LINK TO THE PODCAST:
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: What do police informants have to do with forensic science? (I'm glad you asked). Investigative Reporter Pamela Colloff give us a clue when she writes - at the link below - "I’ve wanted to write about jailhouse informants for a long time because they often appear in troubled cases in which the other evidence is weak." That's my experience as will as a criminal lawyer and an observer of criminal justice. Given the reality that jurors - thanks to the CSI effect - are becoming more and more insistent on the need for there to be forensic evidence, it is becoming more and more common for police to rely on shady tactics such as use of police snitches, staging lineups, coercing, inducing, or creating false confessions out of thin air, procuring false eyewitness testimony or concealing exculpatory evidence.
HARPLD LEVY: The Charles Smith Blog;
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Mr. Wood spent over thirty years in prison and faced a previous execution date after being convicted in 1985 of multiple killings that became known as “the Desert Murders.” After multiple bodies were uncovered in the desert in El Paso, Texas, police and prosecutors sought to determine who was responsible, ultimately using testimony from jailhouse informants as their key evidence. That same testimony was later cast into doubt by Mr. Hall’s sworn statement. The series covers the extensive efforts made by Mr. Wood’s team leading up to his March 2025 execution date, which was halted by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) just two days before he was scheduled to die. On July 30, 2025, the TCCA returned Mr. Wood’s case to the trial court to review his claims of innocence and ineffective representation."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "In conjunction with the release of the podcast, The New York Times and The Marshall Project have also released an analysis of more than 9,000 death sentences imposed over the last 50 years, using data from the Death Penalty Information Center and Professor Frank Baumgartner."
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POST: “The Last 12 Weeks” Podcast Illuminates the Work of a Texas Capital Defense Team," by Researcher and writer, with special interest in Wrongful convictions, Anumta Ali, published on June 25, 2026.
GIST: "On June 18, 2026, The Marshall Project released “The Last 12 Weeks,” a podcast series detailing the weeks leading up to David Wood’s 2025 execution date in Texas. The series follows Mr. Wood’s defense team as they re-investigate his case and identify evidence overlooked by state prosecutors at trial. Hosted and reported by Maurice Chammah from The Marshall Project and Alvin Melathe from Serial Productions, the series gives a dynamic account of the usually private perspective of capital defense teams as they fight for an opportunity to present new evidence and stop their client’s execution.
“A stay is the best the lawyers can hope for here. For the court to say, ‘Hold up, there’s something potentially wrong here. Let’s send the case to a lower court to dig deeper.’ It’s highly unlikely this court will simply declare David Wood innocent, but a stay is still big. It means David Wood gets to live, and then his team can spend months or even years continuing to make the case for his innocence.”
MAURICE CHAMMAH, JOURNALIST WITH THE MARSHALL PROJECT
In 2024, after losing all his appeals, Mr. Wood’s defense team obtained a sworn statement from prisoner George Hall which brought into question the legitimacy of testimony from key prosecution trial witnesses. Mr. Hall admitted that he and other incarcerated individuals were encouraged by police to falsely report that Mr. Wood confessed to committing the Desert Murders in El Paso, Texas. Greg Wiercioch, Mr. Wood’s lead attorney, agreed to permit Mr. Chammah from The Marshall Project to cover the case. Through deeply vulnerable accounts by members of Mr. Wood’s defense team, listeners hear how they grappled with challenging decisions, such as whether to visit the only living informant in the hospital, until he later died from lung cancer.
“I think it’s worth mentioning here that all of the lawyers on this call have had clients who were executed. Clients who they couldn’t save. Greg, Jeremy, Naomi, they’ve all had to sit in front of someone and tell them, ‘We’re out of options.’ They’ve all had to watch what that does to a human being, taking in the news that soon they’ll be killed. I know from stories I’ve done in the past that the execution of a client is a shattering event for habeas lawyers. One lawyer said that the finality of it is enough to give you vertigo, to watch a person who you’ve built a relationship with sometimes over years, be reduced to a few file boxes you put into storage at the office.”
MAURICE CHAMMAH, JOURNALIST WITH THE MARSHALL PROJECT
Mr. Wood spent over thirty years in prison and faced a previous execution date after being convicted in 1985 of multiple killings that became known as “the Desert Murders.” After multiple bodies were uncovered in the desert in El Paso, Texas, police and prosecutors sought to determine who was responsible, ultimately using testimony from jailhouse informants as their key evidence. That same testimony was later cast into doubt by Mr. Hall’s sworn statement.
The series covers the extensive efforts made by Mr. Wood’s team leading up to his March 2025 execution date, which was halted by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) just two days before he was scheduled to die. On July 30, 2025, the TCCA returned Mr. Wood’s case to the trial court to review his claims of innocence and ineffective representation.
