Books: "The Cadaver king and the country dentist: A true story of injustice in the American south: and "The sun does shine: How I found life and freedom on death row," by Anthony Ray Hinton; Jonathan Miles reviews run under the heading:"Trials and Errors – Two powerful new books find the justice system guilty." Garden and Gun..." "The phrase “Southern justice” carries enough cultural stink to appear in lists of oxymorons, right alongside “authentic replica” and “jumbo shrimp.” Open to debate, perhaps, is whether this reputation is currently and not just historically warranted—that is to say, whether certain perversions in the justice system remain peculiarly Southern, either by code or custom. Two new books—one a memoir by a man wrongfully imprisoned on Alabama’s death row, and the other a blistering exposé of Mississippi’s bungle-prone process of investigating deaths—don’t explicitly map this distinction, but, taken together, they lay bare the amount of injustice baked into the South’s justice system."..." Enter Steven Hayne, the “Cadaver King” of the title, who began performing autopsies there around 1986—lots of them, as many as 80 percent of the state’s—and for more than twenty years was the go-to guy for prosecutors, his analyses molding almost perfectly to their arguments. Along with his sidekick Michael West, a small- town dentist and self-styled bite mark expert, Hayne made a lucrative living examining corpses and testifying in trials as an expert witness. Except the testimony Hayne and West provided was far from expert. It was at times sloppy, prejudicial, and/or downright misleading. Ask Kennedy Brewer, who was sentenced to death in 1995 for the rape and murder of his girlfriend’s three-year-old daughter. Or Levon Brooks, sentenced to life in prison in 1992 for the murder of another three-year-old girl. (Both were freed, years later, after DNA evidence identified the man who killed the girls.) Balko and Carrington—a journalist and an attorney, respectively—enact their own prosecution in this book, convincingly and devastatingly, yet Hayne and West emerge almost as secondary villains. The system they exploited—and the legislators who turned a blind eye to its deficiencies—are due the fiercest scorn."..." It’s impossible not to shed a tear—or really a flood of them—when the U.S. Supreme Court vacates Hinton’s conviction, or when on his first night of freedom he sleeps on a bathroom floor because the hard surface and tiny room are what he’d become accustomed to. Yet it should also be impossible to finish this book without a head full of rage for all Hinton had to endure, and for all he lost. Kennedy Brewer, exonerated in 2008, summed it up this way: “The system’s gonna do what the system’s gonna do.” But no one, after reading these two books, can dare call that justice."

STORY: "Trials and Errors...Two powerful new books find the justice system guilty," by Jonathan Miles published by 'Garden and Gun',  February/March, 2018..." Garden & Gun is a magazine about the sporting culture, food, music, art, and travel of the Southern United States. It was created by Pierre Manigault and John Wilson in 2004 and launched in 2007 with publisher Rebecca Darwin (former publisher of The New Yorker and Mirabella) as part of the Evening Post Publishing Company.^[1][2] The magazine won three ADDY Awards and eight Magazine Association of the Southeast GAMMA awards in its first year, while being named the nation’s second-hottest magazine launch in 2007 by MIN Magazine.^[3]..."Jonathan Miles (born January 28, 1971) is an American journalist and novelist. His debut novel, Dear American Airlines, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2008. The novel, written in the form of a complaint letter to the titular airline, was reviewed by Richard Russo in The New York Times Book Review.^[1] His second novel, Want Not, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2013.

GIST: "The phrase “Southern justice” carries enough cultural stink to appear in lists of oxymorons, right alongside “authentic replica” and “jumbo shrimp.” Open to debate, perhaps, is whether this reputation is currently and not just historically warranted—that is to say, whether certain perversions in the justice system remain peculiarly Southern, either by code or custom. Two new books—one a memoir by a man wrongfully imprisoned on Alabama’s death row, and the other a blistering exposé of Mississippi’s bungle-prone process of investigating deaths—don’t explicitly map this distinction, but, taken together, they lay bare the amount of injustice baked into the South’s justice system. Mississippi’s problem began, as do most murder mysteries, with dead bodies. As Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington report in The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South, for most of its history the state left the forensic analysis of corpses in the hands of elected county coroners, with scarce oversight. This proved ideologically convenient, up through the civil rights era (witness the official cause of death for civil rights worker Michael Schwerner, shot and killed in 1964: “unknown”), but became ineffectual as coroners farmed out the work to private pathologists. Enter Steven Hayne, the “Cadaver King” of the title, who began performing autopsies there around 1986—lots of them, as many as 80 percent of the state’s—and for more than twenty years was the go-to guy for prosecutors, his analyses molding almost perfectly to their arguments. Along with his sidekick Michael West, a small- town dentist and self-styled bite mark expert, Hayne made a lucrative living examining corpses and testifying in trials as an expert witness. Except the testimony Hayne and West provided was far from expert. It was at times sloppy, prejudicial, and/or downright misleading. Ask Kennedy Brewer, who was sentenced to death in 1995 for the rape and murder of his girlfriend’s three-year-old daughter. Or Levon Brooks, sentenced to life in prison in 1992 for the murder of another three-year-old girl. (Both were freed, years later, after DNA evidence identified the man who killed the girls.) Balko and Carrington—a journalist and an attorney, respectively—enact their own prosecution in this book, convincingly and devastatingly, yet Hayne and West emerge almost as secondary villains. The system they exploited—and the legislators who turned a blind eye to its deficiencies—are due the fiercest scorn. And owed the swiftest reevaluation: the countless people who still languish in Mississippi prisons based upon Hayne’s and West’s testimony, some of whom may well be innocent. Anthony Ray Hinton can tell you exactly how they feel, and does, with spectacular grace, in The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row. Hinton was a twenty-nine-year-old warehouse worker when he was charged with the 1985 murders of two Birmingham restaurant managers. He was poor, he was black, he’d had some minor scrapes with the law, and his public defender botched his defense. Though patently innocent, Hinton was sentenced to die in the electric chair. The Sun Does Shine recounts his three decades on death row: his grueling legal struggles, the way the stench of burning flesh drifted in as fellow inmates were executed. But also, unexpectedly, the way Hinton used his imagination to survive, the way elaborate day dreams—one involving the Queen of England—kept him sane. The Sun Does Shine is as moving and inspiring as memoirs get. It’s impossible not to shed a tear—or really a flood of them—when the U.S. Supreme Court vacates Hinton’s conviction, or when on his first night of freedom he sleeps on a bathroom floor because the hard surface and tiny room are what he’d become accustomed to. Yet it should also be impossible to finish this book without a head full of rage for all Hinton had to endure, and for all he lost. Kennedy Brewer, exonerated in 2008, summed it up this way: “The system’s gonna do what the system’s gonna do.” But no one, after reading these two books, can dare call that justice."

The entire story can be found at:http://gardenandgun.com/articles/trials-and-errors
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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."

Domonic Faulkner: Baltimore, Maryland; Fascinating anatomy of a confession: What happened during the 51 minutes when the tape recording was turned off? A very good question: Fascinating anatomy of a 'confession' by reporter Justin Fenton, published by The Baltimore Sun..."Detectives Luis Delgado and Robert Heath now sensed Faulkner had been involved in Womack’s death — and was ready to come clean. They turned the tape recorder off.What happened over the next 51 minutes is in dispute. But when the tape recorder came back on, Faulkner was delivering a full and detailed confession to killing Womack. What detectives didn’t know at the time was that Faulkner’s IQ had been measured at 62, placing him in the lowest 1 percent of the population. A psychologist who interviewed Faulkner found him to be “highly suggestible,” and determined he was “at risk to making a coerced compliant false confession/incriminating statement.” Faulkner, then 23, would soon say that he had simply told police what he thought they wanted to hear. But it was too late: He was charged with murder. He pleaded not guilty. “There’s not a scintilla of evidence other than his confession,” said Brian Thompson, Faulkner’s attorney."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "While Faulkner was being questioned, police were holding his then-girlfriend, Tre’Arra Spratley, in another room. She was eight months pregnant with their child. On tape, Spratley seemed at times to have difficulty understanding the questions being asked. But she was adamant that Faulkner was with her in bed at her apartment when the shooting occurred. Detectives informed Spratley that Faulkner had confessed to the killing, and had placed her at the scene with him. “Why would he identify that picture and say that’s him?” Det. Martin Young asked. “Because he’s retarded himself,” Spratley said. “He what?” Young said. “He’s retarded,” she said. “Yes he is.” There was a pause. “What you mean?” Young asked. “Y’all didn’t know about his symptoms?” Faulkner’s attorneys say they were not given that tape."

