Scott Watson: New Zealand: (Flawed microscopic comparison of hair) ...Did the police plant evidence in his boat - two pieces of hair? Aftermath of Justice Minister to refer he case back to the nation's Court of Appeal - Newshub story (Reporters Emily O'Connell, Dan Satherly, and Annabelle Tukia headed: ''Right decision' to send Scott Watson case back to Court of Appeal... "A legal expert says the Justice Minister's call to refer the Scott Watson case to the Court of Appeal is the right move. But victims' advocates are concerned the wounds will be reopened for the families of his alleged victims. Watson, who turns 49 on Sunday, was convicted of the murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in 1999. Their bodies were never found. Watson has always denied killing the pair, who were last seen getting off a water taxi and onto a boat early on January 1, 1998. After a former High Court Judge reviewed Watson's application for the royal prerogative of mercy, Justice Minister Andrew Little advised Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy to refer the convictions to the Court of Appeal for further consideration. "It's not without controversy, this case, but I believe that is the right decision - for it to be referred back to the Court of Appeal," Massey University legal expert Chris Gallavin told Newshub."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Watson has been denied parole every time he's applied. In a 2015 interview with North and  South Watson claimed police planted evidence in his boat - two pieces of hair. "Nothing Scott Watson has said to me during our interviews has made me feel any better about the fact he is in prison - if anything it's confirmed my doubts and unease about the conviction," journalist Mike White, who interviewed Watson, said. DNA testing has come a long way since 1999. "The microscopic comparison of hair is no longer regarded as a very strong or high quality part of evidence. Because of that it would be strongly challenged today, if it was presented in court," a report by forensic consultant Sean Doyle said, RNZ reported on Friday. "Again, the DNA analysis back in those days wasn't as sophisticated or as discriminatory as it is today and therefore that DNA evidence would be more strongly challenged if it was presented in court today."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "The team that helped free Teina Pora in 2017 turned its attention to Watson's case. It's expected to be the final case eligible for a royal prerogative of mercy, with the new Criminal Cases Review Commission coming into force from July."

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STORY: "'Right decision' to send Scott Watson case back to Court of Appeal - expert," by  reporters Emily O'Connell, Dan Satherly, and Annabelle Tukia, published by Newshub on June 27, 2020.

GIST: "A legal expert says the Justice Minister's call to refer the Scott Watson case to the Court of Appeal is the right move.

But victims' advocates are concerned the wounds will be reopened for the families of his alleged victims.

Watson, who turns 49 on Sunday, was convicted of the murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in 1999. Their bodies were never found. 

Watson has always denied killing the pair, who were last seen getting off a water taxi and onto a boat early on January 1, 1998.

After a former High Court Judge reviewed Watson's application for the royal prerogative of mercy, Justice Minister Andrew Little advised Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy to refer the convictions to the Court of Appeal for further consideration.

"It's not without controversy, this case, but I believe that is the right decision - for it to be referred back to the Court of Appeal," Massey University legal expert Chris Gallavin told Newshub.

"I don't believe there is enough evidence for us to reliably say that beyond reasonable doubt, those charges have been proved against him... I just don't believe there's enough evidence there for us to hand-on-heart say this is a sound and safe conviction." 

The Sensible Sentencing Trust has asked Little to ensure Smart and Hope's families are well-supported as the case is thrust into the spotlight again. 

"Every time an appeal is made, it just brings everything back - it brings it right back from the day the crime was committed," said spokesperson Jess McVicar.

"Please ensure that some support is put in for the Smart and Hope families because it is going to be a very traumatic time... They're having to go through a lot of pain, a lot of trauma, a lot of emotion. It's horrible." 

Watson has been denied parole every time he's applied. In a 2015 interview with North and  South Watson claimed police planted evidence in his boat - two pieces of hair.

"Nothing Scott Watson has said to me during our interviews has made me feel any better about the fact he is in prison - if anything it's confirmed my doubts and unease about the conviction," journalist Mike White, who interviewed Watson, said.

DNA testing has come a long way since 1999.