In conjunction with the release of the podcast, The New York Times and The Marshall Project have also released an analysis of more than 9,000 death sentences imposed over the last 50 years, using data from the Death Penalty Information Center and Professor Frank Baumgartner."
The entire Post can be read at:
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/the-last-12-weeks-podcast-illuminates-the-work-of-a-texas-capital-defense-team
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;
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Mr. Wood spent over thirty years in prison and faced a previous execution date after being convicted in 1985 of multiple killings that became known as “the Desert Murders.” After multiple bodies were uncovered in the desert in El Paso, Texas, police and prosecutors sought to determine who was responsible, ultimately using testimony from jailhouse informants as their key evidence. That same testimony was later cast into doubt by Mr. Hall’s sworn statement. The series covers the extensive efforts made by Mr. Wood’s team leading up to his March 2025 execution date, which was halted by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) just two days before he was scheduled to die. On July 30, 2025, the TCCA returned Mr. Wood’s case to the trial court to review his claims of innocence and ineffective representation."
----------------------------------------------
PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "In conjunction with the release of the podcast, The New York Times and The Marshall Project have also released an analysis of more than 9,000 death sentences imposed over the last 50 years, using data from the Death Penalty Information Center and Professor Frank Baumgartner."
-----------------------------------------------
POST: “The Last 12 Weeks” Podcast Illuminates the Work of a Texas Capital Defense Team," by Researcher and writer, with special interest in Wrongful convictions, Anumta Ali, published on June 25, 2026.
GIST: "On June 18, 2026, The Marshall Project released “The Last 12 Weeks,” a podcast series detailing the weeks leading up to David Wood’s 2025 execution date in Texas. The series follows Mr. Wood’s defense team as they re-investigate his case and identify evidence overlooked by state prosecutors at trial. Hosted and reported by Maurice Chammah from The Marshall Project and Alvin Melathe from Serial Productions, the series gives a dynamic account of the usually private perspective of capital defense teams as they fight for an opportunity to present new evidence and stop their client’s execution.
“A stay is the best the lawyers can hope for here. For the court to say, ‘Hold up, there’s something potentially wrong here. Let’s send the case to a lower court to dig deeper.’ It’s highly unlikely this court will simply declare David Wood innocent, but a stay is still big. It means David Wood gets to live, and then his team can spend months or even years continuing to make the case for his innocence.”
MAURICE CHAMMAH, JOURNALIST WITH THE MARSHALL PROJECT
In 2024, after losing all his appeals, Mr. Wood’s defense team obtained a sworn statement from prisoner George Hall which brought into question the legitimacy of testimony from key prosecution trial witnesses. Mr. Hall admitted that he and other incarcerated individuals were encouraged by police to falsely report that Mr. Wood confessed to committing the Desert Murders in El Paso, Texas. Greg Wiercioch, Mr. Wood’s lead attorney, agreed to permit Mr. Chammah from The Marshall Project to cover the case. Through deeply vulnerable accounts by members of Mr. Wood’s defense team, listeners hear how they grappled with challenging decisions, such as whether to visit the only living informant in the hospital, until he later died from lung cancer.
“I think it’s worth mentioning here that all of the lawyers on this call have had clients who were executed. Clients who they couldn’t save. Greg, Jeremy, Naomi, they’ve all had to sit in front of someone and tell them, ‘We’re out of options.’ They’ve all had to watch what that does to a human being, taking in the news that soon they’ll be killed. I know from stories I’ve done in the past that the execution of a client is a shattering event for habeas lawyers. One lawyer said that the finality of it is enough to give you vertigo, to watch a person who you’ve built a relationship with sometimes over years, be reduced to a few file boxes you put into storage at the office.”
MAURICE CHAMMAH, JOURNALIST WITH THE MARSHALL PROJECT
Mr. Wood spent over thirty years in prison and faced a previous execution date after being convicted in 1985 of multiple killings that became known as “the Desert Murders.” After multiple bodies were uncovered in the desert in El Paso, Texas, police and prosecutors sought to determine who was responsible, ultimately using testimony from jailhouse informants as their key evidence. That same testimony was later cast into doubt by Mr. Hall’s sworn statement.
The series covers the extensive efforts made by Mr. Wood’s team leading up to his March 2025 execution date, which was halted by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) just two days before he was scheduled to die. On July 30, 2025, the TCCA returned Mr. Wood’s case to the trial court to review his claims of innocence and ineffective representation.
In conjunction with the release of the podcast, The New York Times and The Marshall Project have also released an analysis of more than 9,000 death sentences imposed over the last 50 years, using data from the Death Penalty Information Center and Professor Frank Baumgartner."
The entire Post can be read at:
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/the-last-12-weeks-podcast-illuminates-the-work-of-a-texas-capital-defense-team
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;
