"Gov. Strickland, who has already publicly said Keith's case "has circumstances that I find troubling," said in a phone interview last week that eyewitness testimony is often deeply flawed.
"As a psychologist, I know that eyewitness testimony tends to be among the least credible," he said, "and yet it also tends to be the most powerful in its impact on a jury. We've already seen cases in Ohio and across the country where people were exonerated after being convicted primarily on eyewitness testimony."
There are numerous other reasons to believe that Kevin Keith is innocent, including the discovery of new evidence, police missteps, the existence of another known suspect and lousy defense work during Keith's trial. But it is clear not only that prosecutors do not care if Keith is innocent, but that they are deeply invested in winning at all costs......
Serious questions remain in this case. Where there is doubt, there must be mercy.'
CONNIE SCHULTZ: CLEVELAND.COM; (CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER): CONNIE SCHULTZ IS A PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING COLUMNIST; Wikipedia informs us that, "The Plain Dealer is the major daily newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio. It has the largest circulation of any Ohio newspaper, and is a top 20 newspaper for circulation in the United States."
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BACKGROUND: On the evening of February 13, 1994, Marichell Chatman, her daughter Marchae, and Marichell’s aunt Linda Chatman were shot to death at the Bucyrus Estates Apartments in Bucyrus, Ohio. Richard Warren, Marichell’s boyfriend, and Marichell’s young cousins, Quanita and Quinton Reeves, were also shot but survived. On February 15, 1994, Kevin Keith was arrested for these shootings. By May 31, 1994, Mr. Keith was sentenced to death for this crime. From crime to sentencing, only three-and-a-half months passed. In spite of his alibi and no conclusive forensic evidence proving his involvement, Mr. Keith was convicted in 1994 and sentenced to death. In 2007, after all his allotted appeals were exhausted, new counsel took on Mr. Keith’s case. Upon investigating, counsel discovered new evidence for Mr. Keith that supported what Mr. Keith was saying from day one – he is actually innocent. The new evidence proves that the primary evidence used to convict Keith was flawed. The eyewitness identification testimony by a surviving victim was improperly influenced. Thirteen years after he was convicted, Mr. Keith discovered that one of the State’s “witnesses” does not actually exist. At Keith’s trial, the police had testified about a fictitious person and attributed a statement to her in order to bolster the shaky identification testimony of the surviving victim. Mr. Keith’s new evidence further implicates an alternative suspect who told a police informant that he was paid to carry out the murders for which Keith is scheduled to die. The police were aware of the statements by the alternative suspect, but no one turned them over to Keith’s counsel. Kevin Keith has thus far failed to persuade the state's clemency board or the courts to stop his execution which is set for September 15, 2010.
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"One of the horrible blessings bestowed on the governor of Ohio is the occasional duty to play God, one life at a time," the Cleveland.com column by Connie Schultz published on August 22, 2010 under the heading, "A 'troubling' case, and a life, rest in Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland's hands," begins.
"For the 28th time in less than four years, Gov. Ted Strickland must decide: Shall a man live? Or shall he die?" the column continues.
"This time, the man's name is Kevin Keith.
Chances are, no matter where you live in America, you've heard about Keith.
A lot of people, including a bipartisan list of 31 former judges and prosecutors across the country, have called for clemency in a case riddled with missteps and shortcuts on the road to justice.
Keith was convicted and sentenced to death in 1994 for a shooting spree in Bucyrus that killed three people, including a 4-year-old child, and wounded three others, including a 6-year-old girl. Keith has insisted he is innocent. Last week, the Ohio Parole Board voted unanimously to deny clemency.
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His execution is scheduled for Sept. 15.
Gov. Strickland must decide by 9:59 that morning whether he will grant a reprieve. But there is no need to wait until then to do the right thing. Doubts hover over Keith's murder conviction like low storm clouds ready to burst.
The primary evidence against Keith was eyewitness testimony.
Numerous studies -- and hundreds of exonerations -- have shown eyewitness testimony to be the least reliable evidence. The Innocence Project, which works to free those imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, says that eyewitness misidentification played a role in more than 75 percent of the 258 convictions overturned through DNA testing.
Gov. Strickland, who has already publicly said Keith's case "has circumstances that I find troubling," said in a phone interview last week that eyewitness testimony is often deeply flawed.
"As a psychologist, I know that eyewitness testimony tends to be among the least credible," he said, "and yet it also tends to be the most powerful in its impact on a jury. We've already seen cases in Ohio and across the country where people were exonerated after being convicted primarily on eyewitness testimony."
There are numerous other reasons to believe that Kevin Keith is innocent, including the discovery of new evidence, police missteps, the existence of another known suspect and lousy defense work during Keith's trial. But it is clear not only that prosecutors do not care if Keith is innocent, but that they are deeply invested in winning at all costs.
Consider, for example, how the state, in a written argument to the parole board, altered 6-year-old Quanita Reeves' response after police showed her a six-photo lineup in which Keith's photo stands out. It is so dark that features are difficult to discern; his face is larger than the others; and he is the only one who is bald:
"Quanita pointed to photo number five, Keith, and stated it 'looks like him' but the man she saw did not have a 'bump on his head.' "
According to a transcript of that taped interview provided by the attorney general's office, here's what Quanita really said: "But that looks like him but that not him though." The italicized part is what the state deleted.
Quanita also said, repeatedly, that the guy who shot her did not have a lump on his head like the one visible on the top of Keith's. (Today, Quanita says Keith was her shooter.)
I asked Ohio attorney general spokesman Ted Hart why the state altered Quanita's statement. His initial response, via e-mail: "We quoted from the interview transcript and also provided the entire transcript for context."
When I pressed him about altering her quote for the written argument, he responded: "The quote was not altered. It was summarized."
Such a brazen attempt to manipulate witness testimony and then wiggle out of owning it casts a tall shadow on prosecutors' credibility.
To quote Gov. Strickland: "If that happened, it is terribly, terribly disturbing."
A lot of people are praying that justice will prevail for Keith, but his earthly fate rests in the hands of just one man. Only Gov. Strickland can do the right thing."
Serious questions remain in this case. Where there is doubt, there must be mercy."
The column can be found at:
http://www.cleveland.com/schultz/index.ssf/2010/08/a_troubling_case_and_a_life_re.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 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 accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-feature-cases-issues-and_15.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
LINDY CHAMBERLAIN: HOW SERIOUS FLAWS IN THE FORENSIC EVIDENCE AND A BLIND BELIEF THAT DINGOS DIDN'T KILL SENTAN INNOCENT WOMAN TO PRISON; BORDER MAIL
"When the jury was empanelled, and the prosecutor showed photographs of a dingo, one taken from a distance, another of a dingo "blown up", the double meaning sent the jury into fits of laughter, and I knew then that Michael and Lindy had little or no chance of being acquitted.
Nobody was prepared to accept that a dingo had taken 10-week-old Azaria on that dreadful night 30 years ago, on August 17, 1980, at Ayers Rock.
The Crown had a mass of scientific evidence to put against the couple, the prime exhibit being Azaria's jumpsuit found at the base of Ayers Rock a week after she disappeared. But part of its case was that the dingo story was ridiculous.
Ian Barker, QC, the Crown prosecutor, said in his closing address that if the claim had been that Azaria had been taken by a crocodile at East Alligator River, that would have been easier to accept. But a dingo? The jury did not believe it, instead accepting the Crown scenario that Lindy had sneaked into the family car, cut the baby's throat and perhaps stuffed the body into Michael's camera bag. The couple were found guilty: Lindy of murder, Michael of being an accessory after the fact.