"The microscopic comparison of hair is no longer regarded as a very strong or high quality part of evidence. Because of that it would be strongly challenged today, if it was presented in court," a report by forensic consultant Sean Doyle said, RNZ reported on Friday.

"Again, the DNA analysis back in those days wasn't as sophisticated or as discriminatory as it is today and therefore that DNA evidence would be more strongly challenged if it was presented in court today."

The team that helped free Teina Pora in 2017 turned its attention to Watson's case. It's expected to be the final case eligible for a royal prerogative of mercy, with the new Criminal Cases Review Commission coming into force from July.

Watson's legal team are expected to apply for bail now the case is back in court."

The entire story can be read at: 

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/06/right-decision-to-send-scott-watson-case-back-to-court-of-appeal-expert.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;

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FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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Robert Julian-Borchak Williams: Michigan: Aftermath 3: Commentator Matthew Walther in The Week: "Facial recognition is for-profit policing."...On a Thursday evening five months ago, one day before his 42nd birthday, Robert Julian-Borchak Williams was arrested in front of his wife and children at his home in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Asked what crime he was accused of committing, police refused to say. In response to questions about where her husband was being taken, one officer told Williams's wife that she ought to "Google it."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "This was not police work. Officers in Williams' case played the role of middlemen between two private companies that exist for the sole purpose of profiting from ensuring that men like him can be locked up with horrifying pseudo-efficiency on the basis of a supposedly disinterested technological assessment. This de facto privatization of police work is the logical continuation of the trend that began in 1984, when the hideously named Corrections Corporation of America (now CoreCivic) was given management of a prison in Shelby County, Tennessee. Since then, hundreds of thousands of Americans have lived in the custody of for-profit jailers.

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "The facial recognition technology that landed Williams in jail for a crime he could not possibly have committed is one of the greatest dangers to peace and justice in this country. It has the potential to be weaponized against the entire population. In the billions of hours of security footage taken in nearly every public location, to say nothing of the virtually limitless number of images of ourselves we have all made available online, it has an infinite amount of material to work with. The only thing standing between you and a jail cell is your ability to prove that you are not the person in a grainy video taken five months or a year ago. Here's hoping you have a tweet that can bail you out."

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COMMENTARY: "Facial recognition is for-profit policing," by Matthew Walther, published by The Week on June 25, 2020.

GIST: On a Thursday evening five months ago, one day before his 42nd birthday, Robert Julian-Borchak Williams was arrested in front of his wife and children at his home in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Asked what crime he was accused of committing, police refused to say. In response to questions about where her husband was being taken, one officer told Williams's wife that she ought to "Google it."

According to The New York Times, Williams was then brought to a police detention center. His mugshot was taken, as were samples of his fingerprints and DNA. He spent the night in jail. It was not until the middle of the next day that he would learn why he was there: because of a computer.

That, at any rate, is the excuse officers made when it became clear that Williams was not the man identified by an employee of a private security corporation, who passed on surveillance footage from Shinola, the Detroit-based luxury goods manufacturer, to the police department, who in turn ran the low-quality image through a database of some 49 million pictures, and on this basis arrested him for allegedly stealing $3,800 of merchandise from a store he had not visited in six years. I say "excuse" because at no point in the course of the investigation — if that is the right word for what took place here — did officers attempt to verify or even question the identification yielded by the computer system. No one seems to have questioned whether the large Black man in the St. Louis Cardinals hat who appeared in the Shinola footage even slightly resembled Williams; no one bothered to ask in advance of his arrest whether he owned such a hat, whether he had been to Shinola recently, or indeed to ask him questions of any kind, including whether he had an alibi. (He did: it would in fact have taken all of 30 seconds for Williams to prove his innocence beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise, via his Instagram feed.)

What happened to Williams — whose case was recently thrown out, albeit without prejudice — is being explained away as the result of a software error. Such an explanation conveniently elides the question of why the case was taken up in the first place and, more important, why it was carried out in this fumbling manner. The algorithm provides cover for the shoddy investigation that would not have been undertaken without it. 

