QUOTE OF THE DAY: "We don’t need the bite mark evidence to put Mr. Duncan in the apartment alone with this child,” (Prosecutor) Tew said. But Matilde Carbia, who is representing Duncan, pushed back, telling the justices that the state’s allegations of sexual assault were based on a medical diagnosis that, like bite mark evidence, has since been discredited. Carbia added that Haley likely died by accidental drowning, due to a seizure caused by a previous head injury. There was no blood or semen found on the scene or on Duncan, according to court documents. “Jimmie Christian Duncan is an innocent man and Haley Oliveaux was not murdered,” Carbia said."
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PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: "The April ruling by Sharp to set aside Duncan’s conviction and death sentence came after a Verite News and ProPublica investigation examined the reliability of the key forensic evidence used to convict him. At the time, Duncan faced the possibility of being put to death as Gov. Jeff Landry, a staunch death penalty advocate, made moves to expedite executions after a 15-year pause. Seven months after Sharp’s ruling, Duncan was released from prison after posting $150,000 bail. He was seated before the justices during Tuesday’s oral arguments."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Several of the justices focused on the tarnished reputations of the forensic experts whose work helped to convict Duncan: pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne and forensic dentist Michael West. The longtime business partners examined Haley’s body and determined that Duncan had assaulted and murdered. That conclusion was based, in part, on bite marks found on her body, which West claimed were a match to Duncan’s teeth. Following Duncan’s trial, however, their methodology came under intense scrutiny.
PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Over the past 28 years, nine prisoners have been set free after being convicted in part on inaccurate evidentiary findings from West and Hayne. Three of those men were on death row. Duncan was the last person awaiting an execution based on the pair’s work. “With all of that before us, can we reasonably impose a death penalty in this case?” Chief Justice John Weimer asked Carbia. “No, your honor,” she said."
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PASSAGE FOUR OF THE DAY: "While Duncan awaited an execution date, his new team of post-conviction attorneys uncovered a trove of evidence that eventually led to Sharp overturning his conviction. The key piece of that evidence was a video of West’s 1993 examination of Haley, which was not shown to jurors at trial, that calls into question whether the bite marks Hayne said he found on Haley’s body were manufactured. West can be seen taking a mold of Duncan’s teeth and grinding it into and across the girl’s body. (West has previously said he was simply using what he called a “direct comparison” technique — in which he presses a mold of a person’s teeth directly onto the location of suspected bite marks.)
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PASSAGE FIVE OF THE DAY: "Considering this new information, Sharp overturned Duncan’s conviction, concluding that the work Hayne and West did on his case was “no longer valid” and “not scientifically defensible.” When he set bail for Duncan months later, the judge said in his ruling that the “presumption is not great” that Duncan is guilty and proof against him is “not evident.” West, who did not respond to previous requests for comment, admitted in a 2011 deposition in another case that he no longer believed in bite mark analysis. Hayne died in 2020. Duncan’s attorneys found additional evidence that pointed to his innocence, including an expert witness who said that the child’s death was not a homicide but the result of an accidental drowning. In addition, investigators working for Duncan’s legal team interviewed a jailhouse informant who recanted his earlier trial testimony that Duncan confessed to the crime."
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PARAGRAPH SIX OF THE DAY: "Family members said they have repeatedly reached out to Tew, asking for a meeting so their thoughts and concerns could be heard, but they never received a response. Instead, the brief said, the DA misrepresented their position, telling the court that Duncan should not have been released on bail because he represented a safety risk to the victim’s family. Not only did they not fear Duncan, but the family also said they were willing to help him raise bail and support him upon his release “Despite the Berry family’s desire to be involved in this case and express how they currently feel, the State has blatantly disregarded their attempts to inform the court system of their wishes” which “flies in the face of what the Louisiana Constitution requires—fairness, dignity, and respect,” read the family’s brief."
