Roman Zadarov: Israel: Haaretz reports on "The Brutal Murder Case That Continues to Haunt Israel" in light of "Shadow of Truth," an Israeli documentary filmed before “The Jinx” (the HBO miniseries about accused murderer Robert Durst) and “Making a Murderer” (Netflix’s 10-part series about the conviction of Steven Avery) were aired in the United States..." No fewer than 25 witnesses appear in the series. It starts with the representative of the prosecution, who justifies the court ruling; continues with the head of the pathological institute who casts doubt on the prosecution’s conclusions; and then Rada’s family and other characters, who all shed light, each in their own way, on this dark and complicated affair. Only one important voice is missing: that of the police."

STORY: "The Brutal Murder Case That Continues to Haunt Israel," by reporter Itay Stern,published by Haaretz on March 29, 2016.

SUB-HEADING: "The makers of documentary about 13-year-old Tair Rada's killing 10 years ago tears holes in the judicial system and questions the murder conviction of Roman Zadorov."

GIST: "In the hours that followed the broadcast of Israeli documentary series “Shadow of Truth” on Channel 8 television last Saturday, a trickle began that soon became a flood. Shocked viewers posted comments on Facebook and a festering Israeli wound had been reopened: the 2006 murder of Tair Rada and subsequent conviction of Roman Zadorov. Many posters sought solace in the Facebook discourse after watching the harsh content presented by the series – one that Mika Timor, 31, Yotam Guendelman, 30, and Ari Pines, 28, had labored over for the past three years. There were two main reasons for the level of distress: First, the creators knew how to concoct a spellbinding piece of journalism that produced more question marks than exclamation points. Thus, they prevented the viewer from reaching the desired goal of finding the guilty person and instead left them disturbed and restless. Each time the viewer thought they were about to receive the solution, another testimony emerged to contradict the previous one. Second, the documentary’s power was rooted in the testimony of A.H., which arrived in the fourth and final episode. This seemed to prove that the Israel Police engaged in especially problematic steps to defend themselves from external criticism – even if it would lead to the conviction of a potentially innocent man. This testimony, combined with an impressive cinematic aesthetic and chilling soundtrack, placed “Shadow of Truth” at the forefront of recent Israeli documentaries. No fewer than 25 witnesses appear in the series. It starts with the representative of the prosecution, who justifies the court ruling; continues with the head of the pathological institute who casts doubt on the prosecution’s conclusions; and then Rada’s family and other characters, who all shed light, each in their own way, on this dark and complicated affair. Only one important voice is missing: that of the police.........Why do you think this story has endured in the public consciousness for so long? “The fact that a girl [Rada, who was 13 and from the Golan Heights town of Katzrin] was murdered on a schoolday, within school, within a locked bathroom, is the nightmare of any parent,” says Timor. “Also, the fact that there [must be] some definitive truth. Everything here rests on stories.” Zadorov was working at the school at the time and although he was ultimately convicted of Rada’s murder, much of the evidence used to convict him has been hotly disputed. “Zadorov’s conviction created a lack of trust among the public in the legal system,” notes Pines. “You can understand it from many perspectives. The public understood that there were failures in this investigation and the [police] efforts were not exhaustive; the public felt justice had not been served. Indeed, the police declared they had found the guilty person while Zadorov was still in the school in the middle of his reenactment [of the crime].”.........“Shadow of Truth” joins the “true crime” genre that has flourished on American television recently, where filmmakers pick apart crime stories into tiny details, casting doubt on the reliability – as well as the moral and legal validity – of the legal system. However, Pines, Guendelman and Timor started work on “Shadow of Truth” before They say they drew inspiration from Errol Morris’ classic documentary movie “The Thin Blue Line” (1988), about a prisoner wrongly convicted of murdering a police officer.........“You watch this series and understand how the system works and how the police work, and what they do in order to silence any story they’re not comfortable with,” adds Pines. “There is something terrifying about that.”"

The entire story ca be found at:

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/culture/television/.premium-1.711388?v=379E5DE302194F39CF3E4E962E832AE7

See earlier Haaretz story at the link below: "Polygraph Backs Claim of Man Who Says Blood-craving’ Ex­-girlfriend Killed Schoolgirl From Golan. Court that convicted another suspect for 2006 murder of Tair Rada didn’t hear this evidence, says TV documentary."

