Monday, December 11, 2023

Criminalizing Reproduction: (Kate Cox: Texas): Attacks on science, medicine and the right to choose: Kate Cox; Harris County; Texas: Prof. Mary Ziegler says in a CNN commentary that this Texas woman who, along with her husband, has asked a judge for an emergency order granting her permission to end a pregnancy, is exposing "a chilling truth about abortion law."… "Cox is part of a new generation of plaintiffs telling heartbreaking stories about their experiences under criminal laws in places such as Texas, Idaho, Tennessee and Oklahoma — plaintiffs willing to speak out in a climate where support for abortion is at a record high, according to a WSJ-NORC poll, and some of the stigma surrounding abortion seems less intense. But given the popularity of abortion rights — and the obvious tragedy faced by women like Cox — why are states like Texas fighting so hard to defend their narrow exceptions? The answer is that Cox’s case and others like it expose how unworkable abortion exceptions are under current law in states with virtual bans, especially when they are attached to harsh penalties like life in prison. Conceding that a woman like Cox is right could threaten to send much else about criminal abortion laws toppling down."




PUBLISHER'S NOTE:  "In recent years, I have taken on the  theme of criminalizing reproduction - a natural theme for a Blog concerned with  flawed science in its myriad forms  - as I am utterly opposed to the current movement in the United States (and some other countries) emboldened by the overturning of Roe Versus Wade,  towards imprisoning women and their physicians and others who help them secure a safe abortion,  on the basis of sham science (or any other basis). I can’t remember the source, but agree  totally with the sentiment that control over their reproductive lives is far too important to women in America - or anywhere else -  so they can  participate  equally in the economic and social life of their nations without fear for  loss their freedom at the hands of political opportunists and fanatics. (Far too many of those those around these days.) 


Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

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The nine Republicans on the Texas Supreme Court just told Kate Cox she'll  have to wait to get the life saving abortion she needs until they  decide what she and her doctors can do with her body. They are torturing this woman.

Beto O'Rourke: X.

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Republican lawmakers often seem to want it both ways on abortion. They define themselves as pro-life but insist on compassion for women, especially in the so-called hard cases like Cox’s. But what is happening in Texas complicates that narrative. Texas purports to value fetal life and women’s health — but then denies that the unborn have rights when that strategy will help defeat a lawsuit brought by a prison employee forced to stay at her post who lost her pregnancy.  Texas claims compassion for women but requires that their lives or a major bodily function be at imminent risk before a doctor can step in.  And Texas claims to protect life by forcing a woman like Cox to carry a child who almost certainly won’t live while threatening her ability to have a child who will. All of this is a reminder of the priorities of state abortion laws, which are not about the value of life in the womb, but about criminal punishment — and about crafting exceptions that will rarely, if ever, be used.  Cox’s suit matters because it is historic, but also because of what it tells us. When the chips are down, given a choice between protecting women like Cox and criminalizing those who offer abortions, we know what states like Texas will choose every time."

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COMMENTARY: "This Texas woman is exposing a chilling truth about abortion law," by Mary Ziegler, published by  CNN, on December 9, 2023. (Mary Ziegler (@maryrziegler) is the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis. She is the author of “Dollars for Life: The Antiabortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment” and “Roe: The History of a National Obsession.” The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion on CNN.)


GIST: In a court in Harris County, Texas, something remarkable happened this week: A woman and her husband asked a judge for an emergency order granting her permission to end a pregnancy.


Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two, had learned that the child she was carrying had full trisomy 18, a rare genetic condition that is almost always fatal. 


Her physicians have warned that continuing the pregnancy could put her at risk for life-threatening complications. Cox, who wants to have a third child, might also lose her ability to do so if forced to carry the pregnancy to term.


The judge granted Cox’s request on Thursday, but the state will almost certainly appeal to what is a Texas Supreme Court with nine Republican members. Late Friday, the Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocked the lower court’s ruling. But regardless of what happens next, Cox’s suit will shape the abortion debate going forward — not least because it is historic.


