LINK:
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LINK TO THE EXTRAORDINARY NBC NEWS VIDEO THAT HELPED FREE JIMMY DUNCAN AFTER NEARLY THREE DECADES ON DEATH ROW FOR A MURDER THAT MULTIPLE JUDGES SAY DIDN'T HAPPEN.
THE JURY DID NOT SEE IT: THE NETWORK SAYS IT HAS NOT BEEN BROADCAST UNTIL NOW:
FILMED BY WEST, WHILE CONDUCTING HIS POST-MORTEM EXAMINATION, AND BURIED OUT OF SIGHT BY COURT ORDER FOR YEARS, THE VIDEO IS PROOF THAT OCCASIONALLY 'THE TRUTH WILL OUT: UGLY AS IT MAY BE; THE DESECRATION OF THE BODY OF A 23-MONTH-OLD CHILD BY THE PROSECUTOR'S EXPERT WITNESSES. THE ON-GOING PERSECUTION BY LOUISIANA PROSECUTORS OF AN INNOCENT MAN;
BRAVO TO NBC NEWS AND INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER DAN SLEPIAN , FOR THEIR SUPERB REPORTING ON THIS HUGELY IMPORTANT CRIMINAL JUSTICE STORY.
HAROLD LEVY PUBLISHER: THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG:
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QUOTES ON LEARNING ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF THE EXPLOSIVE VIDEO: (From the NBC News production);
JIMMIE DUNCAN: "Duncan saw the tape for the first time that day in court, more than 30 years after his arrest,"I couldn't believe that all these people knew that video existed - and they still let this happen to me.
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ALLISON LAYTON: "Allison Layton is Hayley's mother. Allison was in court too. She could only bear to watch a short clip of the video. But she was furious with what she saw. "I found out my daughter wasn't murdered. It never happened."... The tape wasn't the only evidence not presented to Duncan's jury. The hearing also revealed that Hayley had a history of seizures and had been rushed to the hospital several times in the months before her death. Months after the hearingJudge Sharp issued his ruling. He threw out Duncan's conviction, concluding that Hayley drowned in the bathtub as a result of a seizure and found no evidence that Hayley had been sexually abused. Alison now believes that Duncan was framed. It's kind of a big deal I think that Haley's mom supports the guy that was convicted of killing her. 'Well. Let's get this straight. He was convicted because they lied. They railroaded this man. They fabricated evidence. They desecrated my daughter. And videotaped it."
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ALVIN SHARP: The presiding Judge over the hearing at which the video was played: "As you sit on the bench watching that video what is going through your mind? I was aghast I'm left in a state of consternation -total consternation. Is it fair to say that Dr. West is manufacturing and creating the evidence on this child's body? He's absolutely creating marks on that babies body. Do you think that what you saw by Dr. West on that tape was a crime by him. "There very well could be."But West has said he wasn't creating any marks - that the tape shows what he calls his direct comparison technique where he is simply comparing Duncan's dental mode to marks he claimed were already there. Marks, he says, that a layman might not see. There is no scientific support for his method- and it's been discredited by forensic experts.
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INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST RADLEY BALKO: " I started watching the video and immediately I'm floored." Balko got his hands on the tape 2 decades ago. Back then he wrote an article about it that says. "no one seems to care.: "I'm waiting for the fallout - I'm waiting for the Attorney General and, I don't know, to say something about it. And nothing happens." Balko continued to investigate Hayne and West, co-authoring a book about their work. "
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STEV TEW: "The district attorney is Steve Tew, who at the time of Duncan's trial was a prosecutor in the same office. We called emailed dropped by to speak to Kew but he declines to talk to us. In court the DA argued that Duncan was still guilty... "We don't need bite-mark evidence to put Mr. Duncan in the apartment alone with this child."
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NBC INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST DAN SLEPIAN:"When this video showed up in my mailbox a couple of months ago. I was floored. I couldn't believe it.You hear about stuff like this happening but rarely do you actually see it on videotape."
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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. 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;