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.711173
 
See also: Ynet story: "Another boyfriend tells Ynet: Tair Rada murder case should be reopened. In an exclusive Ynet interview, T., another former boyfriend of the woman who allegedly confessed to the murder of the 13-year-old Israeli girl a decade ago, calls for an in-depth reexamination of the allegations."

 http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4786056,00.html

See also: Haaretz: "A Hair's Breadth Away State Prosecutors Decide Not to Investigate a Possible Suspect in Murder of Tair Rada."..."After ten years, with a District Court conviction upheld by the Supreme Court and an endless stream of articles analyzing all the details, one would have expected that questions surrounding the murder of 13-year-old Tair Rada would have subsided by now. However, more questions still linger over the conviction of Roman Zadorov for the crime. Over the years, questions regarding the conduct of police and state prosecutors have only increased. The most recent one relates to DNA tests that were conducted on hairs found in the bathroom stall in which Rada was murdered. It turns out that even though three hairs found there were not the girl’s or Zadorov’s, that when the name of a possible suspect surfaced, a match between her and the hair was not investigated. The suspect is A.K., whose story was told last week in a series called “Shadow of Truth”, which aired on Channel 8. Facing the camera, her ex-partner, A.H., related that several hours after the murder, A.K. told him in detail how she had done it. Six years later he went to the police with the information. The two were questioned in 2012 but prosecutors believed that the man was incriminating A.K. due to a messy separation. DNA tests on A.K. were conducted in order to test whether there was a match with blood found under Rada’s fingernails. However, the blood was Rada’s alone. “Following a request by state prosecutors, the results of the DNA tests were re-examined,” says a document obtained by Haaretz, which was signed by Dr. Mia Freund from the Institute for Forensic Medicine. “This re-examination also failed to find a mixture of profiles, other than the genetic profile of the deceased. There is no indication of another profile that could have originated in foreign material under her nails.” The file also contains additional items that do not fit neither Zadorov’s or Rada’s genetic profiles, including three hairs that were sent for examination to the U.S. in 2007. For unknown reasons, these were not compared to A.K.’s DNA."

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.712291

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

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.

Keith Allen Harward: Virginia; Did flawed "bite-mark" testimony lead to his wrongful rape and murder conviction in 1986? Professor Brandon Garrett thinks it did - and so does the Innocence Project; The Harward case was one of nine Virginia non-exoneration rape and murder cases to which Garrett and Neufeld refer in their 2009 law review article, and the case is listed with others on the law school’s website. Concerning Kagey and Levine’s testimony, Garrett said, “There was and is no scientific research to support making such aggressive claims about bite mark evidence.” He said, “Not only are the conclusions overstated, but there’s no criteria for how you reach them.” “Even apart from making unscientific and invalid claims, the technique of bite-mark comparison is quite unreliable. We have seen case after case of exonerations where the marks were not made by the convicted person and some where they were not even human bite marks but rather insect bites or bruises,” he said. Garrett said he was not suggesting the odontologists were attempting to commit an injustice. “They were probably testifying the way they always testify,” Garrett said. Harward’s innocence petition contends, “these forensic scientists ... presented to the jury what appeared at the time to be conclusive evidence of my guilt, but modern objective scientific scrutiny has more recently shown that this evidence entirely lacks reliability.” Richmond Times-Dispatch;

STORY: ""Bite mark" testimony questioned in 1982 rape and murder case," by reporter Frank Green, published by the Richmond Times-Dispatch on March 27 2016.

GIST: In 2009, University of Virginia law professor Brandon L. Garrett was poring over old trial records, looking for questionable forensic science evidence, when he came across the case of Keith Allen Harward, convicted of rape and murder in Newport News in 1986. Now, the Innocence Project says recent DNA testing proves Harward didn’t commit the brutal 1982 crimes, casting further doubt on the validity of bite-mark comparison — a forensic technique that two experts testified strongly linked Harward to the crimes. It was their testimony that drew Garrett’s attention and concern in 2009. At the time, he was researching a law review article, “Invalid Forensic Science Testimony and Wrongful Convictions,” when he began looking into non-innocence cases as well. “Sure enough, I found forensic testimony that had all the same problems that I saw in the innocent people’s cases ... and I found two bite-mark cases by accident, one of which was Harward,” he said. Reached by telephone at his Roanoke-area home last week, Dr. Alvin G. Kagey, one of the bite-mark experts called forensic odontologists who testified in Harward’s trial, said it is possible Harward is innocent, but he stands by his work in the case. “In my opinion, this was a very unique situation. At that time, bite-mark analysis was new, relatively, and there was a lot of publicity about it in the Tidewater area, and I think that people were taking it and adding maybe some of their own twists to it — not that they changed what we said — but their interpretation made it sound like this was set in concrete and it’s just not,” Kagey said. According to Kagey, “I never say about a bite mark, ‘He or she is the only person that could have done this.’” Garrett, after reviewing the trial transcript, is not persuaded the bite-mark testimony was valid and said that when he learned a petition for a writ of actual innocence was filed by Harward earlier this month, “It was really, really, really disturbing to think you can just come across innocent people’s cases by accident like that.” Harward, 59, has not been exonerated. Lawyers with the Innocence Project and the Washington law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP filed the innocence petition on March 4......... Proceedings have been stayed by the Virginia Supreme Court so that more DNA test results — said by Harward’s lawyers to further support innocence — can be submitted to the court.........The Harward case was one of nine Virginia non-exoneration rape and murder cases to which Garrett and Neufeld refer in their 2009 law review article, and the case is listed with others on the law school’s website. Concerning Kagey and Levine’s testimony, Garrett said, “There was and is no scientific research to support making such aggressive claims about bite mark evidence.” He said, “Not only are the conclusions overstated, but there’s no criteria for how you reach them.” “Even apart from making unscientific and invalid claims, the technique of bite-mark comparison is quite unreliable. We have seen case after case of exonerations where the marks were not made by the convicted person and some where they were not even human bite marks but rather insect bites or bruises,” he said. Garrett said he was not suggesting the odontologists were attempting to commit an injustice. “They were probably testifying the way they always testify,” Garrett said. Harward’s innocence petition contends, “these forensic scientists ... presented to the jury what appeared at the time to be conclusive evidence of my guilt, but modern objective scientific scrutiny has more recently shown that this evidence entirely lacks reliability.”"

