NOTA BENE: Check out my latest post on the weekly 'Selfless Warriors Blog,' published earlier today: Selfless Warrior Leomia Banks//Brian Banks. California: A tale of two mothers; "Actress Sherri Shepherd explains why she wanted to play the role of Leomia Banks, Brian Bank's mother, in the movie, "Brian Banks,"... I read it (the script) and immediately, Leomia just jumped out of the page because Leomia when you meet her, she says, I didn’t do anything special, I just loved my son. That’s what she says all the time. In the love that you had for your son was the bedrock of him being sane and him being able to keep moving forward when he was incarcerated and the things that she did to show her love for her son. She sold her car, mortgaged her home, she went to see him three and a half hours there and back, she wrote him a letter every day, she was available for every phone call, she basically stopped her life for her son and that fight and her faith just…(trailed off): I called my agent and said I gotta get this script, please give me an audition, I know they don’t want to see me because I make you laugh but please, please let me get in there and audition for this role."
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Selfless Warrior Blog:
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Back to the Charles Smith Blog:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Another noteworthy Australian case (which may unfold this year) in which science will play a crucial role.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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SUMMARY OF POST: "Robert Farquharson is out of options – almost. Convicted of killing his three young boys by drowning them in a dam, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with no minimum term. He has always maintained his innocence. He claims he had a coughing fit and blacked out, losing control of the car, which veered into the dam. He couldn’t save the kids. One of the saddest stories you’ll ever read is Road to Damnation, a book by scientist Chris Brook who examines this tragedy in scientific terms and concludes that the evidence does not support the conviction. His former lawyer, Luke McMahon, is planning to mount another appeal next year under new state laws, based on material revealed in Road to Damnation."
POST: "Then there is Robert Farquharson, whose 2012 appeal failed – but 2021 may bring him an unexpected gift, thanks to an important new book, Road to Damnation, in which Chris Brook takes the reader on a gripping journey to the darkest reaches of human experience – the drowning of three children – when it intersects with the law. Brook places the case of Robert Farquharson – their father – at the interface between law, science, society and psychology. (See our coverage of Road to Damnation) Farquharson claims he blacked out after a coughing fit and lost control of the car, which veered off the road into a dam and sank. He escaped but could not save his sons. The prosecution claimed he drowned his sons deliberately, by driving into the dam. In 2007, Farquharson was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment with no minimum term. However, he maintained his innocence and appealed his sentence. On 17 December 2009, he won the right to a retrial, due in part to the key witness for the prosecution, Greg King, facing potential criminal charges himself at the time of the original trial. Robert was released on bail on 21 December, but was again convicted of murder on 22 July 2010. But, says Brook, there was just not enough evidence at the scene to conclude that someone had been steering the car. Based on material in the book, Robert’s former lawyer, Luke McMahon, is planning to mount another appeal next year under new state laws."
The entire post can be read at:
https://wrongfulconvictionsreport.org/2020/12/17/new-year-hopes-for-old-injustices/#more-2604
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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FINAL, FINAL WORD (FOR NOW!): "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they’ve exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
