PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I have been following this case - long-delayed because of a certain virus - largely because of issues relating to confessions expected to come up during the trial, and because of the extraordinary degree to which the case became politicized during the Trump years. As I wrote in a previous note: "The Cristhian Bahena Rivera case has become heavily politicized, as reporter Luke Nozicka reports in The Des Moines Register, in a story headed 'Mollie Tibbett's father says daughter would not want to be face of immigration debate, published on September 1, 2018, which can be read at the link below: "After his daughter’s body was found and a man authorities say is an undocumented immigrant was charged with murder, some politicians immediately used Mollie's killing as a rallying cry for tougher immigration laws.........."After he read a guest column in the Register from Donald Trump Jr., the eldest child of President Donald Trump, Rob Tibbetts said he had to respond. Trump Jr.'s column criticized Democrats' response to Mollie Tibbetts' killing and said the party seemed more concerned with "protecting their radical open-borders agenda than the lives of innocent Americans." In a response published in the Register, Rob Tibbetts said his family was grateful to the politicians who heard his appeal and stopped using his daughter's death to promote agendas. But others did not, instead choosing to "callously distort and corrupt Mollie's tragic death," he said. Quoting Trump Jr.'s column, Tibbetts said it's "heartless" and "despicable." President Trump and other politicians — including Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and both of Iowa’s Republican U.S. senators — have referenced the University of Iowa student's death to promote increased border security measures." Stay tuned:
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Christhian Bahena-Rivera: IOWA: Bulletin: Iowa: Jury selection to start Monday (May 17): No public. No media. Live TV coverage only. Stay tuned. HL.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Report.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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;
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "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;