The entire story can be found at:

http://m.richmond.com/news/article_66b9e47f-a917-5413-b7dc-ff5f8b432764.html?mode=jqm

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

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.
 

Bulletin: Daniel Dougherty: Philadelphia; On-going arson/murder retrial: Philadelphia Inquirer reports the jury is still out; (Returning back to court on Monday); "The judge told the jury that all questions must be made in writing, to him, then sent the panel back to its deliberations. Less than an hour later, jurors had a question: Could they have a definition of reasonable doubt? The judge told them, that's a doubt that would cause a reasonable, careful person to hesitate before acting in an important matter." Reporter Jeff Gammage;

"Sixteen years ago, a jury took less than three hours to convict Daniel Dougherty of murdering his two young sons by setting the family home on fire. A new jury, now hearing his retrial, has deliberated for a day and a half - and returns to continue its discussions on Monday.........The judge told the jury that all questions must be made in writing, to him, then sent the panel back to its deliberations. Less than an hour later, jurors had a question: Could they have a definition of reasonable doubt? The judge told them, that's a doubt that would cause a reasonable, careful person to hesitate before acting in an important matter. Earlier in the day, the jury asked to see, and was given, photos of the burned living- and dining-rooms of the Oxford Circle rowhouse. Dougherty, 56, has spent the last 16 years in prison, convicted and sentenced to death in 2000 for killing 3-year-old John and 4-year-old Daniel Jr. in the 1985 fire."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160402_Jury_still_out_in_arson_murder_retrial.h

Commentary: Politics and medical decisions: Obstetrician/gynecologist Katherine McGugh; Indiana’s new abortion law won’t save babies. It will only make my patients suffer. Lawmakers have no place in an obstetrician's exam room. "As a mother as well as a doctor, I am acutely aware of the intensity and fear of the unknown inherent in pregnancy and childbirth. Indiana now expects women who live here to experience them without trusting their doctors’ knowledge and with strict limits on how doctors may treat patients — limits driven not by science or research, but by politics."..."Preventing women with these fetal diagnoses from choosing abortion forces them to watch their children die a slow, painful, premature death. My colleagues and I are already asking one another whether we should even offer prenatal screening now that there’s no legal choice to end a pregnancy because of the results."..." The relationship between a pregnant woman and her doctor requires both trust and privacy. There is no room for legislators in the exam room, and there is no space for politics in medical decisions." Washington Post. (Must, Must Read.HL);

COMMENTARY: "Indiana’s new abortion law won’t save babies. It will only make my patients suffer,"  by Katherine McHugh, published by the Washington Post  on April 1, 2016. (Katherine McHugh is an obstetrician/gynecologist in Indianapolis.)

SUB-HEADING: "Lawmakers have no place in an obstetrician's exam room."