This was not police work. Officers in Williams' case played the role of middlemen between two private companies that exist for the sole purpose of profiting from ensuring that men like him can be locked up with horrifying pseudo-efficiency on the basis of a supposedly disinterested technological assessment. This de facto privatization of police work is the logical continuation of the trend that began in 1984, when the hideously named Corrections Corporation of America (now CoreCivic) was given management of a prison in Shelby County, Tennessee. Since then, hundreds of thousands of Americans have lived in the custody of for-profit jailers.

As I write this, some municipalities are banning the use of facial recognition technology in police work: Oakland, San Francisco, and six cities in Massachusetts, including Boston and Cambridge. This is a good thing, but its value will be limited if state police and federal law enforcement are not similarly restricted, and I, for one, am dubious about the prospects of a federal ban. A proposed moratorium in February went nowhere. The technology is already used to screen passengers for international flights and in countless other situations, many of them presently unknown.

No American should be subject to the techniques being used by the authoritarian regime in China to carry out its depraved campaign of repression against the Uighur minority. Everyone remembers what Ben Franklin said about sacrificing liberty for security. In this case the stakes are even clearer because there is no proposed tradeoff between the two. Instead we are being asked to sacrifice both our freedom and our safety so that robots can put us in jail for no reason."

The entire story can be read at: 

https://www.theweek.com/articles/921918/facial-recognition-forprofit-policing

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;

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FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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Robert Xie: Australia: (Justice minister has granted him an appeal on five murder counts - one family: fascinating forensic analysis from author/blogger Andrew L. Urban (Wrongful Conviction Report) pointing to a very interesting proposition that contradicts the prosecution's case. (It took me by surprise. HL) The post runs under the heading: "Robert Xie exonerated by autopsy evidence." Read on!

BACKGROUND: "On July 18, 2009, newsagent Min Lin, 45, Mr Lin’s wife Yun Li “Lily” Lin, 44, their sons Henry, 12, and Terry, 9, and Mrs Lin’s sister, Yun Bin “Irene” Lin, 39, are found dead in their North Epping home. Police investigations over the next six months fail to find clues or culprits. In January 2010, police set up surveillance on Robert Xie: cameras and listening devices installed in his house and car. Still nothing. On May 5, 2011, Robert Xie is arrested and charged with five counts of murder. There was no direct evidence that Robert Xie viciously murdered the five members of his wife’s family nor any credible circumstantial evidence. In the absence of any durable evidence that pointed to Robert Xie, the police exhibited tunnel vision to focus on Xie. The prosecution continued the process and made much of a DNA sample (‘stain 91’) taken from the Xie family home garage floor, 200 metres from the Lin family’s house, the scene of the murders. Expert witnesses provided extensive but conflicting testimony, and in the end, none of them could exclude young Brenda Lin from the DNA sample; but Brenda was overseas on a school excursion at the time of the murders. In stain91 six profiles were found with scores exceeding 4000; they were the six members of the family – yet there were only 5 victims. Since Brenda was out of the country at the time, it is virtually impossible for the DNA in stain91 to have originated from the crime scene. The appeal against his 2017 conviction has been delayed by the Crown, most recently in October 2019 and is expected to be heard in 2020."

susan-neill-fraser-robert-xie-australia.html

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POST: "Robert Xie exonerated by autopsy evidence," by Andrew L. Urban, published on his Wrongful Conviction Report on June 26, 2020.

GIST: "26 June, 2020: Against the backdrop of the appeal against his conviction, (started 22 June, 2020), a proposition emerges that it wasn’t Robert Xie who killed five members of the Lin family in 2009, but at least two killers with two weapons.The claim is the result of a detailed examination of the autopsy reports, by a group of interested Chinese-Australians, including Dr Roland Zhang, a former neurosurgeon. 

In a series of comments in response to our article, Robert Xie – an evidence free conviction, Dr Peter Young and Dr Roland Zhang have identified elements that contradict the prosecution’s circumstantial case.

