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Monthly Archives: March 2017
These 8 serial executions in Arkansas are sickening.
The death penalty is broken, but that isn’t stopping Arkansas. The state plans to execute 8 people in 10 days so it can use up nearly-expired – and dangerous – execution drugs. Arkansas’s planned assembly line of executions is irresponsible, … Continue reading
Progressive DAs get backlash from their “lock-em-up” peers like Michael Ramos
District Attorney Aramis D. Ayala of Orlando, FL is getting targeted for realizing that the death penalty is only in play in 0.01% of her criminal cases and is much too expensive to pursue. Elected Senior Prosecutors and police chiefs … Continue reading
Leading Australian state DNA analyst seems to be in a bit of a pickle
This one article ( from a large collection) about a very senior Western Australia DNA prosecutorial lab DNA scientist raises a bunch of questions on his decades long case work. Here are some key comments: State’s leading DNA expert sacked. … Continue reading
Forensics: Archaic and scientifically bogus TX mental disability statute ruled unconstitutional
SCOTUS Rejects Texas’s Death Penalty Standards for Disabled Inmates – This could be huge for other states to follow suit regarding mental competence and the death penalty. Texas’s standards for evaluating mentally disabled death row inmates are unconstitutional, the Supreme … Continue reading
Proactive DA takes on issue of 600 cases involving chemist with drug addiction
This DA doing the right thing quickly. “From various parts of the country over the years have come stories about prosecutors and courts reluctant to overturn convictions even when defendants’ rights have been violated or when key evidence subsequently proved … Continue reading
Genetic ‘Stop and Frisk’ not such of a magic bullet after all – Familial DNA issues
It seems that most police sciences get validated (at least some do) AFTER the cops start using it. While DNA profiling is considered the ‘gold standard’ for identification (not DNA mixtures, however), this run-up to its use as a … Continue reading
Bitemark pattern used to overturn case against New Orleans defendant
Once again, an ABFO dentist uses bitemark patterns to persuade a judge that there is ‘science’ behind skin injuries and tooth comparisons. This time is to say the defendant’s teeth “didn’t match.” A new trial was ordered. http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/courts/article_49cb7944-13fe-11e7-8dc6-9fe2d1aa4f30.html
Florida ‘dog sniffing’ police ‘science’ cases ignored by DAs and CJ system
Nothing seems more outlandish than dogs being use to track down criminals and being used as eye witnesses to a defendant’s guilt. Read this story about multiple cases of conviction added by another police ‘science.’ I would add another example … Continue reading
Netherlands custody death brings out the ‘perfect’ expert for the cops defence
This is what courts commonly see when expert wits are qualified as keepers of specialized knowledge regarding in-custody deaths. He is a government employee in Amsterdam. http://nltimes.nl/2017/03/29/expert-forensics-witness-history-backing-cops-violence-cases-report Here is a journal article with this same expert, Kees Das, showing up … Continue reading
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Tagged cause of death, netherland forensic science, police custody deaths
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Erin Murphy on NY State’s adoption of familial DNA profiling
Familial testing means that, depending on what the police decide on the necessary number of alleles that “match,” law enforcement will look into cousins, siblings, parents and unknown relatives who are in databases that are largely unregulated. Law Prof Erin … Continue reading
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