Deep dark secrets and a little help from his police colleagues got toxicologist Norman Wade rehired after running away from a California conviction (in my home town) and making it big again in Arizona. Seems he fit well into the Maricopa County crime lab environment and criminal courts as a expert. If you read the article, I do remember the story about his stealing evidence from the evidence locker.
For the first time, a New York appellate court has ruled that evidence once used to convict people in shaken-baby cases may no longer be scientifically valid.
► Shaken-baby science questioned
► Changing science a tough sell in court
UK Pathologist sanctioned for courtroom testimony disagreeing with the MET Police theory of Shaken Baby opinions. She barely kept her medical license.
The arguments about legal “inconvenience” versus “tainted” forensic evidence versus “unsafe convictions” brings us to the real uncertainties about the definition of justice. Letting the DAs decide is incredibly wrong.
Petition for Certiorari to SCOTUS: Sireci v. Florida
Issue(s): Whether a state court violates a petitioner’s federal due process rights when it denies a new trial and DNA testing in an actual innocence case in which newly discovered evidence demonstrates that the only physical evidence linking the petitioner to the crime scene was based upon inaccurate forensic science and false expert testimony.
Multiple sentences of death by Florida juries than were not in total agreement. Postconviction DNA testing refusal.
Forty years on death row. Sierci has organic brain disease.
The case summary starts on page 11 of this pdf.
FBI hair analysis used to convict on page 16.
Extensive use of NAS Report on “Improving Forensic Science” page 22.
Crime Lab Society and FBI 2013 position on ethical obligation for accurate forensic testimony. page 25.
The MA Supremes are quivering about what kind of ‘justice’ defendants to massive crime lab fraud monumental scale deserve after 4 years after this became public. The link requires a non fee “signup” to the Boston Globe.
From the NY Legal Aid Society DNA Newsletter
Denise McWilliams, Executive Director of the New England Innocence Project, has written an Op-Ed in the Boston Herald arguing that the state’s Supreme Judicial Court should vacate and dismiss all defendants’ cases involved in the Annie Dookhan crime lab scandal:
“Most of the ‘Dookhan defendants’ were convicted of petty drug crimes. In 62 percent of the cases, the only drug convictions were for mere possession; 90 percent of cases were handled in district court. But even minor convictions have far-reaching consequences in terms of employment, housing, loans, and immigration status…Justice requires asking the state to bear the burden of doing whatever can still be done to fix this problem. If prosecutors believe they have enough untainted evidence to maintain some fraction of these convictions, let them choose those cases and try. But we cannot reward an injustice on this scale with the benefit of the doubt.”
Besides the shape of the skull breakage, there are defense claims that the crime scene recovery and storage of DNA was botched. The state claims a fall down stairs is not what killed her. It’s reasons for homicide at Peterson’s first trial also didn’t agree with then defense expert Henry Lee regarding blood pattern (spatter) evidence.
It’s the Mike Peterson retrial in Durham NC. His first conviction was overturned in 2011.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/crime/article114680608.html
More info on the case which originally was trie in 2003 from the source of truth and veracity. Wikepedia It gives a good chronology of this decades long process.
Of course, many DAs in this state do not believe that such things like convicting the innocent occurs. That’s the direct implication of their successful death penalty bill that won 52-48 percent of CA voters.
Read the numbers about how much the NCIP spends in time and equivalent costs for ONE exoneration. Full article.
You might multiply these 5,100 hours x the NY Innocence Project’s current number of DNA exonerations of 347. The Registry of Exonerations shows over 1800 exonerations in total.
Austin’s lab affecting 120 criminal cases. Most defendants still in jail.
Over 60 pages with many pie charts and graphs. Little in the way of firm conclusions and remedies although he touches on over representations of specific racial groups, income, and education dropout rates.
Why did you study Race and Prosecutions and what were you trying to find out?
This report is an effort to answer the questions the community has been asking and that we have been asking ourselves. We wanted to know – not estimate, not guess, not assume -how many people of diffsrent races and ethnic goups we are prosecuting. And we wanted to share that information with the public. Our ability to do this kind of study is relatively new. In2}ll, the Santa ClaraCounty District Attorney’s Office began entering the race and gender data received from police reports and booking information into our electronic case management systøn for all felonies and most misderneanors. Before that, our knowledge of the race of adult criminal defendants was limited to our own anecdotal knowledge and the more limited collection of that data on some teams like the Family Violence Team. Santa Clara County has studied race and the Juvenile Justice Syston annually since2012. This is an effort to take a similar lons of inquiry and analysis and turn it on ourselves to try to answer a key set of questions about race and our prosecutions of adults. Of course, answering some questions aþout race and prosecutions leads to the asking of more questions. This study is the beginning of what will be an ongoing review of these issues.
The slate is largely blank, except for PEOTUS’ climate change rhetoric.
FORENSICS and LAW in FOCUS @ CSIDDS | News and Trends 