The key elements include:
Killers and murder weapons
The forensic report on the murdered Lily Lin contains “evidence strongly suggestive of asphyxial injury, including abrasions on the left side of the neck, extensive soft tissue haemorrhage within the neck and fracture of the hyoid bone. These are consistent with neck compression. This tells us that the neck injury cannot be caused by a hammer like object, but a short metal bar pressing on Lily’s neck.”

There are more than 10 cuts or lacerations on Lily’s face and scalp, strongly suggesting these injuries were not caused by a hammer like object. As Graham Turnbull SC pointed out, they could have been caused by a screw driver like object.

Combined with this is evidence of transferred material on the temporal bone, nasal bone and tissue displaced to the posterior pharynx and hyoid bone fracture – consistent with neck compression. “It is almost certain that a hammer cannot cause such injuries and the most likely weapon is a short metal bar-like object with one end bound with cloth to make it easier to hold”- or a chisel. “Only with this kind of weapon can the fractured bone or tissue be moved away by more than 10 cms,” as was the case according to the autopsy.

“That’s why we think at least two killers, probably three, murdered the Lin family.”

Missing DNA is evidence
Dr Peter Young writes that Xie was convicted as the sole murderer, murdering five members of the Lin family: first Min Lin and his wife Lily in their main bedroom, then Lily’s sister, Irene, in the second bedroom, and lastly young Henry and his brother Terry in their bedroom. But of about 70 blood samples collected from the boys’ bedroom all failed to identify trace DNA matching Irene.

“The defence barrister pointed out in court that this is evidence that Irene and the two brothers were killed by different persons, that a sole murderer allegation was wrong. The prosecutor‘s answer was that this can be explained by the sample collectors failing to collect samples from every inch of the murder scene! This is terribly wrong, as DNA labs nowadays apply technology like PCR, which would identify even an extremely tiny trace amount of DNA, as small as a drop of blood in the Pacific Ocean. And 70 samples collected by trained crime scene technicians, all failed to find Irene’s DNA, is overwhelming evidence against the allegation.”

The prosecution’s case was that Xie murdered all five sometime after 2m, after he closed his computer, went to bed, but then went over to the Lin home. His wife had testified that he did not get up during the night.

According to the autopsy documents, “one or two of the victims had partially undigested food in their stomach with distended bladders. There are two possible times when the bladder could be distended: one is before going to bed and one is early morning. With undigested food in the stomach, most likely the murders could have happened around four hours after meal. Normal content in the stomach will be empty 3-4 hours after a meal, but also could be after 8 hours, according to some researchers,” says Dr Zhang.

Dr Zhang has also noted that “If people knew the kids (Henry & Terry) were wearing day time clothes with a $50 note in one of the pants pockets, people would think the murder has high likely to have happened before midnight.”

Dr Zhang first heard about the brutal murders from news reports, and became actively interested when Robert Xie was charged with the murders. “I didn’t expect that,” he says, and believes Xie is innocent. Dr Zhang, along with Dr Peter Yong and others, began to undertake research – notably through the autopsy reports – and have been involved in an extensive series of discussions on Australian-Chinese forums. Dr Zhang worked as a neurosurgeon at a Shanghai teaching hospital until 1994, when he migrated to New Zealand before moving to Australia in 1999, where he works as a computer programmer. He is attending the appeal hearings in the Supreme Court as an observer."

The entire post can be read at:
https://wrongfulconvictionsreport.org/2020/06/26/robert-xie-exonerated-by-autopsy-evidence/

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;

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FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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Robert Julian-Borchak Williams: Michigan: Aftermath (2): Topic of the day: "When the police treat software like magic," by NYT scribe Shira Ovide...The arrest of a man for a crime he did not commit shows the dangers of facial recognition technology."