GIST: "A new Indiana law forbids doctors from providing abortions for women whose babies have genetic abnormalities. (iStock) Even after years of education, training and experience as an obstetrician/gynecologist, I am never prepared to deliver the news that a pregnancy is abnormal. There is no good way to tell a pregnant woman — a woman who may already be wearing maternity clothes, thinking about names and decorating the nursery — that we have identified a fetal anomaly that can lead to significant, lifelong disability or even her baby’s death. In such situations, physicians have two responsibilities. First, we must always be supportive of the mother or family who has suddenly been confronted with the loss of an imagined ideal pregnancy and child. And second, we help them understand that they have options, one of which is the termination of the pregnancy. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case in Indiana, where a new law signed by Gov. Mike Pence (R) punishes doctors if they perform abortions for women because of their fetus’s race or sex, or after a diagnosis of disability. Indiana’s state government is intruding on the doctor-patient relationship at one of its most vulnerable, sensitive times. Which means that not only does the new law encroach on women’s rights to control their own reproduction, it is also bad medicine. As a mother as well as a doctor, I am acutely aware of the intensity and fear of the unknown inherent in pregnancy and childbirth. Indiana now expects women who live here to experience them without trusting their doctors’ knowledge and with strict limits on how doctors may treat patients — limits driven not by science or research, but by politics......... In the United States, abortion is an ethical, safe, appropriate and — with the exception of North Dakota and Indiana — legal medical option in the case of severe anomalies, one that spares women the emotional pain of stillbirth or the loss of an infant. That loss is dismissed and diminished by this law and by those who support it; the law doesn’t save babies, it just forces a horrific fate onto both mother and child. It includes an exception only for termination of babies who would die within three months of being born, as if three months is enough time to justify forcing all women to take on the risks of carrying a pregnancy to term and delivering a baby, only to watch it die. And that exception would still require women to carry to term pregnancies with some severe and disastrous genetic abnormalities, all of which I’ve seen in women who chose to have abortions rather than deliver babies who suffer from them.......... Preventing women with these fetal diagnoses from choosing abortion forces them to watch their children die a slow, painful, premature death. My colleagues and I are already asking one another whether we should even offer prenatal screening now that there’s no legal choice to end a pregnancy because of the results......... Some women may still be able to find a physician who can provide them with the abortion care that they need, but through what channels? Instead of mourning a much-loved baby, a woman in Indiana will either have to lie to her provider and say she never wanted to be pregnant, leaving out the critical medical information that actually prompted her decision, or her provider will have to agree to terminate her pregnancy without asking why, which is terrible care. Those women who can afford it could travel out of state, away from their support systems, at great expense and additional stress. All of these options are inhumane treatment of a grieving mother. The relationship between a pregnant woman and her doctor requires both trust and privacy. There is no room for legislators in the exam room, and there is no space for politics in medical decisions. I provide advice based on scientific evidence and clinical experience so that patients may make educated decisions for themselves. This is impossible if I am legally required to withhold appropriate treatment for a medical condition.
Women want what’s best for their families during this precious and precarious time. I became an OB/GYN because I love celebrating the birth of a baby and honoring the new life in the world. Instead, this law forces me to ignore my medical training and stand idly by while my patients suffer. This is not the care I want to provide, nor is it what my patients deserve."

The entire commentary can be found at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/04/01/indianas-new-abortion-law-wont-save-babies-it-will-only-make-my-patients-suffer/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_everything

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

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.

Bulletin: Jack McCullough; Illinois: Although the State's Attorney says the investigation and prosecution against him was flawed, earlier today a judge refused to order the man’s release from prison until legal proceedings play out. "The murder case made headlines nationwide in the days after Ridulph was abducted while playing in the snow near her house on Dec. 3, 1957. When it went to trial four years ago, it was one of the oldest unsolved cases to have ever gone to trial. Thursday’s filing pointed to a childhood friend of Ridulph’s who purportedly identified McCullough as the killer five decades later from an array of six photographs as the man who played with Ridulph before she vanished. McCullough’s picture stood out, including because everyone but him was wearing a suitcoat, the filing said. “To use this sort of evidence at a criminal trial in the United States of America shocks the conscience,” the filing by his newly appointed attorneys says."

PHOTO CAPTION: "In this March 29, 2016 file photo, Jack McCullough, 76, appears in court for a hearing on his petition for post-conviction relief at the DeKalb County Courthouse in Sycamore, Ill. McCullough was convicted in 2012 for the 1957 slaying of Maria Ridulph, of Sycamore. But State’s Attorney Richard Schmack said that the investigation and prosecution was flawed. "... "A northern Illinois judge said he has anguished over allegations that a former Washington state security guard was wrongly convicted in the 1957 slaying of a 7-year-old girl, but he refused Friday to order the man’s release from prison until legal proceedings play out. Newly appointed attorneys for Jack McCullough, 76, filed the request the day before, citing a scathing report from the local prosecutor that concluded old files and some new evidence demonstrated McCullough couldn’t possibly have killed Maria Ridulph. McCullough was cleared in the 1950s by investigators in the death of his neighbor. But he was convicted in 2012 after investigators reopened the case based on evidence including the deathbed comment by McCullough’s mother that she thought her son had killed the girl. The murder case made headlines nationwide in the days after Ridulph was abducted while playing in the snow near her house on Dec. 3, 1957. When it went to trial four years ago, it was one of the oldest unsolved cases to have ever gone to trial. Thursday’s filing pointed to a childhood friend of Ridulph’s who purportedly identified McCullough as the killer five decades later from an array of six photographs as the man who played with Ridulph before she vanished. McCullough’s picture stood out, including because everyone but him was wearing a suitcoat, the filing said. “To use this sort of evidence at a criminal trial in the United States of America shocks the conscience,” the filing by his newly appointed attorneys says."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/attorneys-want-man-convicted-in-girls-1957-killing-set-free/2016/03/31/4df17dc4-f7a9-11e5-958d-d038dac6e718_story.html