Cox is part of a new generation of plaintiffs telling heartbreaking stories about their experiences under criminal laws in places such as TexasIdaho, Tennessee and Oklahoma — plaintiffs willing to speak out in a climate where support for abortion is at a record high, according to a WSJ-NORC poll, and some of the stigma surrounding abortion seems less intense. 


But given the popularity of abortion rights  — and the obvious tragedy faced by women like Cox — why are states like Texas fighting so hard to defend their narrow exceptions?


The answer is that Cox’s case and others like it expose how unworkable abortion exceptions are under current law in states with virtual bans, especially when they are attached to harsh penalties like life in prison. Conceding that a woman like Cox is right could threaten to send much else about criminal abortion laws toppling down.


It is worth remarking on how rare Cox’s suit is. Before Roe v. Wade, patients and doctors both questioned the constitutionality of abortion laws. In some cases, pregnant patients were named plaintiffs: This was the case for Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” in Roe v. Wade, and Sandra Cano, the plaintiff in Roe’s companion case, Doe v. Bolton. 


These suits adjudicated whether a law was permissible, but often did not change what happened to a particular pregnant plaintiff (McCorvey, for example, famously carried what some called the “Roe baby” to term). 


After Roe, minors acting without parental consent or notification sought court-ordered abortion under what were called “judicial bypass” laws, often also while maintaining anonymity.


Cox’s case is quite different. 


She is an adult, not a minor, and she has not concealed her identity. 


Her willingness to tell her story is no doubt due to her own strength and commitment, but our present political moment likely has something to do with it too.


  Poll after poll find strong, if not unprecedented, support for legal abortion, even in states where abortion bans are already in effect. Backlash to these bans — and to the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — has made it easier for other women to describe their own experiences with criminal laws and to file suits of their own.


McCorvey and Cano used pseudonyms at a time when pursuing abortion rights might have come at great personal and political cost.


 Women like Cox and Amanda Zurawski, who is challenging the validity of Texas’s medical emergency exception to abortion, use their own names, and do so with the knowledge that most Americans support legal abortion — and all the more so in cases like theirs.


When states fight plaintiffs like Cox and Zurawski in court, it hardly helps Republicans already on the defensive about abortion. 


It is comparably easy to paint bans as heartless and extreme when the state shows no sympathy for women who stand to lose their fertility, health or lives.


Suits like Cox’s expose how hard it would be to devise a workable abortion exception. 


In theory, a functioning exception would advance the state’s interest in fetal life while offering a real opportunity for people in exceptional cases that the state deems deserving.


But if a state requires harsh punishment — Texas, for example, authorizes life in prison for abortion — few doctors will be willing to gamble that they are interpreting the law correctly, even if an exception is relatively clear.


Most exceptions, it turns out, aren’t clear anyway, written not by physicians but by lawmakers who use the language of criminal law, and sometimes write more than one exception into various criminal abortion laws, as in Oklahoma


The broader and more compassionate a state makes an exception, the higher the odds that more plaintiffs like Cox will prevail, but that will require deference to patients and physicians that anti-abortion states focused on punishing abortion providers reject as a matter of principle.


Exceptions almost always leave out other tragic circumstances. 


Texas has a medical emergency exception, but dismisses a fatal fetal abnormality that could deprive Cox of the ability to have a third child as nothing different than what is experienced by “countless women who give birth every day.” 


The risk of death, the state says, is simply “not imminent” enough


Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky, just made anger about a similar provision in his state’s law a central message of his successful reelection campaign.


Republican lawmakers often seem to want it both ways on abortion. 


They define themselves as pro-life but insist on compassion for women, especially in the so-called hard cases like Cox’s.


But what is happening in Texas complicates that narrative. 


