This author contrasts the criminal justice “system” with other societal systems in regards to accidents and mishaps. Plane crashes are studied much more than wrongful convictions and plea bargains. Seems odd, but remember lawyers and judges cloak themselves with their “rules” and prior cases imposed by their peers.
https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1965&context=plr
Who ever said science and law have a common ground of knowledge? Not in this case and others still pending with lawyers arguing guilt is proven by practitioners of their unsubstantiated offerings of “medical certainty.”
https://www.altoonamirror.com/news/local-news/2018/05/ross-bite-mark-appeal-rejected/
John Kunco in Pennsylvania has local and Innocence Project attorneys arguing for his release on May 23. His possible exoneration could bring the number of men released from false science testimony of bitemarkers to 31 cases.
Backstory on Kunco.
Do you wonder how witchcraft and satanic children eating coven stories survive in this era of lies and misdemeanors and wrongful convictions? This article pushes back against what’s coming out of the US WH and DOJ (and some DAs) spiel about forensic reliability.
https://injusticetoday.com/faulty-forensics-explained-fe4d41157452
The government closed the FSS (national forensic science unit) in 2012. Privatizing forensics to commercial vendors resulted, which has led to various large scale scandals.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-44044668
In a strange coincidence, the UK”S Forensic Regulator published in 2017 some extensive rules for forensic analysts. This article from early 2018 warns privatizing will “inevitably” lead to “failing forensic science” and miscarriages of justice.
Here are the words of the Forensic Regulator herself.
A look at a lay person’s concerns about law enforcement’s reliance on false statements and forensics that’s not good enough for scientific approval, but very useful for gaining convictions.
Bitemarks, lie detectors, hair, partial fingerprints, evidence mishandling, incompetents and fraud.
https://www.corbettreport.com/crimelab/
The interplay of law enforcement and death investigations being under the same roof is a national problem. California is getting a dose of that in the news. It is a problem endemic throughout the US. Elected Coroners qualify with a high school diploma. Sheriffs get appointed via county and state politicians. The only physician Medical Examiners/Coroners are in Ventura, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
Cop-Coroners a conflict of interest.
Here is another great example of the intersection between forensics and criminal justice. It surely is a mess. These two articles lay out how US Immigration courts are rendering opinions on the chronological age of detainees without completing the requisites contained in their own rule handbook.
Some ICE court judges certainly seem upset about dental ageing from 3rd molars (wisdom teeth) and seem to think “bone ageing” is spurious.
“ICE isn’t following its own handbook on how to deport kids. “
Participating in post-conviction appeals of defendants convicted from the use of bitemark pattern “matching” brought me to a crossroads with my memberships in both the bitemark group (ABFO) and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS).
The cross-road on the right led to a train wreck, where the ABFO continued to use their debunkable beliefs in microscopic chips and twists of crooked teeth leaving finger-print -like impressions on injured human skin. Their train had run into a ditch due to DNA testing applying its science to overwhelm the ABFO “matching” dogma recorded in criminal cases of false convictions. The ABFO “diplomates” cases are illustrated next.
I hit the brakes at the intersection and quit the ABFO but as yet remain an AAFS member, although its recent renewal of the bitemarkers “certification status” has put a big dent in any thoughts that the AAFS is anything more than a forensic social boys club in the arena of imposing restraints on the bitemark group.
I have taken the road to the left.
Now my job is to educate individual state and federal judges, one-on-one, through the use of affidavits combined with criminal appeals from prison inmates who have spent decades in prison. BTW, all these prisoners are indigent.
Each affidavit I have written, either for an inmate facing life in prison or execution on death row, conflicts strongly with the Prosecutors’ responses about bitemarks as a “science.” Categorically and, as a rather curious example of “group think,” they love it. Their collegial relationship with the bitemarkers has produced a thread common in their Responses to these appellate cases.
Here is a quick look at Prosecutors (i.e. the State) boilerplate beliefs in bitemark identification from an active titled New Jersey v. Fortin :