BACKGROUND: TECHNOLOGY: In the last several years I have been spending considerably more time than usual on applications of rapidly developing technology in the criminal justice process that could effect the  quality of the administration of justice - for better, or, most often, for worse. First, of course, predictive policing (AKA Predpol) made it’s interest, at its most extreme promising  the ability to identify a criminal act before it occurred. At it’s minimal level, it offered police a better sense of where certain crimes where occurring in the community being policed - knowledge that the seasoned beat officer had intuited through every day police work years earlier. Predpol has lost some of it’s lustre as police departments discovered that the expense of acquiring and using the technology was not justified. Then we entered a period where logarithms were become popular with judges for use on bail hearings and on sentencing, In my eyes, these judges were just passing the buck to the machine when they could have, and should have made their decisions  based on information they received in open court - not from Logarithm’s which were noxious for their secrecy, because the manufacturers did not want to reveal their trade secrets - even in a courtroom where an accused person’s liberty and reputation  were on the hook. of these logarithms on bail and sentence have come under attack in many jurisdictions for discriminating against minorities and are hopefully on the way out. Lastly. facial recognition technology has become a concern to this Blog  because of its prove ability to sweep up huge numbers of people, lead to wrongful arrests and prosecutions, and discriminate racially.  May we never forget that  a huge, extremely well-funded, powerful industry, often politically connected industry  is pushing for profit use of all these technologies in the criminal systems - and, hopefully, in the post George Floyd aftermath  will be more concerned with the welfare of the community than their bottom Line. 

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Shira: What a mess up. How did this happen?

Kash: The police are supposed to use facial recognition identification only as an investigative lead. But instead, people treat facial recognition as a kind of magic. And that’s why you get a case where someone was arrested based on flawed software combined with inadequate police work.

But humans, not just computers, misidentify people in criminal cases.

Absolutely. Witness testimony is also very troubling. That has been a selling point for many facial recognition technologies.

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STORY: "When the police treat software like magic," by reporter Shira Ovide, published by The New York Times on June 25, 2020. (Shira Ovide writes the very interesting 'On Tech newsletter, a guide to how technology is reshaping our lives and world' in The New York Times.)

SUB-HEADING: "The arrest of a man for a crime he did not commit shows the dangers of facial recognition technology."

GIST: "A lot of technology is pretty dumb, but we think it’s smart. My colleague Kashmir Hill showed the human toll of this mistake. Her article detailed how Robert Julian-Borchak Williams, a black man in Michigan, was accused of shoplifting on the basis of flawed police work that relied on faulty facial recognition technology. The software showed Williams’s driver’s license photo among possible matches with the man in the surveillance images, leading to Williams’s arrest in a crime he didn’t commit. (In response to Kash’s article, prosecutors apologized for what happened to Williams and said he could have his case expunged.) Kash talked to me about how this happened, and what the arrest showed about the limits and accuracy of facial recognition technology.

Shira: What a mess up. How did this happen?

Kash: The police are supposed to use facial recognition identification only as an investigative lead. But instead, people treat facial recognition as a kind of magic. And that’s why you get a case where someone was arrested based on flawed software combined with inadequate police work.

But humans, not just computers, misidentify people in criminal cases.

Absolutely. Witness testimony is also very troubling. That has been a selling point for many facial recognition technologies.

Is the problem that the facial recognition technology is inaccurate?

That’s one problem. A federal study of facial recognition algorithms found them to be biased and to wrongly identify people of color at higher rates than white people. The study included the two algorithms used in the image search that led to Williams’s arrest.

Sometimes the algorithm is good and sometimes it’s bad, and there’s not always a great way to tell the difference. And there’s usually no requirement for vetting the technology from policymakers, the government or law enforcemen

What’s the broader problem?

Companies that sell facial recognition software say it doesn’t give a perfect “match.” It gives a score of how likely the facial images in databases match the one you search. The technology companies say none of this is probable cause for arrest. (At least, that’s how they talk about it with a reporter for The New York Times.) But on the ground, officers see an image of a suspect next to a photo of the likeliest match, and it seems like the correct answer. I have seen facial recognition work well with some high-quality close-up images. But usually, police officers have grainy videos or a sketch, and computers don’t work well in those cases.

It feels as if we know computers are flawed, but we still believe the answers they spit out?