See earlier post of this Blog at the link below; Jack McCullough: Illinois; The passage of time, evidence, and prosecutor Richard Schmack's "difficult and unpopular" decision: The Mimesis Law  Blog - a brilliant criminal justice Blog with very fine posters - presents 'Richard Schmack  and the Maria Ridulph Case: When A Prosecutor Gets It."..." "On a snowy night in 1957, Maria Ridulph disappeared from a street near her house in the small town of Sycamore, Illinois. Her body was found a few months later. Over the next half-century, the case would travel from unsolved mystery to the oldest cold case conviction in the country to the epitome of a wrongful conviction. Jack McCullough was ultimately convicted of Ridolph’s murder. In a hearing scheduled for today (March 31, 2016), a judge is expected to overturn that conviction. The journey from that snowy night to this hearing has involved about every issue in the criminal justice system, from “noble cause corruption” to suggestive identification. But the most important issue in the case has been the behavior of DeKalb County State’s Attorney Richard Schmack. The hysteria of a high-profile criminal case and public sentiment against the defendant is enough to make an elected prosecutor run for the hills. Had Schmack done that, McCullough would have likely served the rest of his life sentence and no one would have been the wiser. Instead, Schmack put the ethics of being a prosecutor ahead of the politics of prosecuting and scored a win for the criminal justice system." (Must, Must Read HL); 
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=120008354894645705#editor/target=post;postID=2206382755691267879;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=17;src=link

See CNN story,  video and link to appeal: "Nostalgia" and flimsy evidence led to guilty verdicts in the nation's oldest cold case ever solved, according to the man serving a life sentence for kidnapping and murdering a neighbor's child in 1957. In his 80-page appeal, former police officer Jack Daniel McCullough says he deserves a new trial because his mother was allowed to accuse him from the grave -- while he was kept from proving that he was elsewhere when a 7-year-old girl was abducted and killed. The appellate brief, filed Thursday by the Illinois state appellate defender, noted that nobody saw who grabbed Maria Ridulph from a street corner in Sycamore, Illinois, or witnessed how or where she was killed. No forensic evidence ties McCullough -- or anyone else -- to a crime so shocking it captured the attention of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the appeal states. Instead, the court papers say, prosecutors built their case on unreliable evidence, including inmate witnesses whose motives were suspect and others whose memories were dulled by the passage of time: "The evidence against Jack McCullough," the appeal contended, "was so unreasonable, so improbable, and so unsatisfactory as to create a reasonable doubt that he was responsible for a 1957 murder, kidnapping, and abduction of an infant." That evidence included "personal memories of what occurred 55 years ago; a photo identification made 53 years after the incident; testimony from jailhouse informants; innocuous statements from the defendant; and an improperly admitted and inconclusive statement from the defendant's mother while on morphine and Haldol just before her death." The appeal cited many of the issues raised by legal experts who spoke with CNN for "Taken: The coldest case ever solved," a five-part multimedia series published in August. The series was the basis for an hour-long documentary that aired on HLN. Read the appeal (PDF) McCullough was convicted in September 2012 of kidnapping and murdering Maria Ridulph 55 years earlier. The brown-eyed second-grader vanished from the corner of Sycamore's Archie Place and Center Cross Street on the evening of December 3, 1957. Her body was found the following spring in a grove of trees off a busy state highway about 120 miles away. The crime, which shook the small farming community to its core, is believed to be the country's oldest cold case ever prosecuted. Now 74, McCullough is serving a life sentence at a state prison in Pontiac, Illinois. He denied committing the crime in several letters to CNN and in a jailhouse interview last year. He also denied having anything to do with Maria's disappearance and death in a lengthy police interrogation in Seattle hours before his arrest. Prosecutors and investigators said his odd demeanor during questioning convinced them they had the right man. The DeKalb County State's Attorney, which prosecuted McCullough, declined comment and referred calls to the Illinois state appellate prosecutor, which also declined to comment on a pending case. A court clerk said both sides should finish filing their briefs by late June and arguments could be scheduled by summer."

 http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/21/justice/oldest-cold-case-appeal/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