Texas purports to value fetal life and women’s health — but then denies that the unborn have rights when that strategy will help defeat a lawsuit brought by a prison employee forced to stay at her post who lost her pregnancy


Texas claims compassion for women but requires that their lives or a major bodily function be at imminent risk before a doctor can step in. 


And Texas claims to protect life by forcing a woman like Cox to carry a child who almost certainly won’t live while threatening her ability to have a child who will.


All of this is a reminder of the priorities of state abortion laws, which are not about the value of life in the womb, but about criminal punishment — and about crafting exceptions that will rarely, if ever, be used.


 Cox’s suit matters because it is historic, but also because of what it tells us. When the chips are down, given a choice between protecting women like Cox and criminalizing those who offer abortions, we know what states like Texas will choose every time."


The entire story can be read at:



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/120008354894645705/47049136857587929

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;


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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.


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-123488014

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Derek Bromley: Australia: Bulletin: 'A Break in the Silence': The High Court of Australia's decision on his application for special leave to appeal has been listed for judgment in Canberra on Wednesday, December 13, 2023, after what his devoted supporter and co-founder of the web-site 'Bringing Justice' Robyn Milera calls, an "excruciating wait," noting that, "The legal heights were scaled when the Full Court heard the Bromley application for special leave to appeal, seven long months ago."


PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "There is deep pain, loss and grief arising from this sickening and unnecessarily prolonged miscarriage of justice. Derek will articulate his feelings in his own time, and I will resist attempting to translate them ahead of his time. Fortunately, he has had other things to occupy his body and mind; taking every opportunity to prepare himself for release. He's calm. He will be uncontactable and working at his job next Wednesday, so how and when he will become aware of the decision is anyone's guess at the moment as I am not permitted to contact him from outside."


POST: "Update #17, 10 December 2023," published by 'Bringing Justice' on December 10, 2023.


GIST: "We didn't expect it would take this long, however, anything with the Bromley factor seems to be obliged to take a long time. And, as that precious time ticked away, our intellects got busy explaining the long pregnant pause, but ultimately it requires surrender and acceptance - not to be mistaken for despair. There is deep pain, loss and grief arising from this sickening and unnecessarily prolonged miscarriage of justice. Derek will articulate his feelings in his own time, and I will resist attempting to translate them ahead of his time. 

Fortunately, he has had other things to occupy his body and mind; taking every opportunity to prepare himself for release. He's calm. He will be uncontactable and working at his job next Wednesday, so how and when he will become aware of the decision is anyone's guess at the moment as I am not permitted to contact him from outside. 


Thank you


Thank you to all those who've already responded to my messages and social media posts (timid as they are in this season), and asked me to pass on comments and well-wishes to him. One day he'll explain, in his own words, how appreciated and significant, even the briefest expressions of support, have meant to him. 

Folks have been so very thoughtful, inquiring how I'm feeling too. It is tricky to describe, but in reply to one close friend, I think I almost nailed it: 

"The emotion is pleasantly, disruptively non-descript - not quite dazed. (I'm much more familiar with subdued expectations). I'm not sure that there is a single word for it but 'faith is the substance of things hoped for, the essence/evidence of things as yet unseen'. Faith is the experience, and, I'm a little nervous at the same time."

I know it to be Derek's sentiment, that God has had his hand on this since the beginning, and I agree. 


The official summary of the judgment will be posted on the High Court website by Wednesday evening and the full judgment shortly after."


The entire post can be read at:


https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGwHzCfzwXDkJNxCpbcVzRLxGbb

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/120008354894645705/47049136857587929

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;


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


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.


