David Harold Eastman; Australia; Prosecutors get green light to argue that he should be kept in jail - in spite of the recent Inquiry recommendation that his conviction should be quashed because he did not receive a fair trial and was convicted on flawed forensic evidence. Eastman accuses the authorities of vexatious delaying tactics. (Sounds to me like he has a pretty good point. HL); ABC News;

STORY:  "David Eastman Inquiry: ACT (Australian Capital Territory)  DPP wins right to argue to keep killer in jail,"  published by ABC News on June 23, 2014.

GIST:  "The ACT Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has won another legal bid to argue that convicted killer David Eastman should remain behind bars.
David Harold Eastman is serving a life sentence for the 1989 murder of Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Colin Winchester. Last month an inquiry recommended Eastman's conviction be quashed because he did not receive a fair trial and was convicted on flawed forensic evidence. A full bench of the court had been convened to consider how to respond to the inquiry, and was taking submissions on whether it had the jurisdiction. The DPP said the inquiry law was invalid under the constitution because it did not allow the court to take submissions, diminishing its independence. But lawyers for the ACT Government said the law only compels the court to make a decision and does not specify what that decision should be. Today the bench found that law was not constitutional and the DPP had the right to be heard on the matter. A hearing with Eastman's lawyers and the DPP will be held in mid July to hear submissions on how it should respond to the inquiry, with the DPP to argue Eastman should remain behind bars.".........Eastman interrupted today's hearing accusing the DPP of vexatious delaying tactics. The court will consider two main issues, including whether to release sensitive documents to the DPP, and the substantive matter about whether to quash or confirm the conviction."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-23/david-eastman-enquiry-dpp-hearing/5544864

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 

Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
 
I look forward to hearing from readers at:

hlevy15@gmail.com.

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; 


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Bulletin: Barton McNeil: Illinois; Defence seeks DNA testing at hearing to be held on Tuesday in this 1988 child death case; McNeil claims his former girlfriend - convicted in 2012 of killing her mother-in-law - is the real killer; States Attorney has agreed to testing on blood and urine stains found on the child's bed sheet and clothing. Illinois Innocence Project case; The Pentagraph;

STORY: "Defence in 1988 child death to argue for DNA testing by Edith Brady-Lunny published in the Pantagraph on June 21, 2014."

GIST: "The bed sheet and clothing of 3-year-old Christina McNeil may hold clues that could resolve her father's longstanding claim that he is innocent of her murder. On Tuesday, Barton McNeil will join his lawyers from the Illinois Innocence Project at a hearing about DNA testing of evidence from his 1999 murder trial. The defense wants nine items submitted for forensic testing, including the bed sheet, the child's underwear and T-shirt, a pillowcase and a latent fingerprint from the child's bedroom window. McNeil found the child suffocated in her bed in their Bloomington home on June 25, 1998. He remains adamant the tests could produce evidence that another person killed his daughter — specifically, his former girlfriend, Misook Nowlin, who was convicted in 2012 of killing her mother-in-law. McNeil claims she suffocated the toddler in her bed. McLean County State's Attorney Jason Chambers said the state has agreed to testing on blood and urine stains found on the child's bed sheet and clothing. "In the interests of justice, I am agreeing to test the DNA, which can be potentially exonerating. If the blood comes back as belonging to Misook or someone else, then at that point there will be questions to ask," said Chambers. Brian McEldowney, who defended Nowlin in her own murder case, said "she has always maintained her innocence and continues to do so" in the Christina McNeil murder."

http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/defense-in-child-death-

See related story: DNA hearing set for August 1, 2014;

http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/dna-hearing-in-mcneil-murder-case-set-for-aug/article_1bb87273-35df-5229-aa42-cb8222fa8f3b.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 

Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
 
I look forward to hearing from readers at:

hlevy15@gmail.com.