See Wrongful Convictions Blog post: "We reported on this case two years ago. In September, 2012, Jack McCullough was convicted of a murder committed in 1957.  The conviction was based largely upon an eyewitness identification made 53 years after the crime by a woman who was 8 years old at the time of the crime. Please see: Defendant in Coldest Case Ever “Solved” Appeals His Conviction. The wrongful conviction litany just repeats and repeats. In this case it includes a false eyewitness identification, a false deathbed accusation, and (surprise) exculpatory evidence withheld from the defense."
 http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2016/03/25/illinois-prosecutor-says-man-convicted-in-oldest-cold-case-is-innocent/

Criminalizing American women: (Reference Donald Trump and the Republican Party. HL); Chilling commentary by Jill Filipovic in Time Magazine on the door that Donald Trump and the republican party want to open: "Jail abortion providers and you are jailing women and the people who love them. It’s also worth noting that when you make abortion illegal, any death of a fetus or embryo becomes suspect. Just as the death of an infant may lead doctors and law enforcement to suspect child abuse and engage in an investigation, so, too, would miscarriages have to cue scrutiny into the woman’s actions." (Publisher's Note: Saudi Arabia has its 'religion; police. If Trump and the zzRepublican Party have its way, the USA would have its 'abortion' police. HL) Filipovic also points out the list of countries that currently criminalize women for abortion which the USA would join: "If a woman takes drugs and has a miscarriage or her child dies soon after birth, she faces jail time in many parts of the U.S. Do we really believe that a woman who pays someone to end her pregnancy won’t be treated the same way? When you make something illegal, it comes with penalties—this is how criminal law works. It’s certainly how it works in El Salvador, where women are in jail, some for having miscarriages the state believes were abortions. It’s how it works in Rwanda, where rape survivors sit in prison for ending their pregnancies. It’s how it works in Ecuador, Malaysia, Mexico, Bolivia, the Philippines—the list of where ending a pregnancy can land you behind bars goes on." (Must, Must Read. HL);

 

COMMENTARY: "Donald Trump’s Abortion Logic Is Totally 100% Right" by  lawyer and writer  Jill Filipovic, published by Time Magazine on March 31, 2016.

SUB-HEADING: "If abortion is murder, then women who have them are criminals—right?"

GIST: "The success of Donald Trump stems from one major factor: the perception that he tells it like it is because he’s beholden to no one. Whether Trump actually does tell the truth is a different question—one more often answered in the negative—but Wednesday, he did something rare for a Republican politician: he told the truth, saying that if abortion were illegal, women should be punished. (He later walked back his comments)........The argument that women would not or should not go to jail for abortion is absurd when one notes that there are women in the United States who have, in fact, gone to jail for abortion; some are sitting in jail right now. Jennifer Whalen, a mother in Pennsylvania, was prosecuted for getting abortion-inducing drugs for her daughter. Purvi Patel is currently sitting in an Indiana prison for allegedly self-inducing her own abortion. And it’s not just abortion. Prosecutors have charged dozens of women with serious crimes including drug trafficking and murder for using drugs while pregnant. When South Carolina passed a law in 1997 qualifying fetuses as persons and harm to them as child abuse, the Attorney General’s Office announced it would prosecute women who had post-viability abortions for any reason, and that it would charge them with murder and potentially seek the death penalty. If a woman takes drugs and has a miscarriage or her child dies soon after birth, she faces jail time in many parts of the U.S. Do we really believe that a woman who pays someone to end her pregnancy won’t be treated the same way? When you make something illegal, it comes with penalties—this is how criminal law works. It’s certainly how it works in El Salvador, where women are in jail, some for having miscarriages the state believes were abortions. It’s how it works in Rwanda, where rape survivors sit in prison for ending their pregnancies. It’s how it works in Ecuador, Malaysia, Mexico, Bolivia, the Philippines—the list of where ending a pregnancy can land you behind bars goes on. ........American anti-abortion advocates say they would target abortion providers instead of women, because it’s apparently more acceptable to throw doctors in prison for providing care that saves women’s lives every single day. Even if you think that sounds OK, it belies an ignorance of how illegal abortion often works. Trained clinicians able to provide safe and legal abortions, like we have at women’s health clinics across America, are luxuries unimaginable to many women worldwide. Today, in places where abortion is outlawed, there are still some illicit providers who offer surgical abortions. But more often there’s no trained doctor at all: There’s a sister, a mother, a friend, a classmate, a friendly pharmacist, who helps to get misoprostol or other abortion-inducing pills into the hands of a pregnant woman. When these pills are legit and the woman adheres to protocols for misoprostol use approved by the World Health Organization, these clandestine abortions are often very safe and effective, which is why far fewer women die of unsafe abortions today than they did two decades ago. Other times, though, there’s the woman who throws herself down the stairs, or asks her boyfriend to punch her in the stomach, or takes a tincture or tea her auntie says will make her period come, or inserts a stick or a knitting needle or a fireplace poker into her vagina. In other words, it's often the woman herself who is the abortion provider. When it’s not her, it’s often her friends and her family and her loved ones. Jail abortion providers and you are jailing women and the people who love them. It’s also worth noting that when you make abortion illegal, any death of a fetus or embryo becomes suspect. Just as the death of an infant may lead doctors and law enforcement to suspect child abuse and engage in an investigation, so, too, would miscarriages have to cue scrutiny into the woman’s actions. Anti-abortion activists are also not satisfied to simply outlaw abortion; they want to enshrine into law that personhood exists at the moment of fertilization (they’ve tried to pass such laws in a handful of states, and they’ve failed miserably). That certainly fits with their narrative that life not only begins at conception, but that a fertilized egg is a human being deserving of life and respect and legal protection. It’s an ideologically tidy argument, but it gets messy when confronted with real life. Most fertilized eggs never make it to birth. About half never implant in the uterine wall and are naturally flushed out of a woman’s body, which is why actual medical doctors define pregnancy at the point of implantation, not fertilization. Others do implant, but are lost in early miscarriages, many of which go unnoticed. Still others implant outside of the uterus, often in the fallopian tubes, where they can never grow into a baby but can rupture and kill the woman carrying them. And others develop further, turning into fetuses that are lost in later miscarriages. Establish personhood at the moment of fertilization, and you’ve got an astronomical death rate on your hands.