There followed a long saga – Lindy put away for life with hard labour, failure of their Federal and High Court appeals, a citizen's campaign, the gathering of further scientific evidence – and finally, with the discovery of Azaria's matinee jacket at the base of Ayers Rock in 1986, a collapse of will on the part of the Northern Territory Government, and a royal commission.
The royal commission, under Justice Morling, quickly found there had been serious flaws in the scientific evidence..."
MALCOLM BROWN: THE BORDER MAIL;
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BACKGROUND: WIKIPEDIA): Michael and Lindy Chamberlain's first daughter, Azaria, was born on June 11, 1980. When Azaria was two months old, Michael and Lindy Chamberlain took their three children on a camping trip to Ayers Rock, arriving on August 16, 1980. On the night of August 17, Chamberlain reported that the child had been taken from her tent by a dingo. A massive search was organised, but all that was found were remains of some of the bloody clothes, which confirmed the death of baby Azaria. Her body has never been discovered. Although the initial coronal inquiry supported the Chamberlains' account of Azaria's disappearance, Lindy Chamberlain was later prosecuted for the murder of her child on the basis of the finding of the baby's jumpsuit and of tests that appeared to indicate the presence of blood found in the Chamberlains' car. This forensic gathering convicted her of murder on October 29, 1982, and sentenced her to life imprisonment; the theory was that she slit the child's throat and hid the body. Michael Chamberlain was convicted as an accessory to murder. Shortly after her conviction, Lindy Chamberlain gave birth to her fourth child, Kahlia, on November 17, 1982, in prison. An appeal against her conviction was rejected by the High Court in February, 1984. New evidence emerged on February 2, 1986 when a remaining item of Azaria's clothing was found partially buried near Uluru in an isolated location, adjacent to a dingo lair. This was the matinee jacket which the police had maintained for years did not exist. Five days later, Chamberlain was released. The Northern Territory Government publicly said it was because "she had suffered enough." In view of inconsistencies in the earlier blood testing which gave rise to potential reasonable doubts about the propriety of her conviction and as DNA testing was not as advanced in the early 1980s it emerged that the 'baby blood' found in her car could have been any substance, Lindy Chamberlain's life sentence was remitted by the Northern Territory Government and a Royal Commission began to investigate the matter in 1987. Chamberlain's conviction was overturned in September, 1988 and another inquest in 1995 returned an open verdict. In recent years there have been fatal dingo attacks on children, one famous instance being at the holiday resort at Fraser Island.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Canada has its own Dingo case - the the prosecution of Louise Reynolds for the second-degree murder of her seven-year-old daughter Sharon - Sharon Reynolds case - and it involves none other than Dr. Charles Smith. Smith stubbornly held on to his opinion that Sharon had died after receiving eighty-one knife and scissors wounds - in spite of the clear signs - that should have been evident to a real forensic pathologist that Sharon had been savaged by a Pit Bull in the basement of the family home. As Justice Justice Stephen Goudge noted in the report of his public inquiry, Smith tended "to mislead the court" by overstating his knowledge in a particular area, rather than acknowledging the limits to his expertise. "When Dr. Smith performed the post-mortem examination in Sharon's cases, he had little experience with either stab wounds or dog bites. He had only seen one or two cases of each kind. At the preliminary hearing, however, Dr. Smith left the impression that he had significant experience with both. Dr. Smith told the court: "I've seen dog wounds, I've seen coyote wounds, I've seen wolf wounds. I recently went to the archipelago of islands owned by another country up near the North Pole and had occasion to study osteology and look at patterns of wounding from polar bears. His attempt to so exaggerate his abilities disguised his lack of relevant expertise." Smith's unscientific, utterly ignorant opinion, placed Louise Reynolds in a hell in which she was wrongly arrested as a murderer in her small city, imprisoned, and experiencing the horror of having her other children seized from her by the authorities. Similarly, Lindy Chamberlain, a bereaved mother, was branded as a killer and placed in her own hell, as a result of the Crown's forensic authorities who were so certain about their opinions. Lindy Chamberlain's request to have her daughter's death certificate to reflect the real cause of death to give her and her family closure. The authorities are always talking about the need for the justice system to provide closure for victims of crimes. Why would they hesitate to provide closure to victims of wrongful prosecutions such as Lindy Chamberlain and her husband?
HAROLD LEVY: PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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"When Michael and Lindy Chamberlain went on trial in the Northern Territory Supreme Court on September 13, 1982, Darwin was "seething", as a later royal commissioner Trevor Morling put it, with speculation, hilarity and hostility to the Chamberlains," Malcolm Brown's Border Mail story, published on August 11, 2010 began, under the heqading, "Yes, a dingo could have killed Azaria."
"A group of young people reportedly paraded in the street outside with T-shirts emblazoned with the words: "The Dingo is Innocent!", the story continued.
"When the jury was empanelled, and the prosecutor showed photographs of a dingo, one taken from a distance, another of a dingo "blown up", the double meaning sent the jury into fits of laughter, and I knew then that Michael and Lindy had little or no chance of being acquitted.
Nobody was prepared to accept that a dingo had taken 10-week-old Azaria on that dreadful night 30 years ago, on August 17, 1980, at Ayers Rock.
The Crown had a mass of scientific evidence to put against the couple, the prime exhibit being Azaria's jumpsuit found at the base of Ayers Rock a week after she disappeared. But part of its case was that the dingo story was ridiculous.
Ian Barker, QC, the Crown prosecutor, said in his closing address that if the claim had been that Azaria had been taken by a crocodile at East Alligator River, that would have been easier to accept. But a dingo? The jury did not believe it, instead accepting the Crown scenario that Lindy had sneaked into the family car, cut the baby's throat and perhaps stuffed the body into Michael's camera bag. The couple were found guilty: Lindy of murder, Michael of being an accessory after the fact.
There followed a long saga – Lindy put away for life with hard labour, failure of their Federal and High Court appeals, a citizen's campaign, the gathering of further scientific evidence – and finally, with the discovery of Azaria's matinee jacket at the base of Ayers Rock in 1986, a collapse of will on the part of the Northern Territory Government, and a royal commission.
The royal commission, under Justice Morling, quickly found there had been serious flaws in the scientific evidence.
It turned out that there was no blood in the Chamberlain's Holden Torana, or so little as to have been incidental and insignificant, that the "blood" that had been identified and sampled had in fact been sticky substances such as spilt milkshake or apple juice, which had collected enough Mt Isa copper dust to give a positive test for an ortho-tolidine test for the presumptive presence of blood.
There had been other serious failings in scientific processes, including the textiles evidence, which was supposed to demonstrate that Azaria's jumpsuit had been cut with a bladed instrument, and forensic consultant James Cameron's view that a bloodied handprint had been left on the jumpsuit (it was only dust – he had not tested to see if it was blood).
But the Northern Territory administration, as dogged as the pioneers who had penetrated that harsh terrain, was not giving up.
Mr Barker and Michael (now Justice) Adams were retained to represent the administration in the royal commission and, at the end, with the "blood" evidence upon which the Crown case was based effectively demolished, Mr Adams then painted a scenario that Azaria had been murdered by Lindy outside the car.
Justice Morling would not have any of that. The Crown had started with the murder in the car, he said. That was where they had to finish.