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; 

Death penalty leads to perverse scientific experimentation with human subjects, Al Jazeera America article charges amid calls for federal oversight. (See Al Jazeera's "The System" - Episode Six - Juvenile Justice - this evening (Sunday 22 June, 2014. Excellent series. HL);

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Tonight: Episode Six: "The system"; Juvenile Justice; As described by Al Jazeera America:  "In this episode we take a look at the issue of juvenile sentencing, and consider two compelling cases in Michigan that raise the question of whether children convicted of murder should be subjected to life in prison without the possibility of parole. A battle is now waging to decide how to sentence juvenile killers, and what to do with the more than 360 juvenile lifers already sentenced to die in the state's prisons."

STORY:  "Death penalty standards in the US need reform, experts say," by reporter Sarah Kneezle, published by Al Jazeera on June 16, 2014.

SUB-HEADING:  "Experts agree that recent botched executions highlight a need for federal oversight."

SUB-HEADING: "Botched executions bring death penalty under scrutiny in the US.

GIST: "Al Jazeera’s Thomas Drayton spoke about the death penalty controversies in the U.S. with Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, and Christopher Durocher, government affairs counsel for the Constitution Project, for the network’s Sunday night segment “The Week Ahead.” Dieter said that as more manufacturers — especially those in Europe — are withholding drugs, states have been scrambling to find new access, new combinations and with a clear human cost even as states conduct reviews of their own procedures. Dieter added that national standards for best practices and types of drugs used should be issued. “This state-by-state [review] is a bit of an experiment; different states are trying different things, and all of this is with human subjects — we usually don’t allow that type of experimentation.”......... Close to 3,100 inmates await execution nationwide and the U.S. is one of the last Western countries to practice capital punishment. Even the American Medical Association, the American Board of Anesthesiology and the American Nurses’ Association are among groups that prohibit members from assisting in executions. “I don’t know that the U.S. wants to be the last country standing with the death penalty,” Dieter said."

The entire story can be found at:

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/live-news/articles/2014/6/16/national-standardsonimplementingthedeathpenaltyareneeded.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 

Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
 
I look forward to hearing from readers at:

hlevy15@gmail.com.

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; 

Bulletin: Gerry Conlon: (UK): One of the "Guildford Four," The Mirror reports that he has died after 15 years in prison for a bombing he didn't commit. While Gerry Conlon was sentenced to life on the basis of confessions obtained under torture, his father, Giuseppe, was convicted on the basis of forensic evidence "later exposed as fraudulent."

STORY: "Guildford Four's Gerry Conlon dies after 15 years in prison for bombing he didn't commit," by reporter Karen Rockett, published by the Mirror, on June 21, 2014.

SUB-HEADING: "His case was highlighted in the 1993 Oscar-nominated film In The Name Of The Father, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, five years after his conviction was quashed in 1989."

GIST; Gerry Conlon, one of the Guildford Four, who spent 15 years in his prison for an IRA bombing he didn’t commit, died a broken man today. He was jailed for life in 1975 for the Guildford pub bombing along with Paul Hill, Carole Richardson and Paddy Armstrong, which killed five people and injured 65. Mr Conlan, who was 60, and had been ill for some time, died this morning at his home off the Falls Road in west Belfast. It is believed he had a heart attack. Mr Conlon’s case was highlighted in the 1993 Oscar-nominated film In The Name Of The Father, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, five years after his conviction was quashed in 1989 following a huge campaign to free him. Conlon had never been to Guildford. But along with the other three others he was sentenced to life in prison on the basis of confessions obtained under torture by Surrey police. Gerry's father, Giuseppe, was jailed later that year, also arrested and charged in connection with the bombings when he travelled to England to organize legal representation for his son. Giuseppe Conlon, along with Conlon’s aunt, Annie Maguire, her husband Paddy and their family – who became known as the Maguire Seven – were convicted on the basis of dubious forensic evidence which the prosecution claimed proved they had handled explosives used in the bombings. Giuseppe Conlon was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment and died in prison less than five years into his sentence. The forensic evidence used to secure his conviction was later exposed as fraudulent."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/guildford-fours-gerry-conlon-dies-3736820#ixzz35HeTtxgV