STORY: "A Baltimore man told police he killed a close friend. But did he do it?," by reporter Justin Fenton, published on January 3, 2018.

PHOTO CAPTION: "Domonic Faulkner talks about being charged in the killing 22-year-old David Womack. A psychologist who later interviewed Faulkner found him to be “highly suggestible,” and determined Faulkner was “at risk to making a coerced compliant false confession/incriminating statement.”

GIST: Domonic Faulkner had just finished telling Baltimore homicide detectives about the last time he had seen his friend alive. Now David Womack was dead. The 22-year-old Baltimore man had been found in a crashed car with a single gunshot wound. And Faulkner, who had been with Womack hours before the shooting, was in the Western District police station, answering questions about that night. The investigators slid a blurry surveillance image from the crime scene in front of him. The people in the photo were unknown to the detectives. But as Faulkner looked at the image, police said, his eyes began to water. Detectives Luis Delgado and Robert Heath now sensed Faulkner had been involved in Womack’s death — and was ready to come clean.They turned the tape recorder off.What happened over the next 51 minutes is in dispute. But when the tape recorder came back on, Faulkner was delivering a full and detailed confession to killing Womack. What detectives didn’t know at the time was that Faulkner’s IQ had been measured at 62, placing him in the lowest 1 percent of the population. A psychologist who interviewed Faulkner found him to be “highly suggestible,” and determined he was “at risk to making a coerced compliant false confession/incriminating statement.” Faulkner, then 23, would soon say that he had simply told police what he thought they wanted to hear. But it was too late: He was charged with murder. He pleaded not guilty. “There’s not a scintilla of evidence other than his confession,” said Brian Thompson, Faulkner’s attorney. For many, the idea that a suspect would confess to a murder he did not commit is difficult to believe. But it’s not uncommon. The Innocence Project says more than 1 out of 4 people who have been wrongfully convicted but were later exonerated by DNA evidence made a false confession or incriminating statement. University of Virginia law professor Brandon Garrett wrote a book examining such cases. “Because of the power of DNA testing, we now know that people confess to crimes they did not commit,” he said. “Once facts are leaked to a suspect or leading questions asked, there’s no way to unring the bell and sort truth from fiction.” Garrett has found 350 cases in which defendants were convicted of a range of crimes but later exonerated by DNA. That is, the physical evidence showed that they did not commit the crime. Still, in 75 of those cases, the defendant had confessed.  Garrett says a common thread ran through many of those cases: Detectives subjected the suspects to accusatory interrogations, made threats, and then helped the suspect shape his or her account, often supplying facts the suspect didn’t know. Police and prosecutors say Faulkner’s was no such case. They say he provided details of Womack’s killing that could have been known only by the person who committed the crime. When a judge threw out Faulkner’s confession over questions about whether he should have had a lawyer present, prosecutors fought to get it reinstated — and won. Heath, the detective, said it was a “solid case.” Faulkner “seemed like a nice young kid, who just got caught up in a moment. Sometimes that happens,” he said in a recent interview. At trial, Faulkner and his attorneys had the challenge of arguing against his own words. “It’s been pretty obvious what the question is in this trial,” Assistant State’s Attorney Terrence Nash told jurors in his closing argument. “Do you believe the defendant when he said he shot David Womack? Do you believe him?” Police were called to the 2800 block of Mosher Street in West Baltimore just after midnight on March 4, 2013, for what appeared to be a car accident. A silver 2000 Mercedes Benz had crashed into a tree with enough force to blow its airbags, and a man inside was unconscious. As medics administered CPR, they found the man had suffered a gunshot wound. A single bullet had entered through his shoulder and ricocheted through his heart and lungs. A block away, officers found what they believed to be the scene of the shooting. Police found a gold cross medallion believed to have belonged to the victim, who at that point was a John Doe. Delgado, the lead detective, took possession of the victim’s phone. That morning, it kept ringing. It was Faulkner. “GM,” Faulkner wrote in a text message: Good morning. “Yo where u at?” Faulkner wrote in another. “I need to get car washed.” Delgado called Faulkner back from his own phone. Faulkner identified himself as Womack’s “cousin,” meaning in this case a good friend. Delgado and Heath, his partner, visited Faulkner at his West Baltimore apartment to ask Faulkner if he could help them find Womack’s family. “We learned [Womack’s] identity from him,” Delgado later testified. They would testify later that they had no reason to think Faulkner was involved in Womack’s death. Over the next nine days, police worked to acquire surveillance camera footage and waited on DNA analysis from Womack’s car. With no leads and Delgado looking for something to jumpstart his case, he reached back out to Faulkner. Police took him to the Western District police station, because, they say, it was closer to his home than the homicide unit in the department’s downtown headquarters. Unlike the homicide unit, however, the Western District police station was not equipped to record interviews on video from start to finish. For years, homicide detectives had conducted lengthy interviews before recording, then turned on a cassette recorder and run through the same questions. During trials, defense attorneys seized on the practice, regularly suggesting to jurors that detectives had used the undocumented portions of the interviews to browbeat and coerce their clients into admitting to questionable guilt.In the first recorded portion of the March 13, 2013, interview with Faulkner, he gave an account of driving around the city and hanging out with Womack. He said Womack left him at his apartment around 9:30 p.m. — three hours before Womack was shot. “He dropped me off and I called him to make sure, ‘David where you at?’ He said he was on his way home,” Faulkner told police. The detectives showed Faulkner a still picture from surveillance camera video of a man, a woman and a car. Faulkner said he didn’t recognize the people, but the vehicle looked like Womack’s. “At one point, you told me you didn’t want to meet with me,” Delgado told Faulkner. “Is that correct? You didn’t want any parts of this? “Yes, sir,” Faulkner said. “Why is that?” Delgado said. “You know, I ain’t, I ain’t know what was going on so I really didn’t want to, you know, like be a part of this, sir,” Faulkner said. Delgado pressed. “If you knew anything in reference to his death, would you tell me?” he asked. “Yes sir, but I don’t know anything,” Faulkner said. “You’re looking at me kind of — is there something wrong?” Delgado said. “No sir,” Faulkner said. “You look like you want to cry,” Delgado said. “You OK?” “Yes, sir.” “You sure?” The tape stopped at 7:37 p.m., but the detectives and Faulkner kept talking. Heath says the time was filled with idle chatter. Faulkner says he was threatened. “They were telling me, ‘You’ll never see your kids,’” Faulkner told The Baltimore Sun. “I was scared and nervous. I didn’t know what to do.” The recording resumed at 8:28. Now, Delgado was asking Faulkner to recount the conversation they had when the tape was off. Faulkner said he had identified himself and his girlfriend as the people in the grainy surveillance photo — and then gave a detailed accounting of the killing. Faulkner was charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery, assault and handgun charges. He was now facing the possibility of life in prison. A District Court judge ordered him held without bail. Police and prosecutors would later say they had no idea about Faulkner’s intellectual capacity until his defense team raised it far into the trial. But recordings obtained by The Sun through a Maryland Public Information Act request show detectives were told on the night of his confession. While Faulkner was being questioned, police were holding his then-girlfriend, Tre’Arra Spratley, in another room. She was eight months pregnant with their child. On tape, Spratley seemed at times to have difficulty understanding the questions being asked. But she was adamant that Faulkner was with her in bed at her apartment when the shooting occurred. Detectives informed Spratley that Faulkner had confessed to the killing, and had placed her at the scene with him. “Why would he identify that picture and say that’s him?” Det. Martin Young asked. “Because he’s retarded himself,” Spratley said. “He what?” Young said. “He’s retarded,” she said. “Yes he is.” There was a pause. “What you mean?” Young asked. “Y’all didn’t know about his symptoms?” Faulkner’s attorneys say they were not given that tape. Psychologists who evaluated Faulkner for the defense and for prosecutors would come to opposite conclusions about his mental abilities. Dr. Michael O’Connell, who examined Faulkner for the defense, reported that he suffered “significant cognitive and developmental deficits” and displayed risk factors for giving a false confession. In a report, O’Connell wrote that Faulkner had a “history of being influenced and exploited by other people.” “Mr. Faulkner’s shame regarding his disabilities and efforts he makes to mask his deficits or present what has been referred to as a ‘cloak of competence’ would limit Det. Delgado’s ability to clarify any confusion,” O’Connell wrote. He said detectives had used coercive interrogation techniques developed to instill fear in suspects and lead them to believe they will be found guilty. The state’s expert, Dr. Christiane Tellefsen, found the interview with detectives brief and unremarkable — not the kind of grueling marathon session that might produce a false confession under duress. “It was very short, simple, question and answer, tell us about this, tell us about that,” she testified at Faulkner’s trial. “Whatever his vulnerability is, that situation did not exploit those vulnerabilities.” Tellefsen said Faulkner had a low IQ. But she said other aspects of his life showed him to be higher functioning. He was able to hold jobs, maintain a household and care for his children. His “adaptive functioning” pushed him up out of the intellectually disabled range, she determined. “He had the capacity to” understand what was happening during the interrogation, she testified. “I can’t tell you he did or didn’t” understand, she said. “Only Domonic can say whether he did or didn’t.” Faulkner had been mentored by the jeweler Tom Smyth since 2006. They met at a Saturday morning breakfast hosted by Young Life Urban, which pairs inner city youth with male role models. Faulkner, who grew up in the West Baltimore neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester, knew little of his father. He was taken from his mother and placed into foster care at age 6. When he met Smyth, Faulkner was a student at Claremont High School, which serves adolescents and young adults with moderate to severe disabilities. He and Smyth continued to meet up from time to time, with Smyth offering guidance and helping him navigate some of life’s challenges. Faulkner began working at age 17, first in fast food and also in cleaning. At age 20, he was arrested on a minor drug charge — the only criminal violation that shows up in his online court records. Now Faulkner was in real trouble. Soon after his arrest, Smyth went to visit him at Central Booking. Faulkner told Smyth that he didn’t kill anybody, but had said what he thought police wanted him to say. Smyth remembers Faulkner’s words. “Mr. Tom, I don’t understand,” he said, according to Smyth. “They told me if I didn’t confess, I’d be in jail for the rest of my life. But I confessed, and I’m still in jail. “I don’t understand.” Smyth said he believed Faulkner didn’t understand. Faulkner had been appointed a public defender. Smyth hired a new legal team to take on the case. Attorneys Brian Thompson and Erin Murphy began digging into the case. Thompson, a former county prosecutor with a gravelly voice, said he believed Faulkner. He started looking closely into the police investigation.

