates and staff at TDCJ (Texas Department of Criminal Justice) in the sentencing phase of death penalty trials. But over the years, many different "experts" have played that role, and he's not the only one overstating the "future dangerousness" of capital defendants while understating TDCJ's ability to manage them. At The American Scholar, Lincoln Caplan described the sentencing-phase testimony against Billy Joe Wardlow, who is scheduled for execution for capital murder on April 29th. He received his death sentence in 1993 for killing an 82-year old man during a robbery when he was 18-years old. Here's what the jury was told about whether Wardlow would constitute a future danger to others in prison: The most chilling testimony for the state came from Royce Smithey, an investigator for a group that prosecutes felony crimes committed in Texas prisons. If the jury sentenced Wardlow to death, the investigator said, he would be “segregated” and “severely restricted” until he was executed. He would have limited access to prison employees whom he might harm. Solitary confinement on death row would punish Wardlow and protect prison employees from the continuing danger he represented, Smithey testified. But if the jury gave him a life sentence, he asserted, Wardlow would be released into the general prison population with other felony offenders. Recently, Frank G. Aubuchon, who was a correctional officer and an administrator with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) for more than 26 years, reviewed Smithey’s testimony at the request of Wardlow’s current lawyers. Aubuchon wrote, “Mr. Smithey’s multiple falsehoods served to mislead the jury into believing that TDCJ would be completely unprepared to imprison Mr. Wardlow in a secure environment unless he received a death sentence. Based on my decades of experience as a TDCJ corrections officer, administrator, and prison classifications expert, I can say that this is categorically false.” But Smithey’s testimony was uncontested at the trial and made a life sentence for Wardlow sound like a serious threat to others. It would give him the chance to harm other people, perhaps even to kill again. The testimony made a life sentence sound like a reward for Wardlow, not an endless punishment. Not only were Smithey's dire warnings about TDCJ's ability to manage inmates overstated, predictions that Wardlow in particular would pose a danger turned out to be false, wrote Caplan: In the Wardlow case, the jury wrongly predicted his future: despite the horrendous crime he committed as a teenager, he has become in middle age a trusted, peacemaking, and in many ways exemplary inmate—generous to others on death row, attentive to fellow prisoners and to others he exchanges letters with, and as engaged in the world as an inmate on death row can be who has spent much of the past 25 years in solitary confinement in a tiny cell. This blog has complained about "junk science" many times over the years. But not all expert witnesses testifying to "junk" wear lab coats. Many of the complaints by the National Academies of Sciences about forensics amounted to critiques of overstated testimony - e.g., declaring they could "match" evidence to a degree of scientific certainty. In reality, these experts were offering subjective opinions - ones based on observation and experience, to be sure, but also infused with a prosecution-centric agenda. The example of "experts" predicting future dangerousness in Texas death-penalty cases demonstrate that overstated testimony isn't just a problem with the bite-mark or hair-and-fiber folks. And it certainly goes deeper than just a couple of over-zealous testifiers like Smithey and Merillat."

The entire post can be read at:
https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2020/01/execution-scheduled-based-on-bogus.html


Read  Lincoln Caplan's article at the link below:The Sub-Heading: "Billy Joe Wardlow murdered a man, but mitigating facts say he should not pay for that crime with his life: " When he was 18, in 1993, Billy Joe Wardlow shot and killed an 82-year-old man named Carl Cole during a robbery in Cason, Texas, a rundown town of fewer than 200 people in the state’s rural northeast corner. Two years later, he was convicted of capital murder, making him eligible for the death penalty. The jurors who convicted him, in deciding whether to sentence him to death or to life without parole, had to determine first whether he “would constitute a continuing threat to society,” including inside the prison. When the answer to that question was yes, they had to decide whether, “taking into consideration all of the evidence, including the circumstances of the offense, the Defendant’s character and background, and the personal moral culpability of the Defendant,” there was still enough mitigating evidence to warrant a life sentence without parole. The jury said no, and sentenced him to death."

https://theamericanscholar.org/this-man-should-not-be-executed/#.XiRq_Rd7k1I
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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;


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FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."


Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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