This, too, points to a fundamental inconsistency in the mainstream anti-abortion view: If a fertilized egg really is a human being, imbued with as much of a right to life as you or I, where are the efforts to curb such a high death rate? Why the focus on abortion, which ends the lives of far fewer embryos and fetuses than Mother Nature herself? American anti-abortion advocates say they would target abortion providers instead of women, because it’s apparently more acceptable to throw doctors in prison for providing care that saves women’s lives every single day. Even if you think that sounds OK, it belies an ignorance of how illegal abortion often works. Trained clinicians able to provide safe and legal abortions, like we have at women’s health clinics across America, are luxuries unimaginable to many women worldwide. Today, in places where abortion is outlawed, there are still some illicit providers who offer surgical abortions. But more often there’s no trained doctor at all: There’s a sister, a mother, a friend, a classmate, a friendly pharmacist, who helps to get misoprostol or other abortion-inducing pills into the hands of a pregnant woman. When these pills are legit and the woman adheres to protocols for misoprostol use approved by the World Health Organization, these clandestine abortions are often very safe and effective, which is why far fewer women die of unsafe abortions today than they did two decades ago. Other times, though, there’s the woman who throws herself down the stairs, or asks her boyfriend to punch her in the stomach, or takes a tincture or tea her auntie says will make her period come, or inserts a stick or a knitting needle or a fireplace poker into her vagina. In other words, it’s often the woman herself who is the abortion provider. When it’s not her, it’s often her friends and her family and her loved ones. Jail abortion providers and you are jailing women and the people who love them. It’s also worth noting that when you make abortion illegal, any death of a fetus or embryo becomes suspect. Just as the death of an infant may lead doctors and law enforcement to suspect child abuse and engage in an investigation, so, too, would miscarriages have to cue scrutiny into the woman’s actions. Anti-abortion activists are also not satisfied to simply outlaw abortion; they want to enshrine into law that personhood exists at the moment of fertilization (they’ve tried to pass such laws in a handful of states, and they’ve failed miserably). That certainly fits with their narrative that life not only begins at conception, but that a fertilized egg is a human being deserving of life and respect and legal protection. It’s an ideologically tidy argument, but it gets messy when confronted with real life. Most fertilized eggs never make it to birth. About half never implant in the uterine wall and are naturally flushed out of a woman’s body, which is why actual medical doctors define pregnancy at the point of implantation, not fertilization. Others do implant, but are lost in early miscarriages, many of which go unnoticed. Still others implant outside of the uterus, often in the fallopian tubes, where they can never grow into a baby but can rupture and kill the woman carrying them. And others develop further, turning into fetuses that are lost in later miscarriages. Establish personhood at the moment of fertilization, and you’ve got an astronomical death rate on your hands. This, too, points to a fundamental inconsistency in the mainstream anti-abortion view: If a fertilized egg really is a human being, imbued with as much of a right to life as you or I, where are the efforts to curb such a high death rate? Why the focus on abortion, which ends the lives of far fewer embryos and fetuses than Mother Nature herself?.........If anti-abortion advocates sincerely believe abortion is murder, they should also say that women have to be punished for it. If a fetus is the same as a 5-year-old, then a woman who ends a pregnancy should be just as guilty of murder as a woman who pays a hit man to kill her kindergartener. Claiming ignorance that murder was murder wouldn’t work. It’s an ugly thought, and it’s electorally and socially unpopular, and that’s why some of them don’t say it out loud; others realize that while they may find abortion morally wrong, they don’t in their heart of hearts believe removing an embryo from a woman’s body is the same as slaughtering a 5-year-old. But start making those kinds of distinctions and the whole case against abortion falls apart. The outrageous thing isn’t Donald Trump’s original comment. It’s that so few in the mainstream political establishment have bothered to interrogate the reality of the anti-abortion position and its stranglehold on Republican Party policies. When you do, you see that punishing women for making their own reproductive choices isn’t a defective, offensive answer. It’s the entire plan."