Thompson knew that before Faulkner spoke with detectives, he had twice called an attorney from his firm. (Smyth had connected him with the attorney after the 2010 drug charge.) The attorney had advised Faulkner not to speak, yet he’d gone along with the interview anyway. With the recorder running, the detectives asked Faulkner to read his Miranda rights aloud. He struggled to pronounce words such as “afford” and “voluntarily.” Thompson said that should’ve been a sign to detectives that Faulkner didn’t understand the gravity of the conversation ahead. In the confession, Faulkner told the detectives that he and his then-girlfriend were riding with Womack when they stopped to get a chicken box. Faulkner and his girlfriend got into an argument, and Womack intervened. Faulkner told him to mind his own business and yanked the gold cross medallion around his neck. “I got out of the car, we had words, exchange of words,” Faulkner told police. “Next thing you know, you know … he was trying to hit me, but I took his chain off him. … He had a gun and I took the gun from him and I shot him in the arm, then he got up, he got back in the car and rode off. “I called the next day to see if he answered and he didn’t answer.” Faulkner told police he had dumped the gun in a sewer drain a couple blocks away. Police removed the drain cover and searched below, but never found the weapon. It was too heavy to float away, and it was unlikely that anyone else would have opened the sewer to recover the weapon. Thompson knew that was a major strike against the state’s case. Police never found any sign of the chicken box that Faulkner said he had purchased and which supposedly touched off the argument. Police also botched an effort to obtain surveillance footage from a store that could’ve offered a better view of the man and woman in the surveillance stills — they asked for the wrong time period, and realized the error only after the footage had been overwritten. Thompson felt the text messages Faulkner sent in the morning to Womack’s phone — saying good morning and asking when they were going to hang out that day — were crucial. “That’s not the kind of thing you’d text someone who you had shot the night before, unless you’re a criminal mastermind and you’re setting up your defense,” Thompson would say. Heath told The Sun that he introduced the idea of self-defense to Faulkner. “I gave him a self-defense kind of thing: ‘If he pointed the gun at you, you wrestled it away from him, and it’s going off, you got nervous,’” he suggested. “‘You had to do what you had to do.’” No such exchange appears in the recorded portions. Spratley, whom Faulkner had placed at the scene, was never charged. It took Faulkner’s case three years to get to trial. During pretrial motions, Thompson had been able to get Faulkner’s confession thrown out. He argued that Faulkner did not have a lawyer, and did not understand what he was saying. Prosecutors appealed, and won. The confession was back in play. The trial began in May 2016 in Baltimore Circuit Court. On the stand, Delgado said he learned of Faulkner’s low IQ only during court proceedings. But he knew from investigating dozens of killings in the city that it doesn’t take a genius to pull the trigger of a gun. Thompson told Delgado that he had no corroborating evidence that the people in the picture were Faulkner and his girlfriend. “Your client,” Delgado responded, “identified himself.” In a perfect world, the phone in the homicide unit would have been ringing off the hook with tips after Womack was killed. Police would’ve found the murder weapon with DNA or fingerprints — or both. Video surveillance footage would have captured the shooting, and the events before and after. But neither prosecutors nor the defense had any of those things. Could Delgado discount a defendant’s own admission of guilt, just because the rest didn’t fall into place? Inconsistencies don’t necessarily refute a case. Just because Faulkner had admitted shooting Womack didn’t mean he’d been honest about every detail. What if the chicken box wasn’t the real reason for the dispute? What if he discarded the gun another way? Then there was the bus. Faulkner said he’d fled by climbing onto the No. 15 bus at Edmondson Avenue. It wasn’t until later that Delgado would get video evidence showing a man and a woman, who appeared similar to the couple shown in the other surveillance image, getting onto that bus at that location. “If the defendant wasn’t the shooter … how else could he possibly know they were going to get on a bus unless he actually got on the bus?” Assistant State’s Attorney Terrence Nash asked Delgado. “There was no way of knowing,” Delgado responded. Delgado now works in the police department’s arson unit. The department did not make him available for an interview for this article. Heath, his partner, retired in 2013. Nash pointed to a flurry of calls Faulkner had made to Womack — not just a “what’s up” text message, but 10 calls, starting at 6:15 AM. Nash said they showed Faulkner was trying to check on Womack’s condition. He addressed the jury. “One might ask,” he said, “if he shot the victim, why doesn’t he text him, ‘Hey are you dead, I know I shot you?’ “Of course he’s not going to text that. Nobody would put that. But after you saw him drive off, you probably want to know if he’s alive. So you probably want to send a text to see if he’ll respond.” For Thompson, the gap between recordings raised questions. The only way to know whether Faulkner had been threatened or coerced, he said, would be to hear what happened in the interim. He turned to Delgado. “Why in God’s name did you turn that tape off?” Faulkner had spent 19 months in jail awaiting trial, and then another 20 months on house arrest while lawyers argued over the admissibility of the confession. The trial lasted five days. Prosecutors argued that Faulkner confessed to the killing. The defense said Faulker’s intellectual capacity cast doubt on his confession, and there was no other evidence to convict him. Jurors deliberated for six hours. Then they cleared Faulkner of all charges. No one from Womack’s family attended the trial. Over the span of two months in 2011, his father and mother had both died; other relatives weren’t close or lived out of state. Toni Klatt, Womack’s girlfriend and the mother of his infant child, was told the killer had been caught on tape and confessed, and that the case was closed. No one ever contacted her again, she says. She considered the matter behind her. “I just assumed the system worked,” she said in a recent interview. She didn’t know Faulkner had been acquitted. Informed of the verdict, Klatt said: “If he didn’t do it, who did?” In all but the rarest of circumstances, when a defendant is acquitted, the case ends. Double jeopardy prevents a defendant from being tried again. But the fact that prosecutors couldn’t convince a jury of his guilt seldom leads them to conclude that they were wrong. For these reasons, a case marked “closed” in police files will not be re-investigated barring new, actionable evidence or intelligence that points to another suspect. Nash now runs the criminal strategies unit of the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office. I feel for Mr. Faulkner,” he said recently. “I know he has difficulties, there’s no doubt about that. “That does not mean he did not kill his friend.” Smyth disagreed. “I believe in innocent until proven guilty, and they had nothing on him to indicate he was the guy,” he said. “They just had easy pickings, in my opinion.” Faulkner has not been re-arrested since his acquittal. He is looking to make good on his second chance. He lives in a Northeast Baltimore home purchased by Smyth, who continues to mentor him. He works as a landscaper. Though Faulkner grew up without a father, with Smyth’s help, he’s been working to be a good role model for his four children. “I want to be a loving man,” he told The Sun recently. “It’s not just for me, it’s for my kids and doing the right thing. “If I didn’t do the right thing, I’d be in a slump — in a hole. I gotta lead by example and keep my kids positive. “Every day I wake up, I give thanks … I could’ve been in jail for the rest of my life for something I didn’t commit.”"