See transcript of the 26 February, 1980 BBC broadcast on the discredited forensic evidence used to convict Giuseppe Conlon in connection with the bombing. (The Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) test used to establish the presence of nitro-glycerine on his hands); "In March 1976 Giuseppe Conlon was sentenced to 12 years in prison for possession of explosives. Reporter Gavin Esler outlines the police’s case against Giuseppe: his son Gerry was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) bomber, who had blown up pubs in Guildford and Woolwich; Gerry Conlon had named his aunt Anne Maguire as a source of the explosives used (Giuseppe was arrested in Anne Maguire’s home along with his co-accused, collectively known as the Maguire Seven); traces of nitro-glycerine had been found on his hands. Elser goes on to state that the police did not find any explosives in the Maguire house or in the surrounding area. He then describes the Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) test used to establish the presence of nitro-glycerine on the hands of the accused. This test was developed by Dr. John Yallop, a forensic scientist and witness for the defence (Dr. Yallop did not wish to be interviewed for the programme). Dr. Yallop’s test is repeated in a lab in Belfast. Yallop had discovered that at least one other substance could give the same result in the TLC test (a distinctive pink spot) as nitro-glycerine would give. Therefore the test could not prove the presence of nitro-glycerine. Dr. James Grimshaw (of the Department of Chemistry at Queen’s University in Belfast) states that a single TLC test is not enough to establish the presence of nitro-glycerine. It is impossible to check the original test results as these were not photographed. Alastair Logan, the Guildford solicitor who took up Giuseppe Conlon’s case on appeal, lists the weakness in the evidence against the Maguire Seven; for example, the scientist who carried out the forensic tests was an inexperienced 18 year-old."

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00hvb6q

See October 1999 Guardian story for  impact of revelations of the wrongful convictions perpetrated on Gerry Conlon, his father and The Maguire Seven,  on public opinion.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/oct/19/davidpallister1


 PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 

Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
 
I look forward to hearing from readers at:

hlevy15@gmail.com.

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; 

Bulletin: Larry Swearingen. Texas; Death Row case; His lawyer says there could be evidence to support Swearingen’s claim he was not the last person with Trotter before she was brutally murdered - and that DNA testing will show they have the wrong person in jail. Your Houston News.

STORY: "Swearingen defence requests more DNA tests,"  by reporter Brandon K. Scott, published by Your Houston News on June 16, 2014.

GIST: "Attorneys for Larry Swearingen filed an amended motion last week to the 9th state District Court in Montgomery County for additional DNA testing in his capital murder case. Swearingen was convicted and sentenced to death in 2000 for the killing of 19-year-old Montgomery College student Melissa Trotter. Defense attorney James Rytting said biological material on various clothing items have been identified for testing, supported with a signed affidavit from a DNA expert. Prosecutors contend that the decision on DNA testing already was made twice in rulings by the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals, which denied similar motions in 2010 and this past February. Still, Rytting argues there could be evidence to support Swearingen’s claim he was not the last person with Trotter before she was brutally murdered. “We have identified some very important facts that are clearly mistaken that change the way that  DNA testing must be looked at,” Rytting said. “The law has changed, the facts have changed, and now we have additional evidence we believe Mr. Swearingen was not the last person with the victim -- that she was with someone else. They have the wrong person in jail. “It’s not just the touch DNA, but we’ve identified through all the bench notes of DPS analysis, hair evidence that they described as appearing similar to body hair on various items of clothing -- the panties, shirt and socks. We want that tested. They can do mitochondria. They can look to see if they can get a full DNA profile depending on how the hair was removed. This isn’t just touch DNA.”......... A motion was filed in early March with the state of Texas for a tentative execution date of April 24, but Swearingen requested a hearing in the 9th state District Court of Judge Kelly Case the week of May 12. Both the defense and prosecution await a decision by Case on whether more testing will be allowed."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/woodlands/news/swearingen-defense-requests-more-dna-tests/article_a702e755-adbd-5980-823c-89b99cd9ec3d.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 

Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
 
I look forward to hearing from readers at:

hlevy15@gmail.com.

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; 

Billy Wayne Cope: Andrew Cohen says in The Daily Beast that the Supreme Court must right the wrong done to Billy Wayne Cope - and allow for the testing of the evidence that had never happened.