In the end, the only substantial evidence pointing to what really happened on August 17 was objective evidence about the dingo.
What was it? Well, tracks for a start. Lindy's mother, Avis Murchison, said she found paw marks on the space blanket inside the tent, but, in the hurried and haphazard way the police handled the inquiry, that evidence was lost.
The outside tent had spray marks which the first coroner, Denis Barritt – one of the few sensible heads who presided over this disaster – found "to the highest degree of proof required in law", were "sprays of blood coming from Azaria's head and neck". That evidence was also mishandled by police.
Dingo paw marks were seen going out of the tent, but the police camera did not work and precise images of them were never captured. Dingo tracks had been found leading out of the tent! Drag marks were found in the sand, lasting for 160 metres. A patch was found on the dirt where the dingo appeared to have put down a weight to change its grip, and the patch contained indentations consistent with a baby's jump suit.
A long time later, Hans Brunner, an expert on the identification of mammalian hair, traced by Chamberlain supporter Dr Norman Young, examined six hairs that had been found embedded in Azaria's jumpsuit and said they were canid hairs, consistent with having come from a dingo.
There was also objective circumstantial evidence relating to a dingo attack. There were about 150 dingoes at Ayers Rock in 1980, attracted to the area by free handouts of food from tourists. They had become bolder and bolder, nipping children. On June 22 that year, a three-year-old girl, Amanda Cranwell, was dragged from the family car by a dingo and had to be driven off by parents.
The situation was so serious that, before Michael and Lindy Chamberlain arrived at Ayers Rock with their three children on August 16 that year, rangers had put up signs in toilet blocks warning campers against feeding dingoes.
On the very day of the tragedy, Michael Chamberlain saw a dingo seize a field mouse and was upset by it. In the evening, when Michael and Lindy were casually talking to fellow campers, campers Bill and Judith West heard a growl from the vicinity of the Chamberlains' tent.
Lindy heard a baby cry from the tent. So did Sally Lowe, a camper she had been talking to. Lindy went to check, and, by her account, saw a dingo leave the tent with something in its mouth, and disappear into the night.
In the ocean of time that followed, questions were asked and asked again about the dingo. A news item was found in The Sydney Morning Herald from 1902, saying that a child was suspected of having been killed by a dingo in Queensland.
This reporter sent it to the Chamberlains' solicitor, Stuart Tipple, but no coroner's inquest findings could be located.
But, since then, dingoes have shown what might be thought of as their true colours, harassing people on Queensland's Fraser Island.
In April 2001, a group of dingoes stalked and killed nine-year-old Clinton Gage.
One lesson that might be learnt from this case is that collectively we have an anthropocentric view of ourselves, that animals regard themselves as subordinate to us and do what we say.
So, a circus keeper gives an elephant some treats then holds them away despite the elephant reaching out for more. It swishes its trunk and kills her.
A Melbourne family brings home their new baby and assumes that their beloved poodle won't mind their attention to the new addition. It waits its opportunity and kills the baby.
A tourist at Yellowstone National Park gives a grizzly bear a treat, then says: "Sorry fella, no more!", but the grizzly thinks otherwise.
But in 1982, when Michael and Lindy went on trial, and forever after at least in some parts of Australian society, the idea of a dingo regarding a five-kilogram baby as something special – untouchable because it belongs to the master race – that anthropocentric view remains.
And that is perhaps reflected in the finding of the third inquest into Azaria's death, in 1995, when coroner John Lowndes was not prepared to say a dingo did it. He left the question open."
The story can be found at:
http://www.bordermail.com.au/news/national/national/general/yes-a-dingo-could-have-killed-azaria/1910709.aspx?storypage=0
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 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 accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-feature-cases-issues-and_15.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
Monday, August 23, 2010
NORTH CAROLINA'S CORRUPTED CRIME LAB: RADLEY BALKO'S TAKE: THESE WEREN'T A FEW ROGUE ANALYSTS. AMERICAN FORENSIC SCIENCE'S FUNDAMENTAL FLAW;
"These weren't a few rogue analysts; the crime lab's problems extend across a wide array of forensic disciplines. Until 1997, the lab's serology unit didn't release negative test results as a matter of policy. If tests showed that a substance that police claimed was blood wasn't in fact blood, analysts simply kept those results to themselves.
Greg Taylor was wrongly convicted precisely because of this policy. A substance that police falsely identified as blood was found in Taylor’s truck. But the field tests that police use to find blood at a crime scene have a high margin for error. More sophisticated lab tests showed that the substance wasn’t blood, but a SBI analyst testified at Taylor's innocence hearing that technicians were told to ignore these tests if they contradicted the field-test results.
In another case, an attorney for a woman accused of killing her mother was shocked to learn that the lab's DNA tests on blood found at the crime scene matched his client. He called the lab and asked them to retest. They refused. He was finally able to obtain a court order for a new test. It was negative. It turned out that a lab technician had swapped the sample provided by his client with blood taken from the crime scene."
RADLEY BALKO: (Wikipedia informs us that: "(Radley) Balko is senior editor at Reason magazine. Previously, he was a policy analyst for the Cato Institute, specializing in vice and civil liberties issues. He writes on drug policy, police misconduct, obesity, alcohol and tobacco, and civil liberties. He also writes on trade and globalization issues and more generally on politics and culture. He was also a biweekly columnist for Fox News from 2002 until 2009. His work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Playboy, TIME magazine, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, Reason, Worth magazine, Canada's National Post, and the Chicago Tribune. He blogs at The Agitator, his personal weblog, and for Reason's Hit & Run blog. He has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC, and National Public Radio. Balko's work on "no-knock" drug raids was profiled in The New York Times, and cited by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer in his dissent in the case Hudson v. Michigan. He is also credited with breaking and reporting the Cory Maye case. His work on the Maye case was also cited by the Mississippi Supreme Court. He has also written extensively about the Ryan Frederick case and the raid on Cheye Calvo's home.")
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"These weren't a few rogue analysts; the crime lab's problems extend across a wide array of forensic disciplines. Until 1997, the lab's serology unit didn't release negative test results as a matter of policy. If tests showed that a substance that police claimed was blood wasn't in fact blood, analysts simply kept those results to themselves.
Greg Taylor was wrongly convicted precisely because of this policy. A substance that police falsely identified as blood was found in Taylor’s truck. But the field tests that police use to find blood at a crime scene have a high margin for error. More sophisticated lab tests showed that the substance wasn’t blood, but a SBI analyst testified at Taylor's innocence hearing that technicians were told to ignore these tests if they contradicted the field-test results.
In another case, an attorney for a woman accused of killing her mother was shocked to learn that the lab's DNA tests on blood found at the crime scene matched his client. He called the lab and asked them to retest. They refused. He was finally able to obtain a court order for a new test. It was negative. It turned out that a lab technician had swapped the sample provided by his client with blood taken from the crime scene.
North Carolina's Corrupted Crime Lab."
RADLEY BALKO: REASON;
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"Greg Taylor served 16 years in prison after he was falsely convicted of murdering a prostitute in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was released in February by a special three-judge panel after it was discovered the blood police claimed to have found in his SUV wasn't blood at all. In the wake of that debacle, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper ordered two retired FBI agents to conduct an investigation on the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) crime lab. The report came out last week, and it is damning," Radley Balko's 23 August 2010 post published in his Blog "Reason" begins, under the heading, "A damning state report finds systematic abuse, including in death penalty cases."