The entire story can be read at: 

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-faulkner-false-confession-20170918-story.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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."

• PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Bl for reports on developments. 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."

  Baltimore police: 1 killed in Reservoir Hill shooting

• 

  Charges dropped in Old Goucher corner store raid after lab test for fentanyl, morphine comes back negative

'Believe the victim': The Transformation of Justice.' The Wrongful convictions Blog draws an important white paper - published by 'The Center of Prosecutorial integrity' - to our attention: "Each of the four codes of ethics cited above emphasize that a law enforcement professional must remain neutral in the search for truth. A leading criminal justice textbook likewise reinforces the vital importance of neutrality: "Investigators do not determine the suspects to be guilty; they remain objective in their investigation The investigator seeks the truth, not simply the suspect's guilt. It is therefore alarming that the neutrality central to these ethical codes has become eroded over the last decade in favor of the insistence that the investigator initiate an investigation by believing anyone who claims to have to have been a victim of sexual assault or harassment. This movement to assume the truth of such allegations is infiltrating the criminal justice system and institutions of higher education."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "This movement to assume the truth of such allegations is infiltrating the criminal justice system and institutions of higher education."

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am grateful to the Wrongful Convictions  Blog for bringing to our attention a 'white paper' published by 'The Center for prosecutorial integrity, which seeks an end to "the use of biased 'Believe the Victim' investigative methods in sexual assault and domestic violence cases...This white paper  focuses on how automatically believing a complainant often leads to injustice. The Wrongful Convictions Blog post - posted by Mark Godsey on January 19, 2018 -  can be read at:
https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2018/01/19/believe-the-victim-the-transformation-of-justice/

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;

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WHITE PAPER: "'Believe the victim': The transformation of justice,'" published by "The Center for prosecutorial integrity." (2018):

GIST: (PUBLISHER'S NOTE): Until I read this White Paper I had no idea  how strong and well organized the movement for believing the victim - with its potential impact on the neutrality of  police sexual and domestic assault investigations - was throughout America. One important passage: "Ascertainment of truth is the central challenge of any system that advocates claims of wrongdoing. Each of the four codes of ethics cited above emphasize that a law enforcement professional  must remain neutral in the search for truth. A leading criminal justice textbook likewise reinforces the vital importance of neutrality: "Investigators do not determine the suspects to  be guilty; they remain objective in their investigation The investigator seeks the truth, not simply the suspect's guilt. It is therefore alarming that the neutrality central to these ethical codes has become eroded over the last decade in favor of the insistence that the investigator initiate an investigation by believing anyone who claims to have  to have been a victim of sexual assault or harassment. This movement to assume the truth of such allegations is infiltrating the criminal justice system and institutions of higher education."

The entire white paper can be read at:
http://www.prosecutorintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Believe-the-Victim-FINAL.pdf 

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Read Emily Yoffe's insightful article - "The bad science  behind campus response  to sexual assault, published on September 8, 2017:  "As debate has begun over whether the rules governing sexual-assault adjudication have gone too far, one subject has received almost no attention, although it has become central to the way that many schools and many activists view sexual assault. In the past few years, the federal government has required that all institutions of higher education train staff on the effects of “neurobiological change” in victims of sexual assault, so that officials are able to conduct “trauma informed” investigations and adjudications. In meeting this federal demand, some schools have come to rely on the work of a small band of self-styled experts in the neurobiology of trauma who claim that sexual violations provoke a disabling, multifaceted physiological response. Being assaulted is traumatic, and no one should expect those who have been assaulted to have perfect recall or behave perfectly rationally, but this argument goes much further. It generally goes like this: People facing sexual assault become terrified, triggering a potent cascade of neurotransmitters and stress hormones. This chemical flood impairs the prefrontal cortex of the brain, impeding victims’ capacity for rational thought, and interferes with their memory. They may have significant trouble recalling their assault or describing it coherently or chronologically. The fear of imminent death may further elicit an extended catatonic state known as “tonic immobility,” rendering them powerless to speak or move—they feel “frozen.” As a result, those adjudicating sexual-assault allegations are told, the absence of verbal or physical resistance, the inability to recall crucial parts of an alleged assault, a changing story—none of these factors should raise questions or doubt about a claim. Indeed, all of these behaviors can be considered evidence that an assault occurred. “I don’t think I’ve seen a complaint in the past year that didn’t use the word frozen somewhere.” Rebecca Campbell, a professor of psychology at Michigan State University, has taught the science of trauma to law-enforcement officials and Title IX administrators. In 2015, she gave a keynote talk at the Association of Title IX Administrators’ annual conference, about how the neurobiology of trauma could be used in their investigations. A highly influential presentation she gave in 2012 at the National Institute of Justice, “The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault,” has been used as part of some schools’ Title IX–personnel training. In her 2012 talk, Campbell acknowledged that she is not a neuroscientist, but rather is translating others’ work. (Campbell’s own scholarly work has involved community-based research into how contact with the legal and medical systems affects assault victims’ psychological and physical health, and research into the use of rape kits.) She asserted that the damaged memory of a victim can be likened to “tiny Post-it notes” scattered randomly across “the world’s messiest desk.” For a sexual-assault victim to reconstruct what happened requires a sympathetic questioner who will give the victim the time and space to reassemble the Post-its in a coherent order. She assured her audience that the story that emerges will be a true account of the crime: “What we know from the research is that the laying-down of that memory is accurate and the recall of it is accurate.” She briefly recognized that victims who consumed alcohol may have serious memory problems as a result—“their Post-it notes are just blank.” Tonic immobility, she said, is a “mammalian response that is in all of us,” likely affecting close to 50 percent of sexual-assault victims. “Their body freezes on them,” she said, and not just for a moment or two. The victims go into an extended state in which they can’t speak or move, and hence cannot fend off an assailant. As of 2014, Harvard Law’s Title IX training for its disciplinary board included Campbell’s PowerPoint slides. Janet Halley, a professor at Harvard Law School, has written of the intended effect of the training on recipients: “It is 100% aimed to convince them to believe complainants, precisely when they seem unreliable and incoherent.”All of these concepts are presented in information distributed to students on many campuses. The University of Michigan’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center has a webpage for students on the “Neurobiology of Trauma” based largely on Campbell’s lecture. It explains that as a result of the “hormone soup” provoked by an assault, “the survivor cannot move and is rendered immobile by the traumatic event,” and “survivors may have trouble accurately remembering the assault.” Bowdoin College’s Title IX webpage on “The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault,” also based on Campbell’s lecture, tells students that “the flood of hormones can even, and often does, result in a complete shutdown of bodily function, a state referred to as ‘tonic immobility,’ but better described as paralysis” and that victims “also may exhibit fragmented memory recall due to the disorganized encoding that occurred during the incident.” This information sends the message to young people that they are biologically programmed to become helpless during unwanted sexual encounters and to suffer mental impairment afterward. And it may inadvertently encourage them to view consensual late-night, alcohol-fueled encounters that might produce disjointed memories and some regret as something more sinister. Justin Dillon, a Washington, D.C., attorney who defends students across the country accused of Title IX violations, told me that a couple of years ago he had barely heard of this condition, but that its terminology has swiftly made its way into campus adjudications: “I don’t think I’ve seen a complaint in the past year that didn’t use the word frozen somewhere.” Trauma, he says, is used to explain away all inconsistencies in some complainants’ accounts that would otherwise seem to contradict their having been assaulted. Schools do not make public the training materials of those who investigate and adjudicate sexual assault. But through lawsuits, Dillon has obtained some examples, and he says the assertions of the “neurobiology of trauma” that infuse these materials make it almost impossible for the accused to mount a defense. When such assumptions are held by those sitting in judgment, he says, “how do you prove your innocence?”"

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/the-bad-science-behind-campus-response-to-sexual-assault/539211/

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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."