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801

Criminalizing Reproduction: Attacks on science, medicine and the right to choose: Marshall Project Staff Writer Cary Aspinwall disturbing description of 'The End of Roe in Real Time…"In the Supreme Court’s landmark abortion decision in 2022, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that it was “time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” That’s now playing out in radically different ways, depending on where you live. It’s challenging to track criminal prosecutions for anything related to pregnancy or reproductive health access nationally because these laws are often changing at a very local level in county courts and city ordinances. Our reporting — along with our partners at AL.com, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, Mississippi Today and The Frontier in Oklahoma — has explored the shifting reproductive rights landscape. That includes examining how the concept of fetal personhood has put women behind bars, even when they give birth to healthy babies. Fetal personhood is the idea that a fetus should receive the same legal treatment as a child. Some states are prosecuting women for drug test results under criminal child abuse and neglect laws, which historically have not applied to fetuses in most states. The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization upended a key point of the legal landscape set in Roe v. Wade decades earlier. The Roe decision had treated the fetus and mother as the same entity until the baby could live outside the womb. Dobbs allows state laws to treat the fetus’ and mother’s rights as separate, which some legal experts say could result in more widespread use of child endangerment and homicide laws to punish people for what happens during their pregnancies. Our reporting showed places where this was already happening."


PUBLISHER'S NOTE:  "In recent years, I have taken on the  theme of criminalizing reproduction - a natural theme for a Blog concerned with  flawed science in its myriad forms  - as I am utterly opposed to the current movement in the United States (and some other countries) emboldened by the overturning of Roe Versus Wade,  towards imprisoning women and their physicians and others who help them secure a safe abortion,  on the basis of sham science (or any other basis). I can’t remember the source, but agree  totally with the sentiment that control over their reproductive lives is far too important to women in America - or anywhere else -  so they can  participate  equally in the economic and social life of their nations without fear for  loss their freedom at the hands of political opportunists and fanatics. (Far too many of those those around these days.) 


Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.


——————————————————————

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Abortion rights advocates argue that travel bans — such as the ones some Texas cities have passed to stop people from seeking abortions in neighboring New Mexico — won’t survive constitutional scrutiny.  They say such laws are attempts to intimidate and scare women. But Alyssa Morrison, an attorney at the progressive advocacy organization Lawyers for Good Government, said that doesn’t mean pregnant people or anyone trying to help them obtain reproductive health care won’t be sued, subjected to a criminal investigation or locked up. “The idea of being investigated is utterly terrifying for most people,” she said.

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Morrison said there’s also massive confusion about the specific exceptions to various state abortion bans, especially among doctors who could face criminal prosecution for performing the procedure. “Because these laws are written in the most ambiguous terms, a lot of physicians are unsure if they will end up in jail for doing their job,” she said."

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POST: "The Marshall Project:  The end of Roe in real time," by Cary Aspinwall, published by The Marshall Project, one December 9, 2023. (Cary Aspinwall is a staff writer for The Marshall Project. Previously, she was an investigative reporter at The Dallas Morning News, where she reported on the impact of pre-trial incarceration and money bail on women and children in Texas and deaths in police custody involving excessive force and medical negligence. She won the Gerald Loeb Award for reporting on a Texas company's history of deadly natural gas explosions and is a past Pulitzer finalist for her work exposing flaws in Oklahoma's execution process. She is a co-founder of The Frontier, a nonprofit devoted to investigative journalism in Oklahoma.) 

GIST: "In the Supreme Court’s landmark abortion decision in 2022, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that it was “time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

That’s now playing out in radically different ways, depending on where you live.

It’s challenging to track criminal prosecutions for anything related to pregnancy or reproductive health access nationally because these laws are often changing at a very local level in county courts and city ordinances.

Our reporting — along with our partners at AL.com, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, Mississippi Today and The Frontier in Oklahoma — has explored the shifting reproductive rights landscape. That includes examining how the concept of fetal personhood has put women behind bars, even when they give birth to healthy babies.

Fetal personhood is the idea that a fetus should receive the same legal treatment as a child. Some states are prosecuting women for drug test results under criminal child abuse and neglect laws, which historically have not applied to fetuses in most states.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization upended a key point of the legal landscape set in Roe v. Wade decades earlier. 