"The report found that SBI agents withheld exculpatory evidence or distorted evidence in more than 230 cases over a 16-year period. Three of those cases resulted in execution. There was widespread lying, corruption, and pressure from prosecutors and other law enforcement officials on crime lab analysts to produce results that would help secure convictions. And the pressure worked," the post continues.
"A stunning accompanying investigation by the Raleigh News & Observer found that though the crime lab’s results were presented to juries with the authoritativeness of science, laboratory procedures were geared toward just one outcome: putting as many people in prison as possible. The paper discovered an astonishingly frank 2007 training manual for analysts, still in use as of last week, instructing researchers that “A good reputation and calm demeanor also enhances an analyst's conviction rate.” Defense attorneys, the manual warned, often “put words into the analyst's mouth to try and raise inaccuracies.” The guide also instructs analysts to beware of “defense whores”—analysts hired by defense attorneys to challenge their testimony.
Forensic science in America is corrupted by a fundamental conflict of interest. In far too many states, crime labs fall under the auspices of law enforcement, usually reporting to the state attorney general. A forensic analyst's real aim should be to follow the science, even if results prove disappointing to bosses who are trying to secure convictions. But the pressure from prosecutors, even when it’s not overt (which it often is), produces bias even in the work of the most fair-minded analysts.
The relationships between SBI crime lab researchers and North Carolina prosecutors aren’t just cozy, they’re downright cuddly. The News & Observer reports that in one case two blood-spatter specialists ran through multiple experiments in order to produce even one that would make the blood patterns on a defendant's shorts support the prosecution's case. The two analysts are seen on video high-fiving after finally producing the desired result.
For those clinging to the notion that analysis in a law enforcement-managed laboratory can be independent, the newspaper uncovered prosecutor reviews of crime lab analysts indicating the contrary. In 2003, for example, prosecutor Ann Kirby, wrote in a review of a drug analyst, "If Lisa Edwards gets any better on the witness stand, the Johnston County defense bar is going to try and have her banned from the county!"
These weren't a few rogue analysts; the crime lab's problems extend across a wide array of forensic disciplines. Until 1997, the lab's serology unit didn't release negative test results as a matter of policy. If tests showed that a substance that police claimed was blood wasn't in fact blood, analysts simply kept those results to themselves.
Greg Taylor was wrongly convicted precisely because of this policy. A substance that police falsely identified as blood was found in Taylor’s truck. But the field tests that police use to find blood at a crime scene have a high margin for error. More sophisticated lab tests showed that the substance wasn’t blood, but a SBI analyst testified at Taylor's innocence hearing that technicians were told to ignore these tests if they contradicted the field-test results.
In another case, an attorney for a woman accused of killing her mother was shocked to learn that the lab's DNA tests on blood found at the crime scene matched his client. He called the lab and asked them to retest. They refused. He was finally able to obtain a court order for a new test. It was negative. It turned out that a lab technician had swapped the sample provided by his client with blood taken from the crime scene.
The SBI crime lab scandal is only the most recent story of forensics malfeasance. In recent years there have been forensics scandals in Virginia, Maryland, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Nebraska, California, Michigan, Texas, and at the FBI. And this is only a partial list. At some point, it becomes sensible to conclude that these scandals aren't the result of isolated bad actors, but of a system that produces them.
Last year the National Academy of Sciences released a scathing report on the use of forensics in the courtroom, finding systemic problems ranging from analysts routinely overstating the implications of their test results, to the widespread use of forensic specialties like bite-mark analysis that have little basis in science at all.
Most forensic disciplines were invented by police investigators, not scientists. Courts have allowed these disciplines to be admitted into evidence before they've been subjected to any serious scrutiny from the scientific community. The methods used in most crime labs disregard critical scientific principles such as blind testing, competency testing, peer review, and statistical analysis. Yet when a forensic specialist testifies in the courtroom, his testimony usually carries the weight and veneer of actual science. (See here for some suggested reforms.)
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper is a good illustration of the political hurdles standing in the way of fixing any of these problems. Cooper deserves praise for ordering such a comprehensive investigation. It takes guts for a politican to risk being labeled “soft on crime,” especially a politician who is a current or former prosecutor.
Still, Cooper was made aware of the problems in SBI as long ago as 2005, when he was pressed by local media and activists to look into how Floyd Brown, a developmentally disabled man who can't recite the alphabet past the letter K, was able to articulate to SBI investigators a detailed confession about how he murdered an elderly woman in his neighborhood. Brown seved 14 years in a mental institution before he was exonerated in 2007. Cooper didn't order an investigation into Brown's case until last year, and even then only in the face of a lawsuit.
And even after Cooper’s own damning report and the series of follow-on investigations by the News & Observer, Cooper is treating the SBI scandal as if it were a series of isolated cases and not a systemic problem. Cooper told the paper he sees nothing wrong with lab researchers consulting with prosecutors before performing their analysis, a practice proven to produce biased test results (SBI analysts are also discouraged from consulting with defense attorneys). He also objected to moving the crime lab to a different government agency so that analysts wouldn't be reporting to prosecutors, telling the News & Observer, "You don't want to hobble law enforcement by removing key tools such as technology to prevent them from solving crime." No, you don't. But moving the lab wouldn't do that. It would merely prevent analysts from feeling they need to please prosecutors by providing them with favorable test results."
The post can be found at:
http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/23/north-carolinas-corrupted-crim
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 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 accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-feature-cases-issues-and_15.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
LINDY CHAMBERLAIN: THE OPEN LETTER; HOW SKEWED COURT PROCESS KEPT EVIDENCE FROM JURORS WHICH SHOWED SHE WAS INNOCENT- LIKE THE DINGO TRACKS;
"It is no wonder that the eyewitnesses resent being disbelieved again and again when they hear and see the stupid lies and innuendoes resurface again and again. You see it is the questions not asked in court that are often the most important.
For example Murray Habys’ evidence that he had found what the Aboriginals later confirmed were the tracks of the dingo that took Azaria and the marks where it had put her down.
When we met him after he had given his evidence he told us he was not supposed to mention this, and only an odd question allowed him to say what he wished about what he had found."
