PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Miraldi’s industrious reporting and clean prose pull from public records and direct interviews with many of those involved to lay out the case and its repercussions; unlike the prosecution, he does not use coercive language or make baseless claims. The result is an indictment of the system in which two innocent people were victims of collective paranoia and potentially insidious motives for financial gain—Bronson had hired a lawyer, likely to sue Smith’s employer for financial damages. This account reminds the reader that, in an era of mass disinformation and fake news, it behooves us to examine every angle, consult every piece of evidence, and do our best to discredit agendas that service personal gain."
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BOOK REVIEW: " Kirkus review of soon to be published 'The Edge of Doubt: The trial of Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen."
GIST: "Accusations of child sexual abuse upend a small town and begin a 30-year search for the truth in Miraldi’s nonfiction account.
In Lorain, Ohio, in the early ’90s, Nancy Smith, a single mother and preschool bus driver, and Joseph Allen, a handyman with a criminal record, were investigated under the suspicion of sexually abusing children.
The story begins with Marge Bronson (a pseudonym), a single mother, alleging that her daughter, Nina (also a pseudonym), had been sexually abused by Smith and Allen.
The book recounts the initial investigation and trial (in which four children testified), largely told through the testimonies of the children and their parents.
Miraldi provides context that supports his view of how poorly the case was executed, from the ways witnesses were vetted to the interviewing of the kindergarten-age victims.
The author asserts, “Lorain police had broken almost all of the fundamental rules for questioning young children about potential sexual abuse,” to the point that there was “no way these interrogations could have produced reliable and valid information.”
It took nearly 30 years to fully unveil the flaws in the investigation and clear Smith and Allen.
Miraldi’s industrious reporting and clean prose pull from public records and direct interviews with many of those involved to lay out the case and its repercussions; unlike the prosecution, he does not use coercive language or make baseless claims.
The result is an indictment of the system in which two innocent people were victims of collective paranoia and potentially insidious motives for financial gain—Bronson had hired a lawyer, likely to sue Smith’s employer for financial damages.
This account reminds the reader that, in an era of mass disinformation and fake news, it behooves us to examine every angle, consult every piece of evidence, and do our best to discredit agendas that service personal gain.
A disturbing examination of judicial negligence and bias."
The entire review can be read at:
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Read the National Registry of Exonerations entry at the link below.
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=6176
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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: "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;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
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