Friday, October 21, 2022

David Fowler: Maryland: Probe into the former Chief Medical Officer's cases intensifies, with Attorney-General Brian Frosh ordering a detailed review of 100 autopsies of people who died in law enforcement custody, after a team of experts determined that further scrutiny is warranted, The Washington Post, (Reporters Ovetta Wiggins and Steve Thompson) reports..."The panel began with 1,300 in-custody cases, referring to those, state officials say, “in which an agent of government was involved in any way.” The cases included, but were not limited to, pedestrians struck during vehicle chases, people who took their own lives in jail and people who died of overdoses while in jail. It focused on 100 deaths that “occurred during or shortly after the decedent was physically restrained, and for which no obvious medical cause of death, such as a knife wound, was discerned during the autopsy.” In a 12-page report made public Wednesday, the experts recommended that an independent panel continue the work. Raquel Coombs, a spokeswoman for Frosh’s office, said the specific cases that will be reviewed will not be publicly identified. “This review will determine whether independent experts agree or disagree with the [Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s] determination of cause and manner of death, whether such experts believe the OCME’s determinations were based on adequate investigations, and more broadly whether changes are needed to improve the OCME’s practices so that they better serve the public interest,” the report states."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: " Roger Mitchell Jr., the former chief medical examiner in the District, who was among the health professionals who...
Thursday, October 20, 2022

Frank Gable: Oregon: Michael Francke case: False testimony coupled with significant investigative misconduct which the State does not dispute)..."The facts on appeal are extraordinary," Circuit Court Judge Jacqueline Nguyen wrote in the opinion. "Since trial, nearly all the witnesses who directly implicated Gable have recanted. Many explain they intended to frame Gable after hearing he was a police informant. They attribute their false testimony to significant investigative misconduct, which the State — remarkably — does not dispute. "As Gable's expert explained, the investigators used widely discredited polygraph and interrogation techniques as a 'psychological club' to elicit the statements against Gable. The prosecution then built their entire case on that tainted foundation."

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I am incredibly happy for my client," said Gable's attorney Nell Brown, who represented Gable alongside fel...
Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Child abuse paediatricians: "Stephanie Clifford's well-researched story, headed "When the Misdiagnosis is Child Abuse," published by The Marshall Project, in partnership with 'The Atlantic', illustrates the power of child abuse pediatric specialists and parents' unequal journey toward justice." A major opus, it's worth reading every word. (I have just carved out a short passage. HL);

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am delighted to have been invited by The International Wrongful Conviction Day Committee, to participate in a 'Z...
Tuesday, October 18, 2022

STORY: Flawed forensics. From our 'Did I read that right? ' Department: Reuter's (Reporter Hassan Kuno) reports that, flawed forensics in criminal trials are being over-looked in a push to reform expert witnesses..."The National Academy of Sciences conducted the most comprehensive review to date of forensics in the United States. It concluded in a 2009 report that many methods are routinely “introduced in criminal trials without any meaningful scientific validation, determination of error rates, or reliability testing to explain the limits of the discipline.” The study also found that “prosecutors usually have an advantage over most defendants in offering expert testimony in criminal cases,” while both sides have about equal access to experts in civil cases. “The research shows a clear divide between how courts treat scientific evidence in toxic tort cases, for example, and how they treat it in criminal cases,” said Edward Cheng, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School who served as a commentator on panels designed to aid the judiciary’s efforts to amend the expert witness rule. “Basically, they tend to be very lax about letting in forensic stuff in the criminal context, whereas they’re defendant-friendly on the tort side.” A review by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in 2016 also concluded that certain forensic fields aren't grounded in science."

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am delighted to have been invited by The International Wrongful Conviction Day Committee, to participate in a 'Z...
Monday, October 17, 2022

John Galvan; Illinois; Arson 'science.'...Question of the day...How did an episode of Mythbusters help secure his release from prison twenty-one years into a life sentence?...Senior Staff Writer James Felton provided the answer in 'IFL Science'..."One problem with Galvan's statement, which would eventually help to get his conviction overturned, was that it claimed that he had lit the Molotov cocktail with a cigarette. Years later, when Galvan was 39, he watched a re-run of an episode of Mythbustersfrom his prison cell, and saw them prove that that was pretty much impossible. The show was testing Hollywood tropes, including that throwing a cigarette into a pool of gasoline would ignite it. They concluded, after several desperate attempts to light a fire with a cigarette (even rolling it around in there), that it was a myth. In fact, though we'd really recommend just rubbing it against the ground, it is possible to put a cigarette out in gasoline if you are in one hell of a pinch.

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Galvan contacted his lawyer, who by coincidence had also seen the episode, and she investigated this aspect of his case further."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "t turned out that in 2007, a team of researchers at America's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explos...