FROM AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL OPEN-MINDED AUSTRALIANS BY LINDY-CHAMBERLAIN-CREIGHTON;
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BACKGROUND: WIKIPEDIA): Michael and Lindy Chamberlain's first daughter, Azaria, was born on June 11, 1980. When Azaria was two months old, Michael and Lindy Chamberlain took their three children on a camping trip to Ayers Rock, arriving on August 16, 1980. On the night of August 17, Chamberlain reported that the child had been taken from her tent by a dingo. A massive search was organised, but all that was found were remains of some of the bloody clothes, which confirmed the death of baby Azaria. Her body has never been discovered. Although the initial coronal inquiry supported the Chamberlains' account of Azaria's disappearance, Lindy Chamberlain was later prosecuted for the murder of her child on the basis of the finding of the baby's jumpsuit and of tests that appeared to indicate the presence of blood found in the Chamberlains' car. This forensic gathering convicted her of murder on October 29, 1982, and sentenced her to life imprisonment; the theory was that she slit the child's throat and hid the body. Michael Chamberlain was convicted as an accessory to murder. Shortly after her conviction, Lindy Chamberlain gave birth to her fourth child, Kahlia, on November 17, 1982, in prison. An appeal against her conviction was rejected by the High Court in February, 1984. New evidence emerged on February 2, 1986 when a remaining item of Azaria's clothing was found partially buried near Uluru in an isolated location, adjacent to a dingo lair. This was the matinee jacket which the police had maintained for years did not exist. Five days later, Chamberlain was released. The Northern Territory Government publicly said it was because "she had suffered enough." In view of inconsistencies in the earlier blood testing which gave rise to potential reasonable doubts about the propriety of her conviction and as DNA testing was not as advanced in the early 1980s it emerged that the 'baby blood' found in her car could have been any substance, Lindy Chamberlain's life sentence was remitted by the Northern Territory Government and a Royal Commission began to investigate the matter in 1987. Chamberlain's conviction was overturned in September, 1988 and another inquest in 1995 returned an open verdict. In recent years there have been fatal dingo attacks on children, one famous instance being at the holiday resort at Fraser Island.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Canada has its own Dingo case - the the prosecution of Louise Reynolds for the second-degree murder of her seven-year-old daughter Sharon - Sharon Reynolds case - and it involves none other than Dr. Charles Smith. Smith stubbornly held on to his opinion that Sharon had died after receiving eighty-one knife and scissors wounds - in spite of the clear signs - that should have been evident to a real forensic pathologist that Sharon had been savaged by a Pit Bull in the basement of the family home. As Justice Justice Stephen Goudge noted in the report of his public inquiry, Smith tended "to mislead the court" by overstating his knowledge in a particular area, rather than acknowledging the limits to his expertise. "When Dr. Smith performed the post-mortem examination in Sharon's cases, he had little experience with either stab wounds or dog bites. He had only seen one or two cases of each kind. At the preliminary hearing, however, Dr. Smith left the impression that he had significant experience with both. Dr. Smith told the court: "I've seen dog wounds, I've seen coyote wounds, I've seen wolf wounds. I recently went to the archipelago of islands owned by another country up near the North Pole and had occasion to study osteology and look at patterns of wounding from polar bears. His attempt to so exaggerate his abilities disguised his lack of relevant expertise." Smith's unscientific, utterly ignorant opinion, placed Louise Reynolds in a hell in which she was wrongly arrested as a murderer in her small city, imprisoned, and experiencing the horror of having her other children seized from her by the authorities. Similarly, Lindy Chamberlain, a bereaved mother, was branded as a killer and placed in her own hell, as a result of the Crown's forensic authorities who were so certain about their opinions. Lindy Chamberlain's request to have her daughter's death certificate to reflect the real cause of death to give her and her family closure. The authorities are always talking about the need for the justice system to provide closure for victims of crimes. Why would they hesitate to provide closure to victims of wrongful prosecutions such as Lindy Chamberlain and her husband?
HAROLD LEVY: PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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Read Lindy Chamberlain's wide-ranging letter on Australian morals, our authorities and media and her plea for the dingo to be included on Azaria's death certificate - as published on AUGUST 17, 2010, in the Sun Herald;
A Letter to Open-Minded Australians from Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton
It is hard to believe it is thirty years today since my darling baby was taken.
For some odd reason everyone says you will soon forget.
Why is it that people expect me to forget a part of myself? Why would you? Loss of a loved one, particularly a child is not something you forget any more than you can get out of your mind that you once attended school.
That does not mean you dwell on it all the time. It is simply there in the fabric of your life and history. In some ways it seems forever and in others it is like yesterday still.
Yesterday are the happy memories, and the years are the pain. I choose to dwell on the happy memories and not on the pain. Dwelling on the pain is only something that those who wish you harm hope that you will do.
They want you miserable. I don’t wish to be miserable. That is why I learned what forgiveness really is and put it in to practise. You always hear people say to forgive, but they don’t tell you how to do it and that is key. Once you learn that, you wonder why you didn’t do it before.
Forgiveness is for yourself, it puts the responsibility on those who hurt you, and lets you get on with your life. It does not say it is ok to hurt me, then hurt me again. It simply says yes you hurt me, you had no right to do that to me but you did. I acknowledge that you did that and that I am not responsible for your actions.
I will not take over the continuation of you actions towards me by allowing you or them to dwell in my mind and continue to fester and ruin my life. I have taken back control of my own life and head space and move forward. I am moving forward, not looking backward.
So, have I forgiven everyone involved in creating the fiasco of the last thirty years and the public so willing to believe the worst and spread nasty rumours? Of course I have. I have handed the hurt back to those who caused it and it is up to them as individuals to ask God to forgive them for what they did, because I forgave long ago and moved on.
Oh and despite what some headlines have said in the last twelve months, that does include the police, politicians and lawyers of the NT. It would be nice to get a voluntary apology, but I am no longer holding my breath.
Did you know that the truth is not a defence for libel in Australia? Ridiculous as that sounds that is the law as it currently stands. So if you tell the truth about someone you can be charged with libel if you say something a person has done wrong but which they want to remain hidden. They can have you charged in court because you told the truth and revealed their dirty dealing.
Of course once you are in court (or under parliamentary privilege) you can say whatever truth or lies you like and no one can touch you for it.
I believe one should be able to tell the truth openly without having to be dragged into court by corrupt people covering their trails. Unfortunately the way the law stands now I cannot tell you of any internal deals, deliberate lies, affairs or favours that I may know of that may make what happened in my case a lot clearer.
If I did I would be charged with libel and the truth doesn’t count in Australia yet. Now it seems like in the centuries to come there will still be arguments over who said what, where and how. It seems to me that it is ridiculous that people will believe all that stuff.
Can they not even try to think for themselves but believe everything they are told to think by someone else?
In the last couple of weeks I discover I apparently did twice the amount of time in prison that I actually did, in Berrimah Prison no less, despite it being quite obvious that I was in Darwin Prison and Berrimah was only the suburb. Berrima Gaol is in NSW. Only very subtle changes you say and nit picking. Yes you are right that the difference is small in one way – it is only one wrong word.
Now look at it another way. One prison does not exist at all and the other is thousands of kilometres away. Now it becomes not such a small thing but totally misleading. This is where lies and rumours start.
When the truth is dealt with this way, subtly leaving a word out here and changing one there, then it goes into the archives unchallenged because someone else thinks it is too small to matter and another mistake is let slide, or a deliberate omission or addition let go and you soon can bury the truth so deep that only the most vigilant will ever find it again.
Of courses you can start rumours like the one where I was supposed to have hit on the policemen who raided us! They wish! Of course they didn’t bring that up in court.
It is much easier to besmirch a person’s reputation by starting a rumour or making a statement with no basis in fact that will surface accidentally or on purpose some time.
Bury the fact that until the police told us we had to stay near the tent we had both searched.
By belittling and burying it on the one hand and on the other use it as the excuse to say we sneaked away to bury Azarias’ body, in the end was so successful that even the jury came to believe we didn’t search, despite testimony to the contrary.
It is no wonder that the eyewitnesses resent being disbelieved again and again when they hear and see the stupid lies and innuendoes resurface again and again. You see it is the questions not asked in court that are often the most important.
For example Murray Habys’ evidence that he had found what the Aboriginals later confirmed were the tracks of the dingo that took Azaria and the marks where it had put her down.
When we met him after he had given his evidence he told us he was not supposed to mention this, and only an odd question allowed him to say what he wished about what he had found.
With selective or very technical evidence it is no wonder that modern day juries are no longer equipped to make an informed decision.