Jerry Sandusky: From The Crime Report: "Did ‘Repressed Memory’ Falsely Convict Jerry Sandusky?" Megan Hadley interviews journalist/author Mark Prendergast. (Prendergast is author of, "The Most Hated Man in America: Jerry Sandusky and the Rush to Judgment.")..."TCR: In your book, you cite repressed memory therapists, police officers, and alleged victims as reasons why Jerry Sandusky was falsely accused. So who is to blame? Pendergrast: They are all to blame. It started with a 15-year-old, Aaron Fisher, who didn’t want to spend so much time with Sandusky anymore. The pattern that I basically uncovered was that Jerry Sandusky would try to be a mentor to troubled young men who were in the Second Mile program and many of them at 14 or 15 started to pull away from him. He was concerned they would get into drugs and bad habits, and from the young men’s point of view, it was like rebelling against a parent. Aaron told his mother one weekend that Sandusky made him feel weird and he asked his mother about websites for sex offenders. His mother then decided this would be a meal ticket, according to the neighbor who lived next door to them in a public housing project. So Fisher was sent to (Clinton County psychologist Dr.) Mike Gillum, who was absolutely sure from the beginning that Sandusky was an evil molester. Although Gillum denies he practiced repressed memory therapy, that is clearly what he did. He believed that Aaron didn’t remember the abuse, and he needed to be educated about how the brain could “dissociate” or “repress” memories, which of course is pseudoscience. Gillum was sure Sandusky fit the profile of a terrible pedophile, and he told Aaron fisher that repeatedly, until he believed him. It seems fairly clear that without Mike Gillum going after Fisher, none of these abuse allegations would have happened. I blame Mike Gillum. But I also blame greed. I think from the very beginning Fisher and his mother thought there might be a lot of money in this."

INTERVIEW:  "Did ‘Repressed Memory’ Falsely Convict Jerry Sandusky? Journalist/author Mark Prendergast is interviewed by  Crime Report writer Megan Hadley. Published by The Crime Report on January 3, 2018.

GIST: "In 2012, former Penn State defensive football coach Jerry Sandusky was found guilty of 45 counts of sexual abuse of young boys. He is now serving a 30-60 year sentence in Pennsylvania’s SCI Somerset prison. But in a recent book, journalist Mark Pendergrast claims that a closer look at the evidence presented at trial shows Sandusky is likely innocent. Pendergrast argues, in The Most Hated Man in America: Jerry Sandusky and the Rush to Judgment, that the charges were largely the result of efforts by aggressive police investigators and recovered memory therapists who encouraged boys to “remember” molestations that may not have occurred. Pendergrast published his original arguments in The Crime Report in 2016. In a conversation with TCR writer Megan Hadley, he discusses how his earlier work on the “repressed memory” phenomenon led him to investigate the Sandusky case, why he believes “greed” and media frenzy helped to distort the facts, and how the “rush to judgment” may similarly have ensnared others who have been wrongly accused of campus sex abuse."

The Crime Report: Where did your interest in the Jerry Sandusky scandal begin?
Mark Pendergrast: In 2013, I got an email from a woman who read my book about repressed memories, and she wanted to know if I had paid any attention to the Jerry Sandusky case. She said that it involved repressed memory therapy. At the time I didn’t know anything about the Sandusky case beyond what I had seen on TV or read in newspapers and magazines. I assumed Sandusky was guilty, particularly because of Mike McQueary, a graduate student at Penn State who had seen him abusing a child in the shower. But when I looked into it, I found McQueary didn’t actually see anything; he only heard sounds. Then I got the trial transcripts and really dug into the case. Frankly, I became obsessed with it. I believe it is very likely Sandusky is innocent.

 TCR: In your book you explain how a media frenzy can cause the public to panic. Is that what happened in this case?
Pendergrast: There have been several moral panics throughout history where everyone assumes someone’s guilt and it becomes a mass rush to take action. That clearly did happen in the Sandusky case. The media jumped on the grand jury presentation, and went wild. Within a week Joe Paterno, the longtime coach, had been fired, the president of the college was fired, two other administrators were accused of hiding the abuse, and basically Penn State became the epicenter of a media feeding frenzy.

 TCR: In your book, you cite repressed memory therapists, police officers, and alleged victims as reasons why Jerry Sandusky was falsely accused. So who is to blame?
Pendergrast: They are all to blame. It started with a 15-year-old, Aaron Fisher, who didn’t want to spend so much time with Sandusky anymore. The pattern that I basically uncovered was that Jerry Sandusky would try to be a mentor to troubled young men who were in the Second Mile program and many of them at 14 or 15 started to pull away from him. He was concerned they would get into drugs and bad habits, and from the young men’s point of view, it was like rebelling against a parent. Aaron told his mother one weekend that Sandusky made him feel weird and he asked his mother about websites for sex offenders. His mother then decided this would be a meal ticket, according to the neighbor who lived next door to them in a public housing project. So Fisher was sent to (Clinton County psychologist Dr.) Mike Gillum, who was absolutely sure from the beginning that Sandusky was an evil molester. Although Gillum denies he practiced repressed memory therapy, that is clearly what he did. He believed that Aaron didn’t remember the abuse, and he needed to be educated about how the brain could “dissociate” or “repress” memories, which of course is pseudoscience. Gillum was sure Sandusky fit the profile of a terrible pedophile, and he told Aaron fisher that repeatedly, until he believed him. It seems fairly clear that without Mike Gillum going after Fisher, none of these abuse allegations would have happened. I blame Mike Gillum. But I also blame greed. I think from the very beginning Fisher and his mother thought there might be a lot of money in this.

 TCR: What are your opinions about the Harvey Weinstein and Hollywood sex abuse scandal? Do you believe Weinstein’s victims are lying and seeking attention/ money as you claim Sandusky’s victims were?
Pendergrast: I don’t think so. I read the New Yorker piece and it all struck me as being researched and accurate. I think the Weinstein story is true and I think it unleashed a flood of allegations, most of which seem substantial and reasonable. In the case of Harvey Weinstein, it would appear everyone knew he was doing this for years— unlike Sandusky, where nobody made any accusations until much later, after Aaron Fisher and Mike Gillum got it going in 2008. Weinstein is apparently quite guilty, and many of the other people are too, though not all of them. Garrison Keillor, for instance, didn’t do anything other than hug someone, and his hand went onto her bare back. Still, I think most women have been subjected to unwanted sexual advances at one time or another, almost every woman in America.

TCR: You state “allegations of sexual abuse on college campuses involving sports figures may be particularly susceptible to a rush to judgment.” What other aspects of campus life do you believe are highly susceptible to a rush to judgment’?
Pendergrast: Fraternities. Any allegations involving fraternities are assumed to be true because so many of them are true. In my book, I cited the University of Virginia case, where there was a false allegation reported in Rolling Stone which was widely accepted. Or there were the sexual abuse allegations against the Duke University lacrosse players, that were unfounded. The interesting thing about the Duke lacrosse case, as opposed to Sandusky, is is the way that the media has treated it. Because the case was debunked and thrown out and the players were exonerated, everyone rushed to write books about it. The difference between the Duke Lacrosse case and the Sandusky case was that Sandusky was found guilty and nobody wants to look at any alternative. So far, the appeal process in Pennsylvania has upheld that judgment. Part of the problem in Pennsylvania is that nobody who is elected is going to want to be “soft on pedophiles,” certainly not the “evil” Jerry Sandusky. And the judges in Pennsylvania are all elected, so it is extremely unlikely that any Pennsylvania judge is going to grant a new trial to Sandusky. I am hopeful however, that when it reaches the federal level, he will get a new trial because his current lawyers did an excellent job of presenting the case. So I have not lost all hope. But this man, who I am convinced is innocent, is sitting in solitary confinement in prison, and it is remarkable that he has kept his sanity.

TCR: What role did the police play in the possibly wrongful conviction of Sandusky?
Pendergrast: There is something called confirmation bias that psychologists recognize, in which people conduct interviews with a presumption of guilt, and they only consider “evidence” that supports their hypothesis. They were not the least bit interested in children who said Sandusky was a great guy and he didn’t abuse them. [Officers] made it clear to these young boys they didn’t believe them and they said “if you remember something at 3 in the morning call us.” They would cross-contaminate by saying “many other people said Sandusky has done ‘this and this and this, how about you?’ ” Officers would make the young men feel that they were failing, hiding, or lying if they didn’t say Sandusky had abused them. People who believe Sandusky is guilty will say “young boys are ashamed of having been involved with a man in sexual abuse and will often hide it.” I think there is some truth to that. But it is extremely unlikely that none of these 35 young men who came forward told anyone about it at the time of the alleged abuse. Nobody suspected anything. So the police methodology was terrible and they trawled for victims. It wasn’t a matter of anyone spontaneously coming forward until, finally, after the grand jury presentment was out, people came forward, because it became obvious there was going to be a lot of money involved here. You want to know who is to blame? Penn State is to blame. Penn State was terrified about looking bad, so they assumed guilt and fell all over themselves, giving away millions of dollars to basically anybody without any kind of vetting or investigation.