The Roe decision had treated the fetus and mother as the same entity until the baby could live outside the womb. 

Dobbs allows state laws to treat the fetus’ and mother’s rights as separate, which some legal experts say could result in more widespread use of child endangerment and homicide laws to punish people for what happens during their pregnancies.

Our reporting showed places where this was already happening. 

South Carolina has a long history of similar prosecutions that pre-date the Dobbs decision. 

But Alabama has been using these prosecutions the most in recent years, especially in Etowah County, about an hour northwest of Birmingham. 

In Mississippi, it’s not clear if the women being prosecuted for testing positive for drugs while pregnant have actually broken state law. And Oklahoma continues to prosecute women for marijuana use while pregnant — even if they have a valid medical prescription.

The concept of fetal personhood can also come into play during pregnancy loss.

 Last year, we documented more than 50 cases across the U.S. where women were prosecuted for a miscarriage or stillbirth because of a positive drug test result. 

The state didn’t have to prove definitively in most cases that the drugs caused the pregnancy loss. 

A stillbirth and a positive drug test was often all it took to push the women into a plea deal, resulting in lengthy prison sentences.

In some cases, women were charged under manslaughter laws. 

In November, a woman in Pennsylvaniawas charged with third-degree murder after the local coroner’s office ruled that fentanyl toxicity caused her stillbirth.

What’s unclear is what will happen in states with fetal personhood or fetal heartbeat laws when someone finds fetal remains — even if they’re the result of a miscarriage or stillbirth. 

Miscarriages are common in the U.S. and many happen at home, and now pregnant people may avoid going to a hospital if they think it could result in a criminal investigation. 

In Ohio, a woman faces a possible charge of felony abuse of a corpse because she delivered a stillborn 22-week fetus that clogged a toilet.

Earlier this year, lawmakers in Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina and Arkansas proposed bills seeking to use fetal personhood under homicide or manslaughter laws to punish people seeking abortions or taking abortion pills. 

None of those bills became law, but abortion rights advocates expect similar proposals in the 2024 legislative sessions.

For its part, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America does not support policies that criminalize women’s actions, says Kelsey Pritchard, the organization’s director of state public affairs.

“Pro-life leaders across the country unequivocally reject any efforts to subject women to criminal punishment following an abortion. Over 60 percent of women who have had abortions report pressure to abort from boyfriends, family or others,” Pritchard said in an email.

But she said the group does support Idaho’s “abortion trafficking” law, which Gov. Brad Little signed earlier this year. Supporters argue it’s not a travel ban, but a law that makes it illegal for an adult to drive a minor across state lines for an abortion without parental consent, which Pritchard says could protect underage girls from abusers and sex traffickers. 

A federal judge blocked the law from taking effect until a challenge regarding its constitutionality is resolved.

Abortion rights advocates argue that travel bans — such as the ones some Texas cities have passed to stop people from seeking abortions in neighboring New Mexico — won’t survive constitutional scrutiny. 

They say such laws are attempts to intimidate and scare women.

But Alyssa Morrison, an attorney at the progressive advocacy organization Lawyers for Good Government, said that doesn’t mean pregnant people or anyone trying to help them obtain reproductive health care won’t be sued, subjected to a criminal investigation or locked up.

“The idea of being investigated is utterly terrifying for most people,” she said.

Morrison said there’s also massive confusion about the specific exceptions to various state abortion bans, especially among doctors who could face criminal prosecution for performing the procedure.

“Because these laws are written in the most ambiguous terms, a lot of physicians are unsure if they will end up in jail for doing their job,” she said.

Hours after a Texas woman won a court order Thursday allowing her to obtain an abortion due to medical necessity, state Attorney General Ken Paxton threatened to prosecute any doctors involved in the procedure. 

Late Friday, the state Supreme Court temporarily blocked the woman from terminating her pregnancy."