We need an updated system for the modern age we live in so that there is less likelihood of the guilty going free (because they take advantage of the current inadequacies) and the innocent being charged because they expect the truth and fairness that once a court was based on.
Now it is just a lethal game.
Come on Australia. Surely you cannot be proud of the fact that you can let yourself be duped again and again and come back for more of the same.
We used to be a proud nation who saw through corruption and were willing to give a fair go. How many times do you have to be hoodwinked and led along by the nose before you demand something better from our courts, police force, politicians and media? There are good, honest, truthful people in all these fields.
We need to support them in their struggle to clean up their profession and stand for truth and justice. Hitler got as far as he did because good people didn’t wake up to the importance of the small details that did not look threatening on their own, until the avalanche engulfed all and it was too late to fix.
Painful as it may be at times we need to stand up and be counted. Change starts with the individual, the family, the local community, the town, the state, the country.
It is not easy to decide not to let the small things slip, or give in to the bully because of the pain or embarrassment it may cause us, but if you don’t do it you may as well die now.
Grow a backbone before the world turns on you. Give up the desire for gossip and sensationalism. Use your brains for something useful. You may surprise yourself what you can achieve.
I thank God that the crown eyewitnesses in my case did have backbones as did quite a few ordinary Australians who were willing to stand up and say “hey I don’t know what happened but something is not right here and we need all the facts” which paved the way for new legislation allowing for royal commissions in Australia now.
This allows for all of the evidence, rumours, tip-offs and questions to be exhaustibly investigated.
The commissioner in our case was asked to find our guilt or innocence.
Although we argued otherwise, he did not feel he had been given the power to rule on whether cause of death was a dingo or not so did not rule on that.
Despite that (the Crown always claimed that it was either me or a dingo), Moreling in his finding said we would be guilty “Ãf, in spite of so many considerations pointing to their innocence, the conclusion was reached that it had been proved beyond reasonable doubt that a dingo did not take the baby.
In the light of all the evidence before the Commission, I am of the opinion that such a conclusion cannot be reached.”
Our family will always remember today as the day truth was dragged in the dirt and trampled upon, but more than that it is the day our family was torn apart forever because we lost our beautiful little Azaria.
She will always ever be what this ongoing fight for justice has been all about. She deserves justice.
In light of all the evidence before the Commission, this should be reflected on her death certificate and not the open finding that is there now.
It is not like the eyewitnesses are dead or that there was not a recommendation from the Royal Commission and the NT Supreme Court who quashed our convictions.
It would not take more taxpayers money to do it.
These courts were exhaustive, why not adopt their recommendations and stop wasting everyone’s time, money and intelligence.
Lindy or a dingo was the NT claim.
Their own Commission proved it was not me, as I had told them all along, so why don’t they accept their own claim now?
It makes one wonder are they really after the truth, or just too stubborn or proud to admit that a mistake has been made? Who knows the reason, but most of all please do not forget that a beautiful little girl died tragically on this date thirty years ago.
Regards,
Lindy;
The story can be found at:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/a-letter-to-open-minded-australians-from-lindy-chamberlain-creighton/story-e6frf7l6-1225906343672
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 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 accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-feature-cases-issues-and_15.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
Sunday, August 22, 2010
LINDY CHAMBERLAIN: THE COURTS SHOULD BE MORE THAN "A LETHAL GAME." SHE CALLS FOR AN UPDATED SYSTEM FOR THE MODERN AGE; THE AUSTRALIAN;
"In an open letter to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of baby Azaria at Uluru, Ms Chamberlain-Creighton said the police started rumours to taint herself and her husband, Michael. "Bury the fact that until the police told us we had to stay near the tent we had both searched," she writes. "By belittling and burying it on the one hand and on the other using it as an excuse to say we sneaked away to bury Azaria's body in the end was so successful that even the jury came to believe we didn't search, despite the testimony to the contrary.""
REPORTER DAVID NASON; THE AUSTRALIAN;
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BACKGROUND: WIKIPEDIA): Michael and Lindy Chamberlain's first daughter, Azaria, was born on June 11, 1980. When Azaria was two months old, Michael and Lindy Chamberlain took their three children on a camping trip to Ayers Rock, arriving on August 16, 1980. On the night of August 17, Chamberlain reported that the child had been taken from her tent by a dingo. A massive search was organised, but all that was found were remains of some of the bloody clothes, which confirmed the death of baby Azaria. Her body has never been discovered. Although the initial coronal inquiry supported the Chamberlains' account of Azaria's disappearance, Lindy Chamberlain was later prosecuted for the murder of her child on the basis of the finding of the baby's jumpsuit and of tests that appeared to indicate the presence of blood found in the Chamberlains' car. This forensic gathering convicted her of murder on October 29, 1982, and sentenced her to life imprisonment; the theory was that she slit the child's throat and hid the body. Michael Chamberlain was convicted as an accessory to murder. Shortly after her conviction, Lindy Chamberlain gave birth to her fourth child, Kahlia, on November 17, 1982, in prison. An appeal against her conviction was rejected by the High Court in February, 1984. New evidence emerged on February 2, 1986 when a remaining item of Azaria's clothing was found partially buried near Uluru in an isolated location, adjacent to a dingo lair. This was the matinee jacket which the police had maintained for years did not exist. Five days later, Chamberlain was released. The Northern Territory Government publicly said it was because "she had suffered enough." In view of inconsistencies in the earlier blood testing which gave rise to potential reasonable doubts about the propriety of her conviction and as DNA testing was not as advanced in the early 1980s it emerged that the 'baby blood' found in her car could have been any substance, Lindy Chamberlain's life sentence was remitted by the Northern Territory Government and a Royal Commission began to investigate the matter in 1987. Chamberlain's conviction was overturned in September, 1988 and another inquest in 1995 returned an open verdict. In recent years there have been fatal dingo attacks on children, one famous instance being at the holiday resort at Fraser Island.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Canada has its own Dingo case - the the prosecution of Louise Reynolds for the second-degree murder of her seven-year-old daughter Sharon - Sharon Reynolds case - and it involves none other than Dr. Charles Smith. Smith stubbornly held on to his opinion that Sharon had died after receiving eighty-one knife and scissors wounds - in spite of the clear signs - that should have been evident to a real forensic pathologist that Sharon had been savaged by a Pit Bull in the basement of the family home. As Justice Justice Stephen Goudge noted in the report of his public inquiry, Smith tended "to mislead the court" by overstating his knowledge in a particular area, rather than acknowledging the limits to his expertise. "When Dr. Smith performed the post-mortem examination in Sharon's cases, he had little experience with either stab wounds or dog bites. He had only seen one or two cases of each kind. At the preliminary hearing, however, Dr. Smith left the impression that he had significant experience with both. Dr. Smith told the court: "I've seen dog wounds, I've seen coyote wounds, I've seen wolf wounds. I recently went to the archipelago of islands owned by another country up near the North Pole and had occasion to study osteology and look at patterns of wounding from polar bears. His attempt to so exaggerate his abilities disguised his lack of relevant expertise." Smith's unscientific, utterly ignorant opinion, placed Louise Reynolds in a hell in which she was wrongly arrested as a murderer in her small city, imprisoned, and experiencing the horror of having her other children seized from her by the authorities. Similarly, Lindy Chamberlain, a bereaved mother, was branded as a killer and placed in her own hell, as a result of the Crown's forensic authorities who were so certain about their opinions. Lindy Chamberlain's request to have her daughter's death certificate to reflect the real cause of death to give her and her family closure. The authorities are always talking about the need for the justice system to provide closure for victims of crimes. Why would they hesitate to provide closure to victims of wrongful prosecutions such as Lindy Chamberlain and her husband?