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STORY: "Prosecutors ask state Supreme Court to reinstate death penalty for Jimmie Duncan," published by Verite News (Reporter Richard A. Webster) on April 28, 2026. (Experienced investigative reporter Rich Webster joins Verite after spending the past two and a half years as a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. He investigated allegations of abuse against the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, and claims of racial and economic inequities within Louisiana’s Road Home recovery program following Hurricane Katrina. Webster previously was a member of The Times-Picayune’s investigative team, reporting on numerous special projects including “The Children of Central City,” an in-depth look at childhood trauma through the lens of a youth football team; “A Fragile State,” a multi-part series on Louisiana’s mental health care system; and “Dying at OPP,” which examined the deaths of inmates in Orleans Parish Prison. Webster also covered the criminal justice system and the Covid-19 pandemic for The Washington Post, ProPublica and The Guardian.)
SUB-HEADING: "Duncan was sentenced to death for the murder of his former girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter, but the conviction was overturned last year after a judge found that it was based, in part, on junk science."
GIST: "Ouachita Parish prosecutors argued Tuesday (April 28) before a skeptical Louisiana Supreme Court that it should reinstate the murder conviction and death sentence against Jimmie “Chris” Duncan, a West Monroe native who was found guilty in 1998 for killing his former girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter, Haley Oliveaux.)
Duncan’s conviction was overturned in April of last year by Ouachita Parish Judge Alvin Sharp, who determined that it was based, in part, on bite-mark evidence now considered by experts to be junk science. On Tuesday, the state’s chief justice said his case could be a major test of a 2021 Louisiana law passed to provide a clearer path for post-conviction relief in the face of new evidence demonstrating innocence.
The April ruling by Sharp to set aside Duncan’s conviction and death sentence came after a Verite News and ProPublica investigation examined the reliability of the key forensic evidence used to convict him. At the time, Duncan faced the possibility of being put to death as Gov. Jeff Landry, a staunch death penalty advocate, made moves to expedite executions after a 15-year pause.
Seven months after Sharp’s ruling, Duncan was released from prison after posting $150,000 bail. He was seated before the justices during Tuesday’s oral arguments.
Steve Tew, district attorney for Ouachita and Morehouse parishes, told the seven justices that even if the bite mark evidence was discarded, injuries to the child clearly showed that she had been raped and murdered. And since Duncan was the only person with Haley at the time of her death, his guilt could not be debated, he said."
‘What’s the proof that he killed her?’
Justice Cade Cole appeared more sympathetic to Duncan’s position, expressing skepticism as to whether he was guilty of murder.
“Perhaps he was negligent,” Cole said of Duncan, who has said he left the toddler alone in the bath on the night of her death. “But the penalty for negligent homicide was 10 years. What’s the proof that he killed her?”
Several of the justices focused on the tarnished reputations of the forensic experts whose work helped to convict Duncan: pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne and forensic dentist Michael West. The longtime business partners examined Haley’s body and determined that Duncan had assaulted and murdered. That conclusion was based, in part, on bite marks found on her body, which West claimed were a match to Duncan’s teeth. Following Duncan’s trial, however, their methodology came under intense scrutiny.
Over the past 28 years, nine prisoners have been set free after being convicted in part on inaccurate evidentiary findings from West and Hayne. Three of those men were on death row. Duncan was the last person awaiting an execution based on the pair’s work.
“With all of that before us, can we reasonably impose a death penalty in this case?” Chief Justice John Weimer asked Carbia.
“No, your honor,” she said.
If the justices refuse to reinstate Duncan’s conviction, prosecutors can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, retry Duncan on the first-degree murder charge or lesser offenses. Tew said in court that his office intends to retry the case if it comes to that, but didn’t say what charges he would pursue. If, on the other hand, the court reinstates the murder conviction and death sentence, Duncan can also appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Weimer said this could prove to be a landmark case as it is one of the first tests of Louisiana’s 2021 factual innocence statute, which allows people who have been convicted to prove their innocence through newly discovered evidence regardless of normal legal deadlines for post-conviction relief. Tew insisted that Duncan’s argument — that experts now claim bite mark matching analysis is not valid — does not amount to new evidence.