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The entire story can be read at:

0

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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/120008354894645705/47049136857587929

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;


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


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.


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-123488014

Saturday, December 9, 2023

Cindy Ali: Ontario: On-going trial:Toronto Star Staff Reporter Jim Rankin reports that church friends and snowfall experts countered the Crown's ‘absurd’ mercy-killing theory - and that, "The second trial of a Toronto mom accused of murdering her severely disabled daughter is hinging on the same Crown theory: that Cindy Ali killed her daughter Cynara, and then staged a fake home invasion."… "A baseless police insinuation that one of Cindy Ali’s daughters somehow helped in the death of her disabled 16-year-old sister Cynara. A prosecution theory of a “mercy killing,” called “absurd” and “impossible” by those who know Ali. Evidence that Cynara had a life filled with “joy” and was at the centre of a loving family that doted on her. And, some lessons in the physics of photography and science of snow. These are among the final pieces of evidence in a case that is now nearly as old as Cynara was at the time of her death. Ali’s defence team of James Lockyer and Jessica Zita wound up its case Thursday before Superior Court Justice Jane Kelly at the 361 University Ave. courthouse in Toronto, where Ali stands accused for a second time of deliberately killing Cynara."


PASSAGE OF THE DAY: (The snowfall experts): "The defence called witnesses this past week to counter an account by a Toronto firefighter that there was snow on the ground as he entered the Ali home after the 911 call.  He testified he saw no footprints, leading him to instantly conclude that the home invasion story was fabricated. (Most first responders to testify at the trial reported clear conditions upon arrival, including Ed Owen, a paramedic, who said the roadways were “great and clear” and the walkway and path leading to the town home free of snow. Jarrod Stark, who owns a video production company, recreated a CTV news shot of Cynara being wheeled on a stretcher from the town home to a waiting ambulance to show the angle and focal length used. Light flurries are seen in the CTV footage, and snow in spots on the ground, though none present on boots in the scene or on the stretcher wheels. Stark mapped out where certain landmarks were in the news clip, including snow piled up in the background that was about 35 metres beyond the stretcher, yet due to the compression of the telephoto lens in use, appeared closer.  Stark’s recreation for the court was followed by expert testimony from Kent Moore, a University of Toronto physics professor who studies lake effect snow, which was what was happening that day. Using Environment Canada radar images, Moore testified that the area around the Ali home at one snapshot of the morning of the 911 call did not show snow bands, while the area around Buttonville airport, where an Environment Canada weather station exists, did. Based on a number of factors, including snowfall rate, snow on the ground, ground temperature, presence of salt, sunshine and wind — and the CTV video, police photos and CCTV footage from a nearby building — it was Moore’s opinion that there was likely no snow accumulation leading into the Ali home."


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STORY: "At Cindy Ali trial, church friends and snowfall experts counter Crown's ‘absurd’ mercy-killing theory," by Staff Reporter Jim Rankin, published by The Toronto Star, on December 9, 2023.  (Jim Rankin is a reporter-photographer on the crime, courts and justice team. He has won three National Newspaper Awards and been nominated for eight others. In 2002, he led a team of reporters, editors and researchers involved in a Michener Award-winning investigative series into race, policing and crime in Toronto. He is also the recipient of a Canadian Association of Journalists Award and the St. Clair Balfour Fellowship from the Canadian Journalism Foundation.) 


SUB-HEADING: "The second trial of a Toronto mom accused of murdering her severely disabled daughter is hinging on the same Crown theory: that Cindy Ali killed her daughter Cynara, and then staged a fake home invasion."


GIST: "A baseless police insinuation that one of Cindy Ali’s daughters somehow helped in the death of her disabled 16-year-old sister Cynara. A prosecution theory of a “mercy killing,” called “absurd” and “impossible” by those who know Ali. Evidence that Cynara had a life filled with “joy” and was at the centre of a loving family that doted on her. And, some lessons in the physics of photography and science of snow.