 TCR: You quote from Mikhail Khorev, a Russian Baptist leader imprisoned for more than three decades in the former Soviet Union, who said, “It was interesting to see what lengths the state officials had gone to prove to themselves that I was a criminal.” Is this what happened in the case of Jerry Sandusky?
Pendergrast: Yes. But we also see that in many cases of DNA exoneration. People whose DNA proves they are innocent. But once the prosecutors and the police decided somebody was guilty, they would ignore any evidence of somebody else being guilty. So the real murderer or rapist went free while they were prosecuting the wrong person. And even when the DNA evidence exonerated [the innocent], the prosecutors and the police refused to admit they were mistaken. It’s hard for somebody to admit they did anything wrong. It is significant that there was no childhood pornography found on Sandusky’s computer or phone. The irony of all this, is that the prosecutors were sending racist, misogynist gross pornography to each other the whole time while investigating Sandusky, who is as pure as snow. He was considered to be something of a saint before the total vilification. But he was a very naive kind of guy. His children referred to it as a Mayberry world he lived in. All of Sandusky’s children (besides the one who went to repressed memory therapy) are sure he is innocent, but won’t say it in public because they are afraid for their own careers and families.


TCR: You say “False confessions are far more common, and easier to elicit, than most people realize.” How so?
Pendergrast: There are entire books about false confessions. The police can legally lie to people. So they can lie and say “Oh, your friend said you did it and they saw you.” Or that their fingerprints were found at the crime scene. Or maybe the police will tell the alleged victims they blacked out or repressed the memory. Many of those cases involve young people who are sleep deprived and frantic, and they will say anything to get out of there. It happens. It happens more frequently than anybody realizes.


TCR: Have you gotten any backlash for writing your book? Perhaps from victims, their families, or advocate groups?
Pendergrast: No, there has not been much backlash, at least not yet. I should note that I could only get one alleged victim to let me interview him, which was quite revealing–he explained all about how he had repressed memories of abuse. None of the other alleged victims would talk to me.

Editor’s Note: (The Crime Report): In a related book, Memory Warp, Pendergrast takes a critical look at the phenomenon of repressed memory. For more information on this and other publications by Pendergrast, he invites readers to check out his website.

The entire interview can be read at:

The entire interview can be read a

https://thecrimereport.org/2018/01/03/did-repressed-memory-falsely-convict-jerry-sandusky/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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."

Barry and Honey Sherman: From the Toronto Star: (Chief Investigative reporter Kevin Donovan)..."The Sherman family’s private investigation into the shocking deaths of billionaire Apotex founder Barry Sherman and his wife Honey is revealing a very different story than the murder-suicide theory that has led headlines to date. A Star investigation reveals the details."..." "It’s double murder, not murder-suicide. Barry and Honey Sherman were killed in what looks like a professional, contract killing. That’s the conclusion of a variety of experts who have been hired by the family to probe the case. Here’s the new information: There are markings on the Shermans’ wrists, an indication that at some point their hands were tied together, though no rope or other ties were found near the bodies. Toxicology tests on their bodies reveal no sign of drugs that would have contributed to their deaths. Men’s leather belts found around their necks were the cause of the “ligature compression” that killed them. A top forensic pathologist who did a second autopsy determined this was a double homicide, barring any new information that surfaces. Meanwhile, the Toronto police would not provide any new information or comment on the findings of the family and maintain their classification of the deaths as “suspicious.”

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: There has been a dramatic clash between the Toronto Police Service's "murder-suicide" theory - and the family's belief that the prominent couple were murdered. The case is of interest to this Blog because the family has taken the unusual step of hiring  of conducting a private investigation of the case through privately retained investigators and pathologists. Indeed, the family arranged for Dr. David Chiasson, formerly the chief forensic pathologist for Ontario,  to conduct  a second autopsy days before the Dec. 21 funeral. One comment for now. The story indicates that "The next stage in the family’s investigation was to conduct a toxicology analysis to see what, if any, drugs were in the bodies of the victims. Police had arranged for samples to be taken and sent to the Centre of Forensic Sciences. The lab work, which takes about two days, was delayed as the lab is perpetually backlogged. It is now complete, but police have not shared the results with the family or the public. Greenspan and his team had samples taken during the second autopsy. The results are negative for any drug that could have caused their death." It is quite disturbing  that the toxicology results were  delayed because "the lab is perpetually backlogged." If this delay from the perpetually backlogged lab is experience in a case of this internationally prominent nature,  what kind of delays are experienced in very day cases - and what impact does this have on the investigations and their quality? I will be following developments closely.

Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.

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STORY: "Barry and Honey Sherman were murdered, sources say," by Chief Investigative Reporter Kevin Donovan, published by The Toronto Star on January 19, 2018.

SUB-HEADING: "The Sherman family’s private investigation into the shocking deaths of billionaire Apotex founder Barry Sherman and his wife Honey is revealing a very different story than the murder-suicide theory that has led headlines to date. A Star investigation reveals the details."

PHOTO CAPTION: "Sources say the Sherman family's private investigation into the deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman has found that the two were murdered in what looks like a professional contract killing, not a murder-suicide."

PHOTO CAPTION:  "Brian Greenspan, who represents the family of Barry and Honey Sherman, says that former homicide investigators hired as private forensic experts will provide "a second lens" to the police probe into the deaths of the billionaire founder of Apotex and his wife." 

PHOTO CAPTION: "Dr. David Chiasson, formerly the chief forensic pathologist for Ontario, was hired to conduct a second autopsy on the bodies of Barry and Honey Sherman."

GIST: "It’s double murder, not murder-suicide. Barry and Honey Sherman were killed in what looks like a professional, contract killing. That’s the conclusion of a variety of experts who have been hired by the family to probe the case. Here’s the new information: There are markings on the Shermans’ wrists, an indication that at some point their hands were tied together, though no rope or other ties were found near the bodies. Toxicology tests on their bodies reveal no sign of drugs that would have contributed to their deaths. Men’s leather belts found around their necks were the cause of the “ligature compression” that killed them. A top forensic pathologist who did a second autopsy determined this was a double homicide, barring any new information that surfaces. Meanwhile, the Toronto police would not provide any new information or comment on the findings of the family and maintain their classification of the deaths as “suspicious.” People providing information for this story are not identified as they were not authorized to discuss the case.  Barry, born Bernard C. Sherman, was the founder and past CEO of Apotex, a generic drug firm. He is said to have been worth $4.77 billion at time of his death. Honey, his wife of 46 years, was well known for her charitable work and community involvement. Barry was 75. Honey was 70. They were found in their home in North Toronto just before noon on Dec. 15 by a real estate agent. Their house was for sale. The Friday evening of the day the bodies were discovered, a police officer at the scene told reporters that there was no sign of forced entry at the home and as of that day, police were not seeking any suspects. “At this point we are not seeking a suspect,” a Toronto police detective said that night. Saturday morning a story broke in the Toronto Sun that police were working on a theory of murder-suicide. Other media, including the National Post, the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, confirmed the report that this was the active theory of the police at the time. In each case, the media quoted sources and did not identify an officer who put forward the theory. The murder-suicide theory brought quick outrage from the Sherman’s four children who released a statement saying the theory was wrong. By this time, Toronto homicide investigators were at the scene and they eventually took over the probe from divisional officers. The family hired high profile criminal lawyer Brian Greenspan who in turn brought in private detectives and experts in pathology and crime scenes. An autopsy — the first of two — was carried out on Dec. 16 by a provincial pathologist at the Centre of Forensic Sciences who determined that both Shermans died by “ligature neck compression.” The police said nothing else, still classifying the death as “suspicious.” The family wanted to know more and with the help of Greenspan, went looking to hire a forensic pathologist to do a second autopsy. The family hired Dr. David Chiasson, formerly the chief forensic pathologist for Ontario. Chiasson now does pathology work at the Hospital for Sick Children and is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. Chiasson conducted a second autopsy days before the Dec. 21 funeral. Present at the autopsy was the team of private detectives, most of them former Toronto homicide investigators, assembled by Greenspan. Chiasson’s conclusion, along with that of the private detectives present, is that it was a double homicide barring any other information that might come from the ongoing probe. Not murder-suicide. The ligature neck compression, sources say, was likely done by two men’s leather belts found at the scene wrapped around the necks of the victims. While earlier media reports suggested they died by hanging, sources say that is incorrect. They were found in a seated position at the side of a pool in a lower level of the house, with their legs facing away from the pool. The belts were around the neck, with the end of the belt through the buckle and pulled tight. The free end of each belt was then looped or tied around a low railing that surrounds the pool. Sources say a working theory of the private team probing the deaths is that the Shermans were strangled by the belts, then the belts were attached to the railing, holding them in a seated position. Sources with intimate knowledge of the Sherman family’s investigation have used words like “professional,” “contract killing,” and “staged homicide” to describe the scene. A key finding discovered in Chiasson’s autopsy were marks on both Barry and Honey Sherman’s wrists, an indication that each person’s wrists were bound together at some point, likely with rope or a plastic strap. An examination of the markings does not clearly determine if the hands were bound in front or behind. Their hands were not bound when the bodies were discovered. The Shermans were wearing winter coats that were pushed back away from the shoulders and down, which would have the effect of immobilizing the arms. No rope or plastic strap was found at the scene and sources have speculated to the Star that when Toronto police examined sewer pipes around the house they were looking for whatever was used as ties. Police also searched the roof of the house and used metal detectors on the property. The next stage in the family’s investigation was to conduct a toxicology analysis to see what, if any, drugs were in the bodies of the victims. Police had arranged for samples to be taken and sent to the Centre of Forensic Sciences. The lab work, which takes about two days, was delayed as the lab is perpetually backlogged. It is now complete, but police have not shared the results with the family or the public. Greenspan and his team had samples taken during the second autopsy. The results are negative for any drug that could have caused their death. As of Friday afternoon, the Toronto police were still examining the interior of the house at Old Colony Rd. Both police and private detectives have canvassed the houses on the street for surveillance video. While several homeowners with cameras that can see parts of the Sherman home in the distance have provided video to both police and the Sherman family detectives, sources have told the Star that nothing has come from a study of the various videos. Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash told the Star on Friday that the deaths remain classified as “suspicious.” He said when “we are in a position to release more information we will do so.” While the bodies were discovered on Friday, Dec. 15, it appears the Shermans died between late Wednesday Dec. 13 and Thursday afternoon, Dec. 14. Family sources say the last known cellphone communication (text or audio) from the Sherman couple was Wednesday during the day. Though the family’s investigation team has not been granted access to the home yet, sources say their understanding is that there was no damage to the inside of the home — nothing to suggest this could be a home invasion. In an interview this week, lawyer Greenspan said he and the team he has assembled are trying to provide a “second lens” to look at the case. His team has yet to enter the Sherman home, and while they had been promised entry right after the holidays, it looks like it could be another week before police release the scene. He said the police have made several requests for access to information related to the Shermans and in each case the executor in charge of the Shermans’ affairs has provided “full co-operation.” It is typical in a death investigation for police to serve production orders signed by a judge or justice of the peace (similar to search warrants) on cellphone companies or banks to obtain records showing a person’s whereabouts. If permission is given, by an executor as in this case, those production orders are not required. As to the early theory that it was a murder-suicide, Greenspan said that anyone who knows the couple would find that “unsupportable as a matter of logic.” The Star has attempted, unsuccessfully, to learn who at the Toronto police came up with that theory and whether it still holds water. Greenspan said he does not have a “working theory” as to why the police have not classified the deaths as homicide."

