The medical side of forensics talks about DNA being the cornerstone for potential identification. He does admit that teeth are highly resistant to total destruction in high temperature environments but misses the obvious dental identification material available for recovery and evaluation .
Its not all about DNA folks.
The sample size in this study is very small, although the authors have been collecting data for 13 years.
If only bitemarkers could be taken to task by a trial court like this blood alcohol ‘expert.’
On cross-examination, Wetstein [the BAC guy for the DA] acknowledged that he did not know what the defendant had eaten that night, how long she had been drinking, or what type of alcohol she consumed. Wetstein admitted that he did not attempt to determine when the defendant had entered the elimination phase, but rather assumed that she was in the elimination phase at 9:10 p.m. Wetstein explained that if a person had not consumed any alcohol since 7:30 p.m., he would be “quite confident” that the person was in the elimination phase by 9:10 p.m.
The appellate court reversed, finding that the expert’s opinion was improperly admitted. “A retrograde extrapolation calculation based on a single breath test, and when many of the factors necessary to determine whether the defendant was in the elimination phase are unknown, is insufficient to provide a reliable calculation and invites the jury to determine guilt on an improper basis. Based on the specific circumstances presented in this case, we believe that the prejudicial effect of the retrograde extrapolation calculation substantially outweighed its probative value and that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting it.”
Nothing describes the onerous lack of prosecutorial transparency regarding the death penalty better than this article on the State of Arkansas legal maneuvering to hide what happened at the April 27th execution of Kenneth Williams.
“Witnesses to the execution reported that about three minutes after Williams was injected with the sedative midazolam, he coughed, convulsed and lurched on the execution gurney for about 10 seconds. The witnesses said they could hear Williams making sounds even though a microphone into which he gave his final statement had been turned off.”
The costs of uncovering wrongful convictions are expensive. All innocence projects and criminal defense organizations require substantial donations to pursue the few cases they glean from thousands of requests from the public and inmates. Each case like the one mentioned in this article. dealing with erroneous bitemark evidence, needs alot of money to handle attorney costs, court and police records (not free by any means), and biological expertise. Alfred Swinton spent 15 years of appeals before finally being released last week. He is still on house arrest, since the DA from Connecticut has a time limit remaining before declaring no re-trial will occur.
Once an exoneration is achieved, the taxpayers then get the hook to pay compensation costs on those same cases. The state of California has paid out of millions of dollars according to this study from a few years ago.
These exon cases (350) brought forth a 45% presence of flawed, inaccurate or misleading prosecution forensics. Ignore the dude who says in this article that its only a matter of “resources.”
http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/technology/the-shifting-science-of-dna-in-the-courtroom/533124173
The AAAS, ACS and two other groups associated with main-stream science put in their two cents about desiring “independent and transparent” review and monitoring of police forensic research and methods.
This will largely prove futile. It is obvious that the WH wants governmental control of US forensics science to preserve its various “war on crime” philosophies. Crime lab scandals, junk forensic methods, and exaggerated police experts accuracy statements be damned.
https://www.aaas.org/news/aaas-reinforces-need-use-proven-science-doj-forensics
Added: What these groups are concerned about.
Loss of oversight results from police control of forensics
An outlier crime labber, ignoring all this, says that what is needed are “more resources.”
Great example of ongoing innocence litigation exposing flawed forensic science developed and used for decades by US law enforcement and prosecutors. Hair comparison put Banarek in prison for 26 years. DNA proves conviction was false.
Conscientious DAs looking to render some essence of justice to bogus crime lab forensic science cases rely on authoritative leadership about remedial measures to protect those innocent of crime. Sessions got rid of that problem a couple months ago by ignoring it.
Here’s a good story about one good DA doing his best.
Here is a common equation for wrongful convictions:
FORENSICS and LAW in FOCUS @ CSIDDS | News and Trends 