These are among the final pieces of evidence in a case that is now nearly as old as Cynara was at the time of her death.


Ali’s defence team of James Lockyer and Jessica Zita wound up its case Thursday before Superior Court Justice Jane Kelly at the 361 University Ave. courthouse in Toronto, where Ali stands accused for a second time of deliberately killing Cynara.


Following closing submissions scheduled for later this month, it will be up to Kelly in this judge-alone retrial to decide what happened in the Ali Scarborough town home on the morning of Feb. 19, 2011, when Ali, home alone with Cynara, dialed 911 to report a break in and her daughter, who had cerebral palsy and suffered from seizures, in medical distress.


In the final days of the trial this week, Amanda Ali, Cynara’s oldest sister, testified as a defence witness, in part, to the lengths Toronto police went in its investigation of not only her mother but of her family, and herself. 


Following her mother’s arrest in March 2012, Amanda, who was 21 when Cynara died, told Lockyer of a voicemail she received from Frank Skubic, the lead detective in the case.


The detective, said Amanda, explained there was an “outstanding” issue and that based on what her mother had told the detective, he believed that Ali “had help” and that Amanda should get legal advice. Skubic, said Amanda, made it sound like “my mom turned on me, or tried to turn on me.” (The trial has seen no evidence to back up this claim.)


At the time and unbeknownst to the Ali family, their relatives and friends, extensive police wiretapping was underway and had been for months, capturing them all in conversations that the defence team has said amounted to nothing of consequence. 


Amanda delivered the eulogy at Cynara’s funeral service but told Lockyer that for months afterwards, police kept coming to the family for statements. “It felt chaotic,” she said. “We didn’t have the time to grieve.” 


Cynara, said Amanda, did not have a miserable life and “was always in the middle of all of us,” referring to her mother, father Allan and younger twin sisters. “Cynara had a happy life, a very happy life.”


Cynara, who communicated by laughing and crying, could not walk or feed herself.


 Court has heard several possibilities for her death due to lack of oxygen, including sudden unexpected death due to epilepsy. 


Prosecutors continue to argue Ali staged the family home to make it appear a home invasion had taken place and then smothered Cynara with a pillow. 


Ali’s defence team contends Ali did nothing to cause her daughter’s death, that there had been a home invasion, and that Cynara was loved and well cared for.


Ali was convicted of first-degree murder in a jury trial in 2016. The conviction was quashed in 2021 by the Ontario Court of Appeal and Ali has been out of prison since 2020, when she was released on bail, in part due to the strength of her appeal.


Not advanced at the first trial was the suggestion of a “mercy killing.” It was only during the Crown’s cross-examination of Ali at this trial that the proposition was put to her — that she decided to kill Cynara after she had several seizures the night before.


 Ali rejected the suggestion and has maintained she did nothing to cause her daughter harm.


Ali has said two men dressed in black and wearing balaclavas pushed their way into the home seeking a “package” and one of them, armed with a gun, led her through the house to look for the package. 


Ali testified to seeing an intruder standing near Cynara with a pillow in his hands before one of the intruders acknowledged they had the wrong home and the pair exited through a basement door leading to an underground garage shared by 165 other units in the complex.


By then, she said, Cynara was not moving.


Ali dialed 911 at 11:37 a.m. and has said she twice passed out while on the call. First responders were able to restore Cynara’s heartbeat, but she died in hospital 36 hours later, after being taken off life support. 


Ali was home alone with Cynara that day, with her husband Allan and twin daughters out at a Family Day weekend work event, and Amanda out at the gym and then to work. 


An eyewitness testified at the first trial to seeing two men of similar description in the underground garage around that time.


Peter and Sheela Duraisami, married pastors from the Christian church the Ali family attended then and still do, were among the final witnesses to testify, describing them as a loving family.