The entire commentary can be found at: 

http://time.com/4278462/donald-trump-abortion-filipovic/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

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.

Rodney Lincoln: Texas: His case - marred by "tenuous" evidence - a shaky hair analysis, a smattering of other physical evidence and little else. Except, that is, for the testimony of Tate’s eight-year-old daughter, Melissa Davis, who survived the attack (repudiated decades later) - is one of several cases referred to in a fascinating article on how the death penalty may keep innocent people in prison. " Despite DNA tests on the hair evidence that found no match to Lincoln, Lincoln remains in prison. But 33 years later, Davis (not her present name) no longer believes that Lincoln was the man who killed her mother. After watching a true crime show about her case, Davis realized that convicted serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells was the real killer. Tommy Lynn Sells was one of the most notorious, and lethal, serial killers in U.S. history. He is believed to have murdered scores of people, and has personally claimed responsibility for as many as 70 killings across the country, including a family of four only 80 miles from the Tate/Davis home. Details from the gruesome crime scene are eerily similar to those found in other killings committed by Sells. If Davis is right, Lincoln has spent 33 years in jail for a murder committed by a convicted serial killer. Clarity might have been obtained simply by questioning Sells about the incident. Indeed, Sells confessed to numerous killings from his death row cell, helping clear up several cold cases. But that option is no longer available because Sells was executed by the State of Texas in 2014. Lincoln remains in prison."...Scott and Carpenter’s cases, like Lincoln’s, remind us of yet another reason why executing convicted criminals is costly. For the wrongly convicted, the search for truth is never-ending, and sometimes the answers lie in the hearts and minds of convicted, and indisputably guilty, criminals. If we execute those with the darkest secrets, we make it that much harder for the innocent to find the light." (Must, Must Read, HL);

STORY: "How the death penalty may keep innocent people in prison,"  by law Professor Russell Dean Covey, Georgia State University,   published by 'The Conversation'  on March 24 2016.

GIST: "Utah’s conservative state Senate recently voted to abolish the death penalty. The action reflects a growing bipartisan recognition of the documented flaws of the death penalty, including its high cost, decades-long appeals and faulty lethal injection protocols. To get the measure through the Republican-led House, Utah legislators might point to another reason to abolish capital punishment, one counterintuitively illustrated in the recent executions of a Texas serial killer and an Oklahoma gangbanger: state executions of the guilty sometimes impede exoneration of the innocent. A case in Texas:  Rodney Lincoln was convicted in 1982 of murdering JoAnn Tate and violently assaulting her two young daughters. The crime scene was bloody and brutal, but the evidence against Lincoln was tenuous. There was a shaky hair analysis, a smattering of other physical evidence and little else. Except, that is, for the testimony of Tate’s eight-year-old daughter, Melissa Davis, who survived the attack. Davis picked Lincoln out of a lineup and identified him as the murderer at trial. Largely on the strength of that single identification, Lincoln was convicted and sentenced to two life terms. Despite DNA tests on the hair evidence that found no match to Lincoln, Lincoln remains in prison. But 33 years later, Davis (not her present name) no longer believes that Lincoln was the man who killed her mother. After watching a true crime show about her case, Davis realized that convicted serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells was the real killer. Tommy Lynn Sells was one of the most notorious, and lethal, serial killers in U.S. history. He is believed to have murdered scores of people, and has personally claimed responsibility for as many as 70 killings across the country, including a family of four only 80 miles from the Tate/Davis home. Details from the gruesome crime scene are eerily similar to those found in other killings committed by Sells. If Davis is right, Lincoln has spent 33 years in jail for a murder committed by a convicted serial killer. Clarity might have been obtained simply by questioning Sells about the incident. Indeed, Sells confessed to numerous killings from his death row cell, helping clear up several cold cases. But that option is no longer available because Sells was executed by the State of Texas in 2014. Lincoln remains in prison..........For the wrongly convicted, the search for truth is never-ending, and sometimes the answers lie in the hearts and minds of convicted, and indisputably guilty, criminals. If we execute those with the darkest secrets, we make it that much harder for the innocent to find the light."

The entire commentary can be found at: 

 https://theconversation.com/how-the-death-penalty-may-keep-innocent-people-in-prison-55602

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

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.