Friday, August 25, 2017

Garr Keith Hardin: Jeffrey Dewayne Clark: Kentucky; Momentous Development. Kentucky's highest ocurt vacates their "satanic abuse} convictions and orders a new trial. (May the authorities quickly throw in the towel and put an end to this madness. HL)..." "The evidence seemed compelling: a broken chalice, a blood-soaked rag and a single hair on a lifeless body in what prosecutors described as a gruesome human sacrifice to Satan. It was enough for a jury to convict Jeffrey Dewayne Clark and Garr Keith Hardin at the height of the satanic abuse scare of the 1980s and 1990s, sending them to a Kentucky prison for more than 20 years. But since their 1995 trial, DNA evidence has shown the hair didn't belong to Hardin, and the blood wasn't from a sacrificial ritual but from Hardin cutting himself on the chalice's jagged edge."..." During the trial, prosecutors said Hardin and Clark were devil worshippers and they killed Warford as part of a satanic ritual. To support this theory, they showed the jury a broken chalice and blood-soaked rag found in Hardin's bedroom. They said the blood came from an animal that Hardin had sacrificed. And Detective Mark Handy testified that Hardin had told him he "got tired of looking at animals and began to want to do human sacrifices." The only evidence prosecutors had tying Hardin to the scene was a single hair found on Warford's sweatpants that an expert testified "matched" Hardin. But the science behind that analysis has since been discredited, and DNA analysis years later showed the hair did not come from Hardin. Also, DNA analysis showed the blood in the rag was Hardin's blood, not an animal that had been sacrificed to Satan. Plus, it was later revealed that Handy "testified falsely under oath" in another trial that resulted in the false murder conviction of another man, who was not exonerated until 2009."

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STORY: "Kentucky court orders new trial in satanic killing case," by reporter Adam Beam, (AP), published by ABC News on Au...

Paul Aaron Ross: New York; Bitemark homicide case; DA blasts Innocence Project lawyers for blog posts in 'bite-mark' homicide case..."The bite mark, which the defense contends unfairly linked Ross to the victim, has become controversial because the accuracy of such evidence has been under fire nationwide. Frabricant said Tuesday that 29 convictions have been overturned because of discredited bite mark evidence. The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has recommended the use of bite mark evidence in Texas be put on hold. Consiglio on the other hand argued that no court in the land has yet suppressed the use of bite mark evidence, and he said that it is still a valid science. Kopriva stated in March that bite mark evidence is not a “novel methodology” and “is currently accepted in the relevant scientific community of forensic odontologists.” The defense asked her to reconsider her ruling, and, if necessary, allow an appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court with the request that the state appeals court determine if “relevant scientific community” is limited to just odontologists and whether experts from other fields can offer their opinions about such evidence during a Frye hearing — a hearing to contest the scientific validity of bite mark evidence. The controversial blog stated that “scientific basis for bite mark evidence is insufficient.” When the judge was confronted with the “damming critiques” of those who contest the scientific certainty of bite mark evidence, the “court deemed them irrelevant, focusing only and improperly on the opinions of the very individuals whose livelihoods depend on the continued use of the bite marks: forensic dentists.” It continued, “Such willful scientific illiteracy among the judiciary flies in the face of Supreme Court mandates over 30 years ago that capital cases must aspire to a heightened standard of reliability.”

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STORY:  "DA  blasts defence Blog in Ross case,"  by reporter Phil Ray,  published by the Altoona Mirror on August 24, 2017. GIS...
Thursday, August 24, 2017

Bulletin: Missouri governor stops execution after questions about DNA evidence; Reporter Jeremy Kohler; St. Louis Post-Dispatch; August 22, 2017;

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Gov. Eric Greitens called off an execution on Tuesday so the state could make sure it sentenced a guilty man to death. Greitens granted a s...

The Monfils Six: New book by author Joan Trepa - Reclaiming Lives: Pursuing Justice for Six Innocent Men - highlights Monfils 6 case," NBC26 reports..."I was in disbelief that there could be innocent people in prison and I couldn't stand back and just let it happen," said author Joan Trepa. One of the men convicted, Keith Kutska, is taking his case through the courts. The next step for him is the U.S. Supreme Court. Kutska and five others, known as the "Monfils 6," were convicted of the 1992 murder of Tom Monfils, their co-worker at a Green Bay paper plant. Monfils' body was found in a paper vat. Kutska is currently serving a life sentence. Another one of the convicted men has been released."