HAROLD LEVY: PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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"LINDY Chamberlain-Creighton has hit out at police who investigated the death of her daughter three decades ago," the Daily Telegraph story by reporter Davvid Nason, published on August 18, 2010 under the heading, "Lindy savages police investigation of Azaria," begins.
"She said they told her to stay near her tent and not look for her missing baby -- and then spread a rumour she didn't join the search in order to influence the jury," the story continues.
"In an open letter to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of baby Azaria at Uluru, Ms Chamberlain-Creighton said the police started rumours to taint herself and her husband, Michael. "Bury the fact that until the police told us we had to stay near the tent we had both searched," she writes. "By belittling and burying it on the one hand and on the other using it as an excuse to say we sneaked away to bury Azaria's body in the end was so successful that even the jury came to believe we didn't search, despite the testimony to the contrary."
Last night reports said the Northern Territory government was seeking legal advice to change the death certificate to say a dingo was responsible and had asked the Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages to asses whether the cause of death was accurate.
In her letter, Ms Chamberlain-Creighton reveals herself as an angry, troubled woman, unable to forgive and wanting more from the justice system she says has failed her daughter Azaria.
She calls on Australians to "grow a backbone before the world turns on you".
"Give up the desire for gossip and sensationalism," she writes."Use your brains for something useful."
Ms Chamberlain-Creighton claims she has moved on from the dark days when she was wrongfully convicted of Azaria's murder, but her words seem too bitter to be convincing.
"Have I forgiven everyone involved in creating the fiasco of the last 30 years and the public so willing to believe the worst and spread nasty rumours?" Ms Chamberlain-Creighton asks. "Of course I have. I have handed the hurt back to those who caused it. It is up to them as individuals to ask God to forgive them for what they did, because I forgave long ago and moved on.
"Oh, and despite what some headlines have said in the last 12 months, that does include the police, politicians and lawyers of the NT. It would be nice to get a voluntary apology, but I am no longer holding my breath."
She writes that justice for Azaria demanded her death certificate cite a dingo as the cause of death, not the open finding delivered at the third and last coronial inquest in 1995.
On that occasion, coroner John Lowndes found that "the cause and manner of Azaria's death cannot be determined and must remain unknown".
The finding was condemned at the time by the first coroner, Denis Barritt, who said it would "delight those people in the community who live for suspicion and gossip".
Ms Chamberlain-Creighton said it had always been the Northern Territory's claim that it was either "Lindy or the dingo".
"Their own (royal) commission proved it was not me, as I had told them all along, so why don't they accept their own claim now?" she writes. "It makes one wonder: are they really after the truth, or just too stubborn or proud to admit that a mistake has been made?"
Like trial judge James Muirhead, who said the Chamberlain case had made him question the value of the jury system, Ms Chamberlain-Creighton said law reform was needed to stop the courts becoming "just a lethal game . . . we need an updated system for the modern age.""
The story - with sidebars - can be found at:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/lindy-savages-police-investigation-of-azaria/story-fn59niix-1225906554632
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 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 accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-feature-cases-issues-and_15.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
FLORIDA TODAY: JOHN PRESTON; HOPE THAT CANDIDATES FOR STATE OFFICE WILL PROBE TRAVESTY OF FRAUDULENT DOG- HANDLER AS PRIMARIES APPROACH;
# Wilton Dedge was exonerated in 2005 after spending more than 20 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit.
# William Dillon served 27 years for murder until new DNA testing in 2008 showed he was innocent.
# Juan Ramos, convicted of murder on testimony from Preston, was freed in 1987.
More victims of the abuses may still be behind bars.
Inmate Gary Bennett was convicted of the murder of Palm Bay resident Helen Nardi in 1984 based on evidence Preston provided, though he couldn’t be linked to the case by a rape kit exam, passed a lie-detector test and witnesses testified he was elsewhere when Nardi was slain.
What’s more, two Brevard criminal justice veterans from that era — former prosecutor Sam Bardwell and retired Brevard Circuit Judge Gilbert Goshorn — say Preston was known to be a fraud, yet used repeatedly to trump up evidence.
The travesty cries out for justice, but Florida’s leaders have ignored calls for a probe."
EDITORIAL: FLORIDA TODAY;
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BACKGROUND: This Blog has been delving into the havoc caused by the late John Preston and his magical dog who could purportedly trace scents across water. The focus has also been on Deputy Keith Pikett, another so-called dog-scent "specialist", a canine officer who was formerly with the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office, just southwest of Houston. Time Magazine has reported on two apparent miscarriages of Justice involving Pikett; The first case studied involves Calvin Lee Miller, who was charged with robbery and sexual assault after Pikett's bloodhounds alerted police to a scent on sheets that Pikett said matched a scent swipe from Miller's cheek. DNA evidence later cleared Miller, but only after he served 62 days in jail. In a second case, former Victoria County Sheriff's Department Captain Michael Buchanek was named as a "person of interest" in a murder case after Pikett's bloodhounds sped 5.5 miles from a crime scene, tracking a scent to Buchanek's home. Another man later confessed to the murder.
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"Candidates for state office promising if elected they’ll order an investigation of criminal practices in the Brevard-Seminole State Attorney’s Office in the 1980s, including use of tainted witnesses, jailhouse snitches and fraudulent dog handler John Preston," the Florida Today editorial published on August 17, 2010 begins, under the heading, 'Our views: Next Florida attorney general should probe unjust convictions."
"With the primary election a week away, there’s new cause for hope that might actually happen," the editorial continues.
"All major candidates for Florida Attorney General — Republicans Holly Benson, Pam Bondi and Jeff Kottkamp and Democrats Dave Aronberg and Dan Gelber — say they’d look into a highly troubling spate of wrongful convictions, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
That’s long overdue and critical. Sham prosecutorial tactics related to Preston put at least three innocent Brevard men in prison for a total of 55 years:
# Wilton Dedge was exonerated in 2005 after spending more than 20 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit.
# William Dillon served 27 years for murder until new DNA testing in 2008 showed he was innocent.
# Juan Ramos, convicted of murder on testimony from Preston, was freed in 1987.
More victims of the abuses may still be behind bars.
Inmate Gary Bennett was convicted of the murder of Palm Bay resident Helen Nardi in 1984 based on evidence Preston provided, though he couldn’t be linked to the case by a rape kit exam, passed a lie-detector test and witnesses testified he was elsewhere when Nardi was slain.
What’s more, two Brevard criminal justice veterans from that era — former prosecutor Sam Bardwell and retired Brevard Circuit Judge Gilbert Goshorn — say Preston was known to be a fraud, yet used repeatedly to trump up evidence.
The travesty cries out for justice, but Florida’s leaders have ignored calls for a probe.
That includes former Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov. Charlie Crist, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum and Brevard-Seminole State Attorney Norm Wolfinger.
In 2009, Wolfinger ordered an in-house review of some cases involving Preston that was far too narrow. Meanwhile, the Florida Innocence Commission — approved by the Legislature this year — will analyze the high number of wrongful convictions in the courts and recommend policy changes to prevent future miscarriages of justice.
But it lacks the authority to bring the hammer of the law down on the justice system or law enforcement personnel potentially guilty of wrongdoing during the Preston era.