Peter Duraisami, who is also the CEO of The Scott Mission, said Ali was “like a mother” at the church and that continued with her fellow inmates when Ali was incarcerated. “At a time of brokenness of her own, she is there taking care of others,” Duraisami said.


He said he attended Ali family parties, including birthday celebrations for Cynara, and that the family “knew how to celebrate.” On the day Ali called 911, the Duraisamis along with many church congregants, supported the family, including at the Hospital for Sick Children where Cynara died.


Was it hard for the family to care for Cynara, asked Lockyer? “It’s just the other way around,” Duraisami said. “Cynara was the joy of their life.”


Sheela Duraisami told court she was “shocked and horrified” to eventually learn that police had tapped her own phone as part of the investigation, since she had sensitive conversations with many of her congregants. 


When Lockyer also put to her the Crown proposition that Ali had put Cynara out of misery in a mercy killing situation, the pastor replied it would be “impossible” and “the most absurd statement.” Ali, she said, is a woman of “strong faith” and “love.”


On cross-examination by Crown attorney Beverley Olesko, Duraisami was asked about a suicide attempt Ali had made while in prison, and if that was against the tenets of the church. 


The pastor agreed it is, but said that made her realize “how much this woman had been pushed into a corner.”


Ali never spoke of “hopelessness” regarding Cyanara and in sermons, Duraisami said she used Ali as an “example of grace and strength.”


The defence called witnesses this past week to counter an account by a Toronto firefighter that there was snow on the ground as he entered the Ali home after the 911 call.


 He testified he saw no footprints, leading him to instantly conclude that the home invasion story was fabricated. (Most first responders to testify at the trial reported clear conditions upon arrival, including Ed Owen, a paramedic, who said the roadways were “great and clear” and the walkway and path leading to the town home free of snow.)


Jarrod Stark, who owns a video production company, recreated a CTV news shot of Cynara being wheeled on a stretcher from the town home to a waiting ambulance to show the angle and focal length used. Light flurries are seen in the CTV footage, and snow in spots on the ground, though none present on boots in the scene or on the stretcher wheels.


Stark mapped out where certain landmarks were in the news clip, including snow piled up in the background that was about 35 metres beyond the stretcher, yet due to the compression of the telephoto lens in use, appeared closer. 


Stark’s recreation for the court was followed by expert testimony from Kent Moore, a University of Toronto physics professor who studies lake effect snow, which was what was happening that day. Using Environment Canada radar images, Moore testified that the area around the Ali home at one snapshot of the morning of the 911 call did not show snow bands, while the area around Buttonville airport, where an Environment Canada weather station exists, did.


Based on a number of factors, including snowfall rate, snow on the ground, ground temperature, presence of salt, sunshine and wind — and the CTV video, police photos and CCTV footage from a nearby building — it was Moore’s opinion that there was likely no snow accumulation leading into the Ali home.


At Ali’s successful appeal, Lockyer and Zita argued her jury had been “straitjacketed” into an all-or-nothing decision that wrongly resulted in a conviction and automatic life sentence.

Not put to the jury at her first trial were other possible options to consider, including that Ali could have done nothing wrong but panicked and made up the intruder story.


That fact, along with other problems in Justice Todd Ducharme’s instructions to the jury, was enough reason to set aside her conviction, the Court of Appeal ruled


At the first trial, the Crown contended Ali smothered Cynara for financial reasons, a motive Lockyer attacked in the appeal hearing, saying the debt the family carried made them no different than hundreds of thousands of Canadians.


The appeal court found that motive “so meagre” and “speculative” that the judge should not have left that with the jury as a possibility.


Ali was released from prison on bail in 2020, in part based on the strength of her then-unheard appeal. Throughout this trial and the last, supporters, most with a connection to Ali’s church, have been attending.


Crown and defence final submissions are scheduled to be made on Dec. 18."


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The entire story can be read at: 



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/120008354894645705/47049136857587929

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.


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-123488014