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  STORY: "New book highlights Monfils 6 case," rewviewed by Marisa DeCandido, for NBC 26, on August 16, 2017. ...
Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Dan and Fran Keller; Texas; Momentous Development...Wrongly convicted in 'satanic day care case,' they will receive $3.4 million compensation, The American Statesman reports..."The Keller case made national news after three children accused them in 1991 of leading ghastly satanic rituals that supposedly included desecrated graves, videotaped orgies, dismembered babies and tortured pets. No evidence of such activities was discovered at their in-home day care facility, and the case against them collapsed about two decades later when the only physical evidence of abuse was acknowledged as a mistake by the examining physician. Freed on signature bonds in 2013, the Kellers launched an effort to clear their names. Hampton argued that the Kellers were the victims of “satanic panic” — a belief that swept the nation in the early 1990s that a national network of secretive cults was preying upon day care children for sex and other horrors. The Kellers also were harmed, he argued, by the combined efforts of inept therapists, gullible police and an investigation that spiraled out of control, producing a suspect list of 26 ritual abusers, including many of the Kellers’ neighbors and a respected Austin police captain. Children who reported no problems at the day care were ignored, and leading psychologists and criminology professors provided affidavits saying improper interview techniques and subtle encouragement by therapists produced believable-but-false memories in the children who accused the Kellers of abuse. Taped interviews of a Keller accuser, a 3-year-old girl, made at the Travis County sheriff’s office have since been used in lectures by a top specialist in assessing and treating crime victims to illustrate common interviewing mistakes."

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STORY: "Dan, Fran Keller to get $3.4 million in ‘satanic day care’ case," by reporter Chuck Lindell, publishe...

Susan Neill-Fraser: Australia: Another extraordinary revelation: Sydney Morning Herald exposes an explosive file (called 'the white paper') which revealed that a potential teenage witness to one of Tasmania's most notorious crimes had signed a statutory declaration which casts doubt on Neill-Fraser who has spent the past seven years behind bars for her partner's murder." The story, by reporters Nick McKenzie, Nino Bucci and Richard Baker, runs under the heading: "Secret file could prove yacht killer's innocence. Could the Tasmanian and prosecution establishment police be systematically sabotaging evidence which could clear her by criminally charging witnesses who back her up? (This fascinating case case is truly heating up. HL)..."Mr Richter's white paper suggests Chappell was killed when he disturbed Vass and other vagrants, who had boarded the Four Winds planning to steal from it. The dossier names two men with extensive criminal records who may be involved in the murder. Neill-Fraser has maintained her innocence, but was convicted by a jury in 2010, a finding later upheld on appeal. It is the biggest legal story in Tasmania. And Richter, an intense, bearded QC regarded as one of Australia's finest and most forensic trial advocates, had travelled to Hobart to tell the Premier that police may have got it terribly wrong. The 25-page white paper contained an extract from a secret statutory declaration made by Vass a week earlier in which she admitted to being on the yacht the night Chappell disappeared."..."The arrests have plunged the small state's criminal justice system into the spotlight and led to claim and counterclaim of cover-ups and witness intimidation."

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STORY: "Death on the Derwent: Secret file could prove yacht killer's innocence," by reporters  Nick McKenzie, Nino Bucci, and...
Tuesday, August 22, 2017

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions war on science/forensics: (Part: 31); Judges nationwide routinely allow disavowed science as evidence..."The case against Steven Barnes in the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl seemed circumstantial, at best. So the guilty verdict shocked him. “I was saying, ‘This can’t be happening. You can’t convict somebody on similarities, perhaps or maybes,’” Barnes said. He spent the next 20 years in prison before DNA testing exonerated him, becoming one of hundreds of people convicted in whole or in part on forensic science that has come under fire during the past decade. Some of that science — analysis of bite marks, latent fingerprints, firearms identification, burn patterns in arson investigations, footwear patterns and tire treads — was once considered sound, but is now being denounced by some lawyers and scientists who say it has not been studied enough to prove its reliability and in some cases has led to wrongful convictions. Even so, judges nationwide continue to admit such evidence regularly. “Courts — like scientists — rely too heavily on precedent and not enough on the progress of science,” said Christopher Fabricant, director of strategic litigation for the Innocence Project. “At some point, we have to acknowledge that precedent has to be overruled by scientific reality.”

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STORY: "Judges nationwide routinely allow disavowed science as evidence," by Associated Press reporter Denise Lavoie, published b...