In his appeal of Sharp’s decision, Tew claimed that bite mark evidence, now dismissed as “junk science,” was accepted methodology at the time. He also stated that Hayne served as the pathologist for the district for over a decade and during that time “there has been no cases overturned because of Dr. Hayne’s autopsy.”
Bite mark matching ‘not scientifically defensible’
Police arrested Duncan on Dec. 18, 1993. He was babysitting Haley that day in the home he shared with the girl’s mother in West Monroe. Duncan told law enforcement he had put the child in the bath, then went downstairs to wash dishes. When he heard a noise coming from the bathroom, he rushed upstairs to check on her and found Haley floating face down in the water. She was pronounced dead a few hours later.
Duncan was initially booked for negligent homicide, but prosecutors upped the charge to first-degree murder after Hayne and West conducted Haley’s medical exam and claimed they discovered evidence she had been sexually assaulted and intentionally drowned. Hayne said he found bite marks on the girl’s body, which West then examined, claiming to find that they were a match for Duncan’s teeth.
Following two weeks of testimony during the trial in 1998, the jury found Duncan guilty and sentenced him to death. He spent the next quarter-century in a cell on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
While Duncan awaited an execution date, his new team of post-conviction attorneys uncovered a trove of evidence that eventually led to Sharp overturning his conviction. The key piece of that evidence was a video of West’s 1993 examination of Haley, which was not shown to jurors at trial, that calls into question whether the bite marks Hayne said he found on Haley’s body were manufactured.
West can be seen taking a mold of Duncan’s teeth and grinding it into and across the girl’s body. (West has previously said he was simply using what he called a “direct comparison” technique — in which he presses a mold of a person’s teeth directly onto the location of suspected bite marks.)
Considering this new information, Sharp overturned Duncan’s conviction, concluding that the work Hayne and West did on his case was “no longer valid” and “not scientifically defensible.” When he set bail for Duncan months later, the judge said in his ruling that the “presumption is not great” that Duncan is guilty and proof against him is “not evident.”
West, who did not respond to previous requests for comment, admitted in a 2011 deposition in another case that he no longer believed in bite mark analysis. Hayne died in 2020.
Duncan’s attorneys found additional evidence that pointed to his innocence, including an expert witness who said that the child’s death was not a homicide but the result of an accidental drowning. In addition, investigators working for Duncan’s legal team interviewed a jailhouse informant who recanted his earlier trial testimony that Duncan confessed to the crime
Haley’s mother, Allison Layton Statham, and the family of her father, Lloyd Donald Oliveaux, who died in 1996, have excoriated the state’s tactics. In February, the family of Haley’s father filed a brief with the court voicing their belief in Duncan’s innocence while expressing frustration that the DA’s office has shut them out of the process, despite the state constitution granting “victims the right to be present and heard during all critical stages of pre-conviction and post-conviction proceedings.”
Family members said they have repeatedly reached out to Tew, asking for a meeting so their thoughts and concerns could be heard, but they never received a response. Instead, the brief said, the DA misrepresented their position, telling the court that Duncan should not have been released on bail because he represented a safety risk to the victim’s family.
Not only did they not fear Duncan, but the family also said they were willing to help him raise bail and support him upon his release.
“Despite the Berry family’s desire to be involved in this case and express how they currently feel, the State has blatantly disregarded their attempts to inform the court system of their wishes” which “flies in the face of what the Louisiana Constitution requires—fairness, dignity, and respect,” read the family’s brief.
The family also reached out to Attorney General Liz Murrill, who filed a brief opposing the overturning of Duncan’s death sentence, but again they were ignored, their attorneys wrote."
The entire story can be read at:
jimmie-duncan-death-row-supreme-court
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. 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;