The probe is imperative to rebuild badly damaged trust in the state criminal justice system. To ensure against a whitewash, it should come from outside the state attorney’s office, such as a special grand jury with the power to hand down indictments.
We like to think the candidates will be good to their word, but campaign promises often go up in smoke.
Brevard voters should hold whoever wins the race for attorney general in November accountable for fulfilling the pledge and ordering a probe."
The editorial can be found at:
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100817/BREAKINGNEWS/308180001/1006/news01/Our+views++Next+Florida+attorney+general+should+probe+unjust+convictions
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 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 accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-feature-cases-issues-and_15.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
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Saturday, August 21, 2010
LINDY CHAMBERLAIN: JUROR SWAYED BY PROSECUTION EXPERT WHO SAID AZARIA'S JUMPSUIT CUT WITH SCISSORS - AND NOT BY DINGO TEETH; DAILY TELEGRAPH;
"The teacher, who was swayed by a prosecution expert who said Azaria’s jumpsuit had been cut with scissors and not torn by dingo teeth, said: "Look at totality must say guilty.""
REPORTER BONNIE MALKIN: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH;
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BACKGROUND: WIKIPEDIA): Michael and Lindy Chamberlain's first daughter, Azaria, was born on June 11, 1980. When Azaria was two months old, Michael and Lindy Chamberlain took their three children on a camping trip to Ayers Rock, arriving on August 16, 1980. On the night of August 17, Chamberlain reported that the child had been taken from her tent by a dingo. A massive search was organised, but all that was found were remains of some of the bloody clothes, which confirmed the death of baby Azaria. Her body has never been discovered. Although the initial coronal inquiry supported the Chamberlains' account of Azaria's disappearance, Lindy Chamberlain was later prosecuted for the murder of her child on the basis of the finding of the baby's jumpsuit and of tests that appeared to indicate the presence of blood found in the Chamberlains' car. This forensic gathering convicted her of murder on October 29, 1982, and sentenced her to life imprisonment; the theory was that she slit the child's throat and hid the body. Michael Chamberlain was convicted as an accessory to murder. Shortly after her conviction, Lindy Chamberlain gave birth to her fourth child, Kahlia, on November 17, 1982, in prison. An appeal against her conviction was rejected by the High Court in February, 1984. New evidence emerged on February 2, 1986 when a remaining item of Azaria's clothing was found partially buried near Uluru in an isolated location, adjacent to a dingo lair. This was the matinee jacket which the police had maintained for years did not exist. Five days later, Chamberlain was released. The Northern Territory Government publicly said it was because "she had suffered enough." In view of inconsistencies in the earlier blood testing which gave rise to potential reasonable doubts about the propriety of her conviction and as DNA testing was not as advanced in the early 1980s it emerged that the 'baby blood' found in her car could have been any substance, Lindy Chamberlain's life sentence was remitted by the Northern Territory Government and a Royal Commission began to investigate the matter in 1987. Chamberlain's conviction was overturned in September, 1988 and another inquest in 1995 returned an open verdict. In recent years there have been fatal dingo attacks on children, one famous instance being at the holiday resort at Fraser Island.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Canada has its own Dingo case - the the prosecution of Louise Reynolds for the second-degree murder of her seven-year-old daughter Sharon - Sharon Reynolds case - and it involves none other than Dr. Charles Smith. Smith stubbornly held on to his opinion that Sharon had died after receiving eighty-one knife and scissors wounds - in spite of the clear signs - that should have been evident to a real forensic pathologist that Sharon had been savaged by a Pit Bull in the basement of the family home. As Justice Justice Stephen Goudge noted in the report of his public inquiry, Smith tended "to mislead the court" by overstating his knowledge in a particular area, rather than acknowledging the limits to his expertise. "When Dr. Smith performed the post-mortem examination in Sharon's cases, he had little experience with either stab wounds or dog bites. He had only seen one or two cases of each kind. At the preliminary hearing, however, Dr. Smith left the impression that he had significant experience with both. Dr. Smith told the court: "I've seen dog wounds, I've seen coyote wounds, I've seen wolf wounds. I recently went to the archipelago of islands owned by another country up near the North Pole and had occasion to study osteology and look at patterns of wounding from polar bears. His attempt to so exaggerate his abilities disguised his lack of relevant expertise." Smith's unscientific, utterly ignorant opinion, placed Louise Reynolds in a hell in which she was wrongly arrested as a murderer in her small city, imprisoned, and experiencing the horror of having her other children seized from her by the authorities. Similarly, Lindy Chamberlain, a bereaved mother, was branded as a killer and placed in her own hell, as a result of the Crown's forensic authorities who were so certain about their opinions. Lindy Chamberlain's request to have her daughter's death certificate to reflect the real cause of death to give her and her family closure. The authorities are always talking about the need for the justice system to provide closure for victims of crimes. Why would they hesitate to provide closure to victims of wrongful prosecutions such as Lindy Chamberlain and her husband?
HAROLD LEVY: PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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"SYDNEY — Jury notes detailing the behind-the-scenes deliberations in Australia’s most famous murder trial have emerged, shedding new light on the conviction of Lindy Chamberlain over the disappearance of her infant daughter more than 30 years ago," reporter Bonnie Malkin's story, published on August 10, 2010, under the heading, "Notes from notorious 'dingo's got my baby' trial show jurors torn over conviction."
"Chamberlain was accused of murdering her two month-old daughter Azaria on a family camping trip to Ayers Rock (Uluru) in 1980 by slashing her throat with scissors and then hiding the body. She repeatedly denied harming Azaria, insisting that the child had been carried off and killed by a dingo," the story continues.
"Despite largely circumstantial evidence presented by the prosecution, Chamberlain was found guilty by the jury in 1982 and sentenced to life in prison. Her husband Michael was convicted as an accessory.
The handwritten notes, obtained by Brisbane’s Courier Mail newspaper, were found amongst 145 boxes of police files on the case that were destined for the National Archives. Written over 14 pages, they show that three female jurors — a teacher and two housewives — voted for a conviction while at least four of the nine men had to be persuaded Chamberlain was guilty.
"Doesn’t believe dingo," one of the housewives is recorded as declaring in the notes.
Another said that, while she was going to convict Chamberlain, she still found it "hard to accept Mrs C did it."
The teacher, who was swayed by a prosecution expert who said Azaria’s jumpsuit had been cut with scissors and not torn by dingo teeth, said: "Look at totality must say guilty."
Notes on the deliberation of the male jurors reveal far more doubt.
One juror of the public servants was quoted as saying simply: "Can’t believe Mrs C did it." Another public servant said: "Probability dingo could do it."
The seven-week trial captivated the country and deeply divided public opinion. Women emerged as Chamberlain’s harshest critics, questioning her lack of emotion and why she and her husband failed to join a police hunt for Azaria’s body.
The case took another twist in 1988 when hikers stumbled across the baby’s jacket, which police had said did not exist, near a dingo lair close to the location of the baby’s disappearance.
The discovery vindicated Chamberlain, and she was released from prison five days later after a judge ruled that she had "suffered enough."
Fatal attacks by dingos have continued. In 2001, a nine year-old boy was killed by two native dogs while playing on a beach on Queensland’s Fraser Island."
The story can be found at:
http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Notes+from+notorious+dingo+baby+trial+show+jurors+torn+over+conviction/3381650/story.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 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 accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-feature-cases-issues-and_15.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
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