I wrote about the owner of a Kansas farm who was harassed by law enforcement and random visitors because of a glitch in software that maps people’s locations from their internet addresses. People incorrectly thought the mapping software was flawless. Facial recognition has the same problem. People don’t drill down into the technology, and they don’t read the fine print about the inaccuracies..."

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/technology/facial-recognition-software-dangers.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;

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FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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Scott Watson: New Zealand: Major (Welcome) Development: (After insisting on his innocence for 20 years): New Zealand's justice minister has referred the case to the countries top court "after concerns were raised about the conviction," Stuff.co, reporter Mike White, reports. At the heart of Watson's application was the reliability of two hairs police say were found on his yacht, which were likely to have come from Hope. However the discovery and testing of these two hairs, has always been extremely controversial."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Brian McDonald, who helped lodge Watson's latest legal bid for freedom, said the decision was remarkable. McDonald paid for expert reports on the reliability of the tests conducted on the crucial hairs found on Watson's yacht and has collated enormous amounts of evidence about the case over the last five years. "I just kept digging and digging and digging and persevered with it. But there's so much about those two hairs that has never emerged before." Despite being a cautious person, he had confidence the Court of Appeal would see how the evidence that convicted Watson had been undermined and was unreliable. "You get to a point where you know a landslide will happen. And I just think it will be an avalanche." McDonald, 67, was convicted of manslaughter and murder in the 1970s and had served 15 years in prison. It was this experience that had made him sympathetic to those who had been wrongfully jailed. A part-time truck driver, he has spent thousands of hours and thousands of dollars working on the case and had visited Watson in prison many times. "I know he'll be delighted," an emotional McDonald said. "I promised him that I'd do this, and I'm bloody happy that I've been able to deliver on that promise. It's important to me. I wanted to help him and I said that's what I was going to do, and I've done it, so I'm rapt."

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STORY” “Sounds murders: Scott Watson's case sent to Court of Appeal,” by reporter Mike White, published by ‘Stuff’ on June 26, 2020.

GIST: “The news that his case is being sent back to the Court of Appeal is still sinking in for Scott Watson.

Watson was convicted of murdering friends Ben Smart, 21, and Olivia Hope, 17, after a New Year's party in the Marlborough Sounds in 1998 but has always insisted he is innocent.

Justice Minister Andrew Little announced on Friday the case would be reconsidered by the Court of Appeal, after concerns were raised about the conviction.

Watson, who is in Rolleston Prison near Christchurch, was informed of the decision by his lawyers on Friday afternoon.

His lead lawyer, Nick Chisnall, said he had spoken to Watson who was understandably thrilled by the news. However, Watson's excitement was tempered by the fact it had taken over 20 years for the authorities to agree to review his case, Chisnall said.

All of Watson's previous appeals have been rejected. His latest application for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy saw aspects of the case reviewed by retired High Court judge Sir Graham Panckhurst, whose advice was then sent to the justice minister and Governor General.

At the heart of Watson's application was the reliability of two hairs police say were found on his yacht, which were likely to have come from Hope. However the discovery and testing of these two hairs, has always been extremely controversial.

Little said the Governor General had accepted his advice that the case should be reconsidered by the Court of Appeal.

Chisnall said he "whooped" when he heard the news.

"I'm as excited about this as anything in the law I've ever been involved with. It's been a long time coming."

Chisnall said he had no doubt Watson had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. 

Despite the time it had taken to get Watson's case reconsidered, he had remained quietly confident that justice would be done and he had great faith in the ability of Panckhurst to review the case fairly.

However, Chisnall noted that this only meant they were able to argue elements of the case in the Court of Appeal, and there would be limits in what could be raised. The crucial hair evidence would undoubtedly be part of their arguments, he said.

He was unsure when the court would be able to hear the case and admitted to feeling a weight of responsibility on his shoulders, given how difficult it had been to get to this stage, and how crucial the appeal hearing would be.

No decisions had been made about applying for Watson's bail before the appeal was heard.

'IT'S PRETTY GOOD'

Watson's father, Chris Watson, heard the news when it was announced publicly on Friday. He has stood by his son since he was arrested, adamant he was innocent.

