Category Archives: expert testimony
#Forensics: Ageing the colors of a bruise. It doesn’t work.
Every dentist who has testified on the age of skin injuries from their color should contact the Innocence Project to initiate review of their unreliable opinion. Justice demands the advances of science should influence all these cases from the last … Continue reading
Forensics: Dundee and Glasgow take a look at the bitemarkers
Let’s see if prosecutors and the judiciary get the gumption and honesty to see this as the death knell for bitemark flim flam. Congrats to the Scots and Open Access publishing! https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00414-019-02163-5
#Forensics: read the difference between hanging vs strangulation. Special focus on the hyoid bone, cartilage, and vertebral fractures.
By Judy Melinek MD One might infer from this lit review, that the Epstein family’s medical expert has gone WAY OUT on a limb. https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/working-stiff/83087
Forensics: Botched digital measurements led to 11 years in prison. New trial ordered.
DAs expert used a fancy software program to analyze a robbery vid. He botched it. The perp is short. This man is 6’3″. A jailhouse snitch lied during his trial. The DA was mute during all of it. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2019/09/12/texas-man-subject-of-netflix-doc-ordered-released-after-11-years-behind-bars/
Forensics Australia gets low marks from a senior judge
Unreliability of forensic experts gets serious attention from a high level jurist. Some of this started in California’s bitemark case of Bill Richards. @CA_Innocence. https://www.smh.com.au/national/top-judge-worried-forensic-evidence-putting-innocent-people-behind-bars-20190823-p52k3l.html
Forensics incorrect between 23% to 96% of court cases
A UK study group describes their study as demanding a “holistic overhaul” of these practices taken into criminal courts. It contains a good review of US exoneration efforts to effect forensics. Too bad the police controlled forensic managers seem deaf … Continue reading
Forensics: Physics makes important inroads to outdated blood spatter expertise.
This is a well referenced look at BPA. The perspective is clearly science-based and unfettered by practitioner assumptions and biases. Rather refreshing, to put it mildly, and it also uncovers how BPA experts don’t agree with each other on basic … Continue reading
Junk forensic claims run amok once again.
Law enforcement always goes bonkers for junk forensics. This time it is a twitchy next gen version of a “deception detector.” https://theintercept.com/2019/07/26/europe-border-control-ai-lie-detector/
Posted in AAFS, CSI, expert testimony, junk forensic science
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FoxNews: Unreliable bitemarks still on the books in all 50 states.
https://fox6now.com/2019/07/17/its-essentially-junk-bite-mark-case-underscores-national-call-to-improve-forensic-evidence/ Excellent 8min video expose’ on the recent Stinson $7.5M award for wrongful conviction in Milwaukee. As usual, the city taxpayers take the financial hit. Kudos to all those who helped this case along. Heather Donnell and her staff are … Continue reading
Forensics: The battle of open access for scientific research papers. UCLA get slapped by mega publisher Elsevier.
The publisher spans the world for science, medicine and some things forensics. It has one open access (i.e. free) journal about forensics. Good for them. This story covers the larger issue of corporate profiteering (over charging) for information that is … Continue reading
