Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Odelia and Nerissa Quewezance: Saskatchewan: Wrongful confession (and much more) case; Major (Welcome) Development: The sisters have been released on bail (after spending 30 years in custody ) while the case is under ministerial review," APTN News (Reporter Danielle Paradis) reports.."James Lockyer, a Toronto-based lawyer with Innocence Canada, who is representing the sisters said that this was a big step, but there was still more work ahead. “The purpose of this is to get [the sisters’] convictions quashed so that their names are clear,” said Lockyer. The Innocence Canada lawyer also said he has experienced a lack of cooperation from the Crown prosecutors office who have refused to provide the evidence that they have against the sisters from the second-degree murder conviction. The sisters are the first Indigenous women to apply for a ministerial review, said Lockyer."

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BACKGROUND: (From a previous post of this Blog): " Nicole Porter, advocate for Indigenous Rights and wrongfully convicted said Saskatch...

Kathleen Folbigg: Australia: Her release would make the Chamberlain case ‘pale into insignificance,’ Legal Affairs Reporter Michaela Whitbourne reports in the Sydney Morning Herald..."Anna-Maria Arabia, chief executive of the academy, said the Folbigg case pointed to a need “to reconsider how science is considered in the legal system, and how we deal particularly with advances in science that are rapid”. Some fellows of the academy have already backed calls for Folbigg’s immediate release from prison, including Professor Carola Garcia de Vinuesa, an immunologist and geneticist who gave evidence about a novel genetic variant Folbigg shared with her two daughters. It was not found in her sons. The inquiry heard the variant, discovered after Folbigg’s 2003 trial, may cause cardiac arrhythmias – irregular heart rhythms – and sudden unexpected death. If Bathurst finds reasonable doubt about Folbigg’s convictions, “it will make the Lindy Chamberlain case pale into insignificance”, Arabia said. Chamberlain was convicted in October 1982 of murdering her infant daughter Azaria and spent three years in prison. She was pardoned in 1987 after a royal commission examined new evidence. “I don’t think Folbigg has yet captured the public imagination in the same way, but if she’s released this year it’s 20 years [since her conviction],” Arabia said."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: " The jury in Lindy Chamberlain’s trial over the 1980 death of her nine-week-old daughter Azaria, who disappeared d...
Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Adnan Syed: (Serial podcast subject): Major (Unwelcome) Development: Bulletin: A court has reinstated his conviction and sentence, WBAL (Digital Media Manager Tommy Ng) report...(Link to opinion and timeline provided)..."A Baltimore City judge in September 2022 ruled to vacate Syed's conviction, and the Lee family filed an appeal over how it was treated. The Lee family filed the appeal, saying it was not given enough notice to have a strong enough voice in the process to vacate the conviction against Syed. But before that appeal could be heard, the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office dropped the charges against Syed entirely, saying DNA evidence cleared him. That led to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals denying the Lee family's appeal before a hearing on it was held."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: " The opinion calls for a new, "legally complaint and transparent" hearing on the motion to vacate where ...

Charles McCrory: Alabama: Junk bite-mark 'science.' As investigative reporters Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith report in 'The Intercept,' in this outstanding piece of journalism, his conviction relied on debunked bite-mark Science and raises a very important question: Why Is Charles McRory still locked up?... "Although a famed bite-mark analyst insisted at trial that the mark conclusively linked McCrory to the murder, that same expert has since recanted, saying he would never deliver such testimony today. In the years since McCrory was convicted, bite-mark analysis has been roundly discredited as junk science. Nevertheless, the judge who presided over the evidentiary hearing was unmoved. He ruled against McCrory, keeping him locked up. McCrory is the last known defendant still imprisoned for a conviction almost entirely based on the faulty forensic practice."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "I n 2022, The Intercept published a   deep-dive investigation   into McCrory’s case, detailing his long-standing c...