The entire story can be found at:

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/01/19/barry-and-honey-sherman-were-murdered-sources-say.html

Read CBC story 'Barry and Honey Sherman were murdered by multiple killers, private investigators believe: source,' at the link below; "Private investigators believe that the billionaire Toronto couple found dead at their home in December were murdered by multiple killers, a source with direct knowledge of the parallel probe into their mysterious deaths told CBC Toronto. The new information contradicts a widely circulated theory that Barry and Honey Sherman died as a result of a murder-suicide — a notion that is regarded as fiction by those who knew the Shermans well."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/private-investigators-believe-toronto-billionaires-barry-and-honey-sherman-were-murdered-source-says-1.4496686

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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."

Sonja Farak/Annie Dookhan: Massachusetts; Reporter Paul Solotaroff of 'Rolling Stone' take us on a tour through 'And Justice For None: Inside Biggest Law Enforcement Scandal in Massachusetts History."..."Since 2004, when she started pilfering drugs from her longtime place of employment – the Amherst crime lab of the Massachusetts State Police – her addiction to stimulants has galloped away and grabbed the reins of her life. She's a chemist who performs forensic analysis of the street drugs cops bring in, running samples through complex machinery to determine the chemical makeup of each substance. Her findings, based partly on instrument data and partly on her veteran intuition, form the basis for criminal cases brought against people charged with coke and heroin sales in Western Massachusetts. Until recently, Farak has been a standout performer. In less than nine years, she's helped send away between 8,000 and 10,000 defendants. The only thing more prolific than her output is her drug use. Farak's been high since virtually the day she was hired. For years, her drug of choice was liquid methamphetamine; she discovered a big bottle of it in the fridge of her lab. When she polished off the meth oil, Farak switched to cocaine, helping herself to big and small chunks of the seizures cops sent in. It was absurdly easy to do so."

PUBLISHER"S NOTE: After all this time, this is the Annie Dookhan/Sonja Farak story I have been waiting for. It has been well worth the wait.

Harold Levy; Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;

------------------------------------------------------------

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "This is the second massive scandal in five months. In August 2012, a chemist named Annie Dookhan was busted for faking tens of thousands of drug tests at her Boston lab, always in favor of the prosecution. Worse, when she was feeling especially helpful, she'd add bogus weight to a borderline sample, pushing the charge from distribution to narco-trafficking. (She seems to have been motivated by scorn for addicts, saying that she wanted to get drug dealers "off the street.") Her crimes had blown the top off the state's justice system. Countless convictions were cast in doubt, inmates jammed court dockets with appeals, and both the state's district attorneys and attorney general's office scrambled to protect their tainted verdicts. It was the worst-ever scandal in the state's war on drugs. If the defendants in Farak's cases were to learn of her crimes, there wouldn't be enough lawyers on the Eastern Seaboard to staunch the run on the courts. Between them, the two chemists had potentially helped wrongfully convict more than 32,000 defendants. But those defendants were never notified of Farak's misconduct. In fact, five years after her arrest on January 19th, 2013, very few of the people she helped to imprison have been told that they're the victims of state crimes. Instead, in the days after Farak was taken in and charged with drug theft and tampering, the attorney general's office embarked on an egregious fraud. It lied to the DAs in Western Massachusetts, gave false information to two Superior Court judges and covered up documents that proved Farak's years-long addiction, blocking every legal bid to view them. Lastly, it contrived to keep thousands of people in jail, even after the evidence came to light. "It was a catastrophic failure by the attorney general's office, and calls into question the idea that prosecutors are beacons of fairness," says Daniel Medwed of Northeastern University, author of Prosecution Complex: America's Race to Convict and Its Impact on the Innocent. "There's no accounting for what they did, and this could just be the tip of the iceberg. Prosecutorial misconduct is rampant in America."

STORY: "And Justice For None: Inside Biggest Law Enforcement Scandal in Massachusetts History," by reporter Paul Sototaroff, published by 'Rolling Stone' on January 3, 2018. (Paul Solotaroff is a former editor at The Village Voice and a journalist whose work has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He has written for a number of national magazines, including Esquire, GQ, Vogue, and Rolling Stone.)

SUB-HEADING: "How the system covered up tens of thousands of falsified drug tests – and how two teams of crusading lawyers exposed the wrongdoing."