POST: "The Supreme Court must right the wrong done to Billy Wayne Cope" by Andrew Cohen,  published by The Daily Beast on June 19, 2014;

SUB-HEADING:  "He offered inconsistent confessions for his daughter’s murder, and the DNA of another man—a serial rapist—was found at the crime scene. But South Carolina was determined to convict. Now the Supreme Court can bring him justice."

GIST: "Fair enough, you might be thinking at this point. Prosecutors would come to trial with Cope’s confessions. Cope’s lawyers would come to trial with the clear evidence of the pattern Sanders had established of breaking into homes in Cope’s neighborhood and sexually assaulting female victims in the course of nighttime burglaries. And jurors would be able to evaluate the evidence on both sides of the case and render a reasoned verdict. What’s more likely? That this man raped and killed his own daughter while his other two daughters lay sleeping and then confessed inconsistently about it? Or that a serial rapist prowling the neighborhood, whose semen was found at the crime scene, committed the crime? But this testing of the evidence never happened. Cope’s trial judge, a dubious jurist named John C. Hayes III, precluded Cope’s jurors from hearing about Sanders’s other crimes because, he ruled, they were not similar enough to the rape and murder of the little Cope girl. Nor did Judge Hayes permit Cope to tell jurors that Sanders had made incriminating statements to a fellow inmate about “what he did to that little girl in Rock Hill.” Predictably, hearing not remotely close to the whole story about Sanders and Cope, the jury quickly convicted Cope (and, of course, Sanders as well).........That was a decade ago. Since then, as the case has wended its way through the appellate courts, South Carolina has stubbornly defended the dubious result here by making two preposterous claims; 1) that Judge Hayes’s decision to preclude evidence of Sanders’s other crimes, and his jailhouse confessions, did not deprive Cope of a “meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense” and; 2) that the jury would have been “confused” and “prejudiced” had it heard the truth about Sanders. Again, put yourself in the role of a juror in the case. Do you think such evidence would have helped you reach an accurate result?.........The last word here goes not to prosecutors, or to the defense, or to the hapless judge, but to a group of law professors, specializing in evidence, who have asked the justices to accept Cope’s case and bring him relief. The purpose of the rule upon which the South Carolina courts relied in precluding Cope from presenting his best defense, these experts told the justices in Washington, is a rule designed to preclude, not ensure, wrongful convictions. This shouldn’t be a close call for the Supreme Court. This is about as unfair a trial as a white man can get in this country.""

The entire post can be found at:

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/19/the-supreme-court-must-right-the-wrong-done-to-billy-wayne-cope.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 

Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
 
I look forward to hearing from readers at:

hlevy15@gmail.com.

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;  

Sonia Cacy: Texas Monthly's superb article on leading fire investigation into the twenty-first century: (Must Read. HL. Kudos to author Brantley Hargrove.)

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

ARTICLE: "Leading fire investigation into the twenty-first century," by Brantley Hargrove, published  by Texas Monthly on June 16, 2014.

SUB-HEADING: "Texas is changing what we know about arson science. And it all started with Sonia Cacy."

GIST: "At trial, the evidence against her looked unassailable to a jury. A toxicologist from the Bexar County forensic lab even testified to the presence of an accelerant like gasoline in scraps of clothing from Uncle Bill’s body. It took them two hours to convict her of murder. She was sentenced to 55 years in prison. And she might still be locked up if not for a Cambridge-educated chemist and inventor named Gerald Hurst. When he cracked open Cacy’s file in the spring of 1996—three years after her conviction—he was appalled by what he found. If there was a moment when fire investigation began to emerge out of the dark age of hunches, untested hand-me-down arson indicators, and wives’ tales, it occurred when Hurst turned his attention to Cacy’s case. A tall, lanky man with a wiry beard and deep-set eyes, Hurst once developed weapons of war, but when he shifted careers in the seventies, using his background in chemistry to become a fire expert, he waged intellectual warfare against questionable science presented in civil trials. He had never been involved in a criminal proceeding before looking into the Cacy file, but he understood the chemical reaction that produces fire, and he was horrified by the quality of arson science used in the testimony that led to Cacy’s conviction."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/leading-fire-investigation-twenty-first-century

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 

Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
 
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
 
I look forward to hearing from readers at:

hlevy15@gmail.com.

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; 


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