He said it was the first time in 22 years they had managed "a win with the justice system".

"It's pretty good. We just have to get past the Court of Appeal now. We're not home free. But this is pretty much magnificent."

He had spoken to Watson earlier on Friday, though that was before the minister's announcement, but he expected to hear from his son as soon as he was able to ring from prison.

Chris Watson said the case was so vast and detailed, it had been difficult for people to get their heads around it.

"How many governments have we gone through in the hopes we'd have somebody who'd look at this and say there's something not right."

To that end, he was extremely grateful to Panckhurst, Little, and the Governor General for the decision.

"I've become used to being surprised when somebody does their job - but these guys have done it."

Brian McDonald, who helped lodge Watson's latest legal bid for freedom, said the decision was remarkable.

McDonald paid for expert reports on the reliability of the tests conducted on the crucial hairs found on Watson's yacht and has collated enormous amounts of evidence about the case over the last five years.

"I just kept digging and digging and digging and persevered with it. But there's so much about those two hairs that has never emerged before."

Despite being a cautious person, he had confidence the Court of Appeal would see how the evidence that convicted Watson had been undermined and was unreliable.

"You get to a point where you know a landslide will happen. And I just think it will be an avalanche."

McDonald, 67, was convicted of manslaughter and murder in the 1970s and had served 15 years in prison. It was this experience that had made him sympathetic to those who had been wrongfully jailed.

A part-time truck driver, he has spent thousands of hours and thousands of dollars working on the case and had visited Watson in prison many times.

"I know he'll be delighted," an emotional McDonald said. "I promised him that I'd do this, and I'm bloody happy that I've been able to deliver on that promise. It's important to me. I wanted to help him and I said that's what I was going to do, and I've done it, so I'm rapt.""

The entire story can be read at: 

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300043462/sounds-murders-scott-watsons-case-sent-to-court-of-appeal

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;

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FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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Billy Joe Wardlow: Texas: As the July 8th execution date draws near..."Burr (his incredibly dedicated counsel HL) is asking the Supreme Court to review new research that shows that because of the way the brain grows – or doesn't – the prediction of future dangerousness in an 18-year-old is scientifically impossible. If the court rules in his favor, the law would no longer be applicable to 18-year-olds, and Wardlow – who, you will recall, was 18 at the time of his crime – could receive a new sentence."

BACKGROUND:  (Billy Joe Wardklow): "He received his death sentence in 1993 for killing an 82-year old man during a robbery when he was 18-years old. Here's what the jury was told about whether Wardlow would constitute a future danger to others in prison: The most chilling testimony for the state came from Royce Smithey, an investigator for a group that prosecutes felony crimes committed in Texas prisons. If the jury sentenced Wardlow to death, the investigator said, he would be “segregated” and “severely restricted” until he was executed. He would have limited access to prison employees whom he might harm. Solitary confinement on death row would punish Wardlow and protect prison employees from the continuing danger he represented, Smithey testified. But if the jury gave him a life sentence, he asserted, Wardlow would be released into the general prison population with other felony offenders. Recently, Frank G. Aubuchon, who was a correctional officer and an administrator with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) for more than 26 years, reviewed Smithey’s testimony at the request of Wardlow’s current lawyers. Aubuchon wrote, “Mr. Smithey’s multiple falsehoods served to mislead the jury into believing that TDCJ would be completely unprepared to imprison Mr. Wardlow in a secure environment unless he received a death sentence. Based on my decades of experience as a TDCJ corrections officer, administrator, and prison classifications expert, I can say that this is categorically false.”

Execution scheduled based on bogus future dangerousness,"  published by Grits for Breakfast on January 18, 2020.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY; "Burr is asking the Supreme Court to review new research that shows that because of the way the brain grows – or doesn't – the prediction of future dangerousness in an 18-year-old is scientifically impossible. If the court rules in his favor, the law would no longer be applicable to 18-year-olds, and Wardlow – who, you will recall, was 18 at the time of his crime – could receive a new sentence. The question at the heart of Burr's argument – at what point is a person mature enough to be held responsible for his actions? – is one the Supreme Court has grappled with before. In 2005, the Court ruled that executing those under 18 years of age is unconstitutional because their character is not yet fully formed. One line that appears near the end of the ruling is particularly relevant to Wardlow's case: "The qualities that distinguish juveniles from adults do not disappear when an individual turns 18." New research shows how correct that statement is."