GIST: Sonja Farak is in the grip of a rubbed-raw depression that hasn't responded to medication. It's been like this forever, or at least since girlhood. She attempted suicide in high school and was hospitalized in college, but somehow soldiered through to graduate with high distinction from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. A bright, curious kid who was passionate about science, she found a job at a state drug lab and settled down with a woman she met in her twenties. But even on her best days, she felt alien and unseen, a ghost floating through her own life. Now, at 35, she's landed in a ditch. Her performance at work has fallen off a cliff, and she walks into nightly conflict at home, where her wife, disabled by a stew of mental ailments, spends her hours surfing the Web in a haze. Farak's arms are pocked with welts from compulsive scratching; she's been thinking a lot about killing herself, and driving rashly enough that she just might do it – if she doesn't have a heart attack first. But none of those things are her chief concern on this chapped winter morning in 2013. No, what's eating Farak today, as she sits in a county courthouse in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts, is that she needs to get high this nanosecond. Since 2004, when she started pilfering drugs from her longtime place of employment – the Amherst crime lab of the Massachusetts State Police – her addiction to stimulants has galloped away and grabbed the reins of her life. She's a chemist who performs forensic analysis of the street drugs cops bring in, running samples through complex machinery to determine the chemical makeup of each substance. Her findings, based partly on instrument data and partly on her veteran intuition, form the basis for criminal cases brought against people charged with coke and heroin sales in Western Massachusetts. Until recently, Farak has been a standout performer. In less than nine years, she's helped send away between 8,000 and 10,000 defendants. The only thing more prolific than her output is her drug use. Farak's been high since virtually the day she was hired. For years, her drug of choice was liquid methamphetamine; she discovered a big bottle of it in the fridge of her lab. When she polished off the meth oil, Farak switched to cocaine, helping herself to big and small chunks of the seizures cops sent in. It was absurdly easy to do so. The Amherst site was decrepit and woefully mismanaged. It performed no routine audits and placed no cameras in the halls; employees had carte blanche access to the drug safe. So rudderless was the lab that Farak smoked crack in the restroom and cooked batches beneath the site's one working fume hood. Legally unfit to drive home at night, she was nonetheless allowed to do sensitive tests on samples she'd smoked or snorted herself. Each time she did so, she committed two crimes: theft of narcotics from a dispensary and possession of a Class B drug. And though she wasn't a cop, she shared a duty with them – to zealously protect each sample she tested as it made its way to court. On the countless occasions when she altered a drug – stealing a couple of grams here, a half pound there – and replaced the missing weight with ersatz powder, she committed a third, and most onerous, felony: tampering with evidence. Meanwhile, Farak's crack jones is burning a hole in her soul. She's been smoking it 10, 12 times a day; the urges, she'll later testify, are "ridiculous." Finally, come lunchtime, she runs out to her car and beams up behind the wheel. She's feeling a lot better when she returns in an hour to take the stand at a drug trial. But as she enters the courtroom, she's stopped by state troopers and taken to a conference room. It seems someone's finally noticed that coke has been wandering off from the Amherst evidence room. A search that morning turned up two torn mailers that contained what was left of the seizures. Those mailers, along with a makeshift crack pipe, were recovered from Farak's desk by state cops. The troopers at the courthouse try to get her talking. Farak will have none of it. She lawyers up and declines to let them search her car; she's arrested and formally charged the next morning. By then, the state's leaders are on wartime footing: This is the second massive scandal in five months. In August 2012, a chemist named Annie Dookhan was busted for faking tens of thousands of drug tests at her Boston lab, always in favor of the prosecution. Worse, when she was feeling especially helpful, she'd add bogus weight to a borderline sample, pushing the charge from distribution to narco-trafficking. (She seems to have been motivated by scorn for addicts, saying that she wanted to get drug dealers "off the street.") Her crimes had blown the top off the state's justice system. Countless convictions were cast in doubt, inmates jammed court dockets with appeals, and both the state's district attorneys and attorney general's office scrambled to protect their tainted verdicts. It was the worst-ever scandal in the state's war on drugs. If the defendants in Farak's cases were to learn of her crimes, there wouldn't be enough lawyers on the Eastern Seaboard to staunch the run on the courts. Between them, the two chemists had potentially helped wrongfully convict more than 32,000 defendants. But those defendants were never notified of Farak's misconduct. In fact, five years after her arrest on January 19th, 2013, very few of the people she helped to imprison have been told that they're the victims of state crimes. Instead, in the days after Farak was taken in and charged with drug theft and tampering, the attorney general's office embarked on an egregious fraud. It lied to the DAs in Western Massachusetts, gave false information to two Superior Court judges and covered up documents that proved Farak's years-long addiction, blocking every legal bid to view them. Lastly, it contrived to keep thousands of people in jail, even after the evidence came to light. "It was a catastrophic failure by the attorney general's office, and calls into question the idea that prosecutors are beacons of fairness," says Daniel Medwed of Northeastern University, author of Prosecution Complex: America's Race to Convict and Its Impact on the Innocent. "There's no accounting for what they did, and this could just be the tip of the iceberg. Prosecutorial misconduct is rampant in America." (This is a long, insightful important, maddening, infuriating read.  I invite our readers to read the entire story - word by word - at the link below):

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/did-falsified-drug-tests-lead-to-wrongful-convictions-w514801

 

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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.

Flawed Pathology: U.K. Major Development; British government's forensic regulator says, "Falling forensic science standards 'making miscarriages of justice inevitable,' The Guardian... "In her annual report, Gillian Tully highlighted her growing concerns about the failure of some forensic firms used by the police to meet basic quality standards. It means innocent people could be wrongly convicted and offenders escaping justice. The routine outsourcing of criminal forensic work to unaccredited laboratories worries Tully, with some not subject to independent oversight. She told the Guardian that without urgent action there would inevitably be miscarriages of justice, including in cases involving murder, rape and child abuse. “If you’re not finding indecent images of children on someone’s phone when you should be, that’s a miscarriage of justice as much as if someone was wrongly convicted of a crime,” Tully said. The government abolished the Forensic Science Service in 2012, which was the primary provider to the police and courts, resulting in forensic work being transferred to in-house police laboratories and private providers. Conservative ministers wanted to create a market in which independent companies competed for business. But most forces appear to be behind schedule in bringing their own laboratories into line with official standards, the regulator’s latest report shows."

STORY: "Falling forensic science standards 'making miscarriages of justice inevitable," by Hannah Devlin and Vikram Dodd, published  by The Guardian on January 19, 2018,

SUB-HEADING: "Regulator says UK forces failing to meet standards, with routine outsourcing of great concern.




GIST: Police forces are failing to meet the official standards for forensic science, making miscarriages of justice inevitable, the government’s forensic regulator has said. "In her annual report, Gillian Tully highlighted her growing concerns about the failure of some forensic firms used by the police to meet basic quality standards. It means innocent people could be wrongly convicted and offenders escaping justice. The routine outsourcing of criminal forensic work to unaccredited laboratories worries Tully, with some not subject to independent oversight. She told the Guardian that without urgent action there would inevitably be miscarriages of justice, including in cases involving murder, rape and child abuse. “If you’re not finding indecent images of children on someone’s phone when you should be, that’s a miscarriage of justice as much as if someone was wrongly convicted of a crime,” Tully said. The government abolished the Forensic Science Service in 2012, which was the primary provider to the police and courts, resulting in forensic work being transferred to in-house police laboratories and private providers. Conservative ministers wanted to create a market in which independent companies competed for business. But most forces appear to be behind schedule in bringing their own laboratories into line with official standards, the regulator’s latest report shows. Just a few met the October deadline to gain formal accreditation to carry out digital forensic science work. Police are also outsourcing large volumes of digital forensic science casework – the analysis of phones, computers and CCTV – to low-cost private forensic labs without any accreditation or oversight, the report said, describing this as “unacceptable”. “Quality standards are not a nice-to-have extra that, if we have any money left, we’ll do some quality,” said Tully. “Doing something that you can’t necessarily stand behind in court is just inappropriate at every level.” The regulator said she would be examining whether failures to follow correct procedures in digital forensic science could have played a role in a number of high-profile rape cases that collapsed before going to trial. “I have formally requested more information on those recent cases,” she said. She added that formal complaints had been made about the quality of digital forensic science work by some private providers, which she was also investigating. Tully urged the government to give her office statutory powers so that she could ban substandard providers, adding that some police forces did not appear to be committed to complying with official guidelines. “One or two police forces are dragging their heels and certainly not moving on at the rate I would expect,” she said. “I would question whether they are completely committed to gaining the necessary standards.” Tully added: “The more pressure you put on people, the less time they have to spend on their actual work, the more you raise the risk of errors.” In her report Tully said: “Without statutory backing for my role, a number of small and micro-businesses have chosen, for financial reasons, not to move towards gaining accreditation and those that have met the quality standards have not yet been fully rewarded through the contracting process. “Those not moving towards compliance should be in no doubt that their services will gradually receive fewer commissions and their practitioners will face more challenges in court.” There is a criminal investigation into claims that data at the Randox laboratory in Manchester may have been manipulated, causing the biggest recall of samples in British criminal justice history. The National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for forensic science, Chief Constable Debbie Simpson, said: “Chief constables are being forced to make difficult decisions about how they utilise their limited resources, but we remain completely committed to meeting the requirements of accreditation and further improving confidence in the criminal justice system.” A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is for chief constables and police and crime commissioners to decide how best to deploy resources to effectively manage crime and local priorities, including forensic services. However, we are clear that cost savings must not come at the expense of a reduction in quality standards. “We are committed to putting the Forensic Science Regulator on a statutory footing with robust enforcement powers at the earliest opportunity. We are clear that organisations providing forensic services to the criminal justice system need to abide by the regulator’s code of practice.”"

The entire story can be found at:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/19/uk-police-forces-failing-to-meet-forensic-standards-safe-regulator-miscarriages-justice-outsourcing

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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.