BACKGROUND: Previous Post of this Blog: (March 27, 2023): "The Chicago legal team contends a jury should consider new questions surrounding scientific evidence used at McNeil’s bench trial. The fact that Nowlin’s hair and DNA were found on the child’s recently laundered bedding also should be heard by jurors at a new trial, the defense has argued. After the hearing, McNeil supporter Tom Gorman called the police investigation “a railroading job from the beginning and here we are 20 years later.
"https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4232179285010515485
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "McNeil's lawyers have appealed Yoder's ruling and are still seeking a new trial, but they're also asking the appellate court to consider ordering a new post-conviction hearing so that all new evidence can be presented to the trial court. That evidence was barred from being presented during a November 2023 evidentiary hearing."
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STORY: "Lawyers are appealing a McLean County judge's denial of new trial in Barton McNeil case," by Reporter Lindsay Jones, published by WGLT, on August 26, 2924,
GIST: "Lawyers working on behalf of Barton McNeil have filed an appeal in the Fourth District Appellate Court seeking to reverse a February trial court ruling that denied McNeil's request for a new trial.
Judge William Yoder ruled in February that new evidence in the 26-year-old murder case would likely be inadmissible at a second trial and denied a petition to bring the case before a new jury.
McNeil, 65, was convicted in 1998 of suffocating his 3-year-old daughter during an overnight stay at his apartment in Bloomington. Lawyers with the Illinois Innocence Project have argued that forensic evidence and affidavits developed since that conviction support McNeil’s innocence claim.
Most recently, that included assertions from two women who say they were told McNeil's former girlfriend, Misook Nowlin, confessed to killing the child.
The two women who testified in November 2023 about the alleged confession are Nowlin’s daughter, Michelle Spencer, and Dawn Nowlin, who is married to Nowlin’s first husband, Andy Nowlin. The confession was allegedly made by Don Wang, Misook Nowlin’s husband at the time Linda Tyda was murdered. Tyda was Nowlin's mother-in-law and Nowlin was later convicted of her murder in 2012.
While Yoder acknowledged the women's statements "do constitute newly discovered evidence... the testimony would almost certainly not be admissible at a retrial as the defendant would first have to call Don Wang to testify that Misook Nowlin never confessed to him and then call Michelle Spencer and Dawn Nowlin to attempt to impeach Don Wang’s testimony," he wrote in February. "Such testimony by Don Wang would not damage the defendant’s case but would not fail to support its theory.”
Yoder concluded the testimony of the two women “is not conclusive evidence, that considered along with the other trial evidence, would probably lead to a different result at a retrial.”
McNeil's lawyers have appealed Yoder's ruling and are still seeking a new trial, but they're also asking the appellate court to consider ordering a new post-conviction hearing so that all new evidence can be presented to the trial court. That evidence was barred from being presented during a November 2023 evidentiary hearing.
McNeil has been imprisoned following a conviction in 1999. The four-day bench trial that ended with a sentence of 99 years in prison did not include testimony or evidence of Nowlin as a possible suspect.
Edith Brady-Lunny contributed reporting."
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/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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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: "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;