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This length,  powerful article explains why it would be a horrible irreparable miscarriage of justice if Texas is take his life. The whole article is worth a read. For now, here is the section on 'The New Arguments.'

Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.

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STORY: "A dangerous man," by reporter Bryant Bingamon, published why The Austin Chronicle on June 26, 2020.

SUB-HEADING: "At 18 Billy Joe Wardlow took another man's life. Nearly 30 years later  the state still wants his."

GIST:  "The New Arguments: After the TCCA denied Wardlow's habeas appeal in 2004, Richard Burr took over the case. He appealed it for 15 years, all the way to the Supreme Court, and was rejected at every stop. In October of 2019, Wardlow was given an execution date – April 29 (it has since been moved to July 8 because of the coronavirus pandemic). But by then, Burr had filed new appeals for his client, and he continues to do so. One of his most compelling arguments relates to the concept of "future dangerousness."

Future dangerousness has always been controversial. Practically anything, even the mere facts of the crime itself, can be proof of it.

In order to get the death penalty in Texas, juries must decide that a convicted man will probably commit violent acts in the future. If they can't agree to this, he is given life without parole. This prediction, called future dangerousness, has always been controversial. Practically anything, even the mere facts of the crime itself, can be proof of it. Juries make the prediction in almost every capital murder case they see.

Burr is asking the Supreme Court to review new research that shows that because of the way the brain grows – or doesn't – the prediction of future dangerousness in an 18-year-old is scientifically impossible. If the court rules in his favor, the law would no longer be applicable to 18-year-olds, and Wardlow – who, you will recall, was 18 at the time of his crime – could receive a new sentence.

The question at the heart of Burr's argument – at what point is a person mature enough to be held responsible for his actions? – is one the Supreme Court has grappled with before. In 2005, the Court ruled that executing those under 18 years of age is unconstitutional because their character is not yet fully formed. One line that appears near the end of the ruling is particularly relevant to Wardlow's case: "The qualities that distinguish juveniles from adults do not disappear when an individual turns 18."

New research shows how correct that statement is. In the years following Ward­low's sentence, scientists began using a new invention, magnetic resonance imaging, to study the brain. Today, after 20 years of MRI research, there is universal agreement that 18-year-olds are not full-fledged adults.

In an amicus brief filed on Wardlow's behalf with the TCCA in February, professors from UT-Austin and Texas A&M describe, from a biological perspective, why young adults do stupid, violent things. Citing dozens of studies published within the last decade, they write that during the early years of adolescence the parts of the brain that control aggression and risk-taking grow quickly. Only much later, in the early 20s, do the parts responsible for controlling these impulses begin to catch up. The studies show that 5-6% of young offenders will continue to be violent. But since the brain isn't finished developing there is no way to determine which young people those will be.

"There is thus no reliable way to determine whether an 18-year-old capital defendant will commit acts of violence in the future," the brief concludes, "making the overwhelming probability in the present case that Mr. Wardlow was sentenced to death based on a determination of future dangerousness that was theoretically and empirically unfounded, and which has proven untrue as he has grown into adulthood."

In addition to this major argument, Burr has appealed to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles for clemency for Wardlow, in a letter co-signed by 58 members of the Texas Legislature. He's also appealed yet again to the TCCA, asking them to reconsider their 2004 rejection of Wardlow's original appeals and to stop the execution while they determine a response. And after the Supreme Court recently ruled against Texas in a case with similarities to Wardlow's – Andrus v. Texas – Burr plans to file a second petition asking the court to review Wardlow's claim that his trial attorney was ineffective.

In short, Wardlow's July 8 execution is not yet a done deal."

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2020-06-26/a-dangerous-man/

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;

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FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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