Exonerator Zellner relies on forensic advances to overturn Avery “MakingaMurderer” conviction

Posted on January 31, 2016 by csidds

Kathleen Zellner is an exoneration machine as she has 17 victories, mostly in Illinois. You need to know she is an expert at ferreting out police and prosecutorial misconduct. I would say she wrote the book on it. AS of a week ago, she is now Steven Avery’s defense co-counsel. The other new attorney for Avery is Midwest Innocence Project director Tricia Bushnell.

Here she is media talking the Steven Avery case. You might say finding a neutral jury pool for a potential new Avery case may be hard to deliver. Anyway, she is doing a great job deconstructing the facts used by the prosecutors.

What she says about forensics aiding the exoneration is just a glimpse on her future targeting of the prosecution’s case. She has been on Twitter blowing them into little pieces for the last week. @ZellnerLaw .

http://patch.com/illinois/downersgrove/kathleen-zellner-nbcs-dateline-first-steven-avery-interview

More on Twitter

http://abcnews.go.com/US/steven-averys-attorney-discusses-making-murderer-case/story?id=36614686

http://uproxx.com/tv/making-a-murderer-steven-avery-lawyer-kathleen-zellner/2/

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/making-murderer-steven-averys-lawyer-7236406#ICID=sharebar_twitter

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/steven-averys-new-lawyer-defends-his-innocence-on-twitter-he-was-framed-w162388

http://gawker.com/steven-averys-defense-attorney-and-prosecutor-address-i-1756015707

 

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National Geographic blog ponders TV CSI versus on-the-street CSI

Posted on January 30, 2016 by csidds

Steven Averys

A writer with an industrial chemistry background as a few things to say about the reality of confusion surrounding the “Making of a Murder” documentary. She focuses on the blood evidence from the second murder and makes some good points. She clearly differentiates between “forensic” science and what she is used to. Here’s a quote:

“But the key here is that we’re talking about forensic science, not beverage chemistry. Beverage chemistry, in this case, is much more exacting. Was there really no EDTA in the blood swabbed from victim Teresa Halbach’s vehicle, or was the chemical simply too diluted or degraded to be detected with the FBI’s method? Could the test have missed a small amount of EDTA? It would be hard to say without further experiments that replicate crime scene conditions, experiments that essentially put the test to the test.”

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/26/are-these-crime-drama-clues-fact-or-fiction/

Plus more from the perspective that the Avery cases reveals how prosecutorial misconduct is no myth in the US and is the salient point to the documentary’s message.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2016/01/26/thin-blue-line-director-praises-making-murderer/q5iMKnlwS0D7snfNZM7L4K/story.html

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Judge hyper-sensitive to a “spot of DNA” transfer by police deemed no foul after investigation

Posted on January 29, 2016 by csidds

Its just a blip of biology, according to the Scottish authorities and their reviewers. Here’s the gist of what took place but doesn’t explain why it took years to review…….is it  the prosecution looking bad? If you read the article, a reviewing scientist says one shouldn’t use just a spot of blood to render an opinion. That’s not borne out by the numbers of “trace” DNA prosecutions seen in the US. But this is Scotland, I guess.

“A minute quantity of his DNA [a defendant later acquited ] was found on the handle of one of the guns used to kill Mr Carroll.

This was discredited, however, when it also emerged that the DNA of a lab technician, who had never touched the gun, was also found in the sample analysed by forensic scientists, along with that of three unidentified men.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-35420760

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Bronx court sets boundaries for crime lab techs’ testimony about methods and results

Posted on January 28, 2016 by csidds

For decades, a defendant’s right to confront his accuser (6th Amendment) has been extended to certain types of “accusations” from forensic testers and their opinions supporting the Prosecution’s case.

This is an update based on a defense demand that all 6 crime lab techs who worked this case had to testify. Crime labs have been complaining about their techs languishing in courtrooms instead of working at the bench.

Newbauer [a Bronx Supreme Court judge] ruled in People v. M.F., 3760-2013, that it would be sufficient to call the technician who positively linked “M.F.” to the DNA sample from a vaginal swab taken from the rape victim to testify about OCME [the medical examiners’ office] testing procedures and its handling of DNA materials.

Newbauer also said that the first technician who dealt with the sample may be called, because the woman’s rapist was unknown when the sample was initially analyzed, and there are bona fide questions about the “first-stage protocols.”

The testimony of those two technicians would be testimonial while that of the others who handled the sample would be nontestimonial, Newbauer ruled.
Read more: http://www.newyorklawjournal.com/id=1202747994146/Ruling-Addresses-Limits-on-Forensic-Expert-Testimony#ixzz3yT7vGaqu

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Oh dear, a defense attorney wants to use a bitemark to counter cold case DNA

Posted on January 27, 2016 by csidds

A criminal defendant’s attorney says a bitemark on a victim in a 27 year old murder is not his client’s teeth mark but someone else’s. The DA wisely isn’t using any junk bitemark opinions as there is ample DNA to identify the suspect in this cold case.

http://theadvocate.com/news/14659634-129/trial-begins-in-27-year-old-opelousas-cold-case-killing-vf

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The Fallacy of Forensic Uniqueness in Ballistics gets dented in DC

Posted on January 25, 2016 by csidds

 

So, here is a DC judge calling out the VERY popular bullet casing matching process promulgated by the FBI around the US for decades. The theory of a striker or a firing pin leaving a toolmark which is identifiable to only one weapon sounds to be a repeat of other matching methods adopted by police labs for courtrooms. During their history the use of the “uniqueness” descriptive was their claim to fame. Such as…..

hair, bullets’ lead composition, graphology (handwriting), bitemarks,

All have been classified as unreliable by the FBI itself or the National Academy of Sciences in recent years. Casing matches has been highly automated to a certain extent via multiple software programs developed by and for law enforcement. More recently its being called “bullet fingerprinting.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/dc-court-of-appeals-judge-faults-overstated-forensic-gun-match-claims/2016/01/22/a4dbd8c2-c078-11e5-83d4-42e3bceea902_story.html

More about bullet casings…….A Flop

An early (2001) article talking about a study that tested some of the bullet matchers in California. It talks about a coverup.

 

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Houston crime lab needs to look into its bitemark experts’ current casework

Posted on January 22, 2016 by csidds

The inquiry of the Texas Forensic Science Commission on bitemark evidence casework has opened a window into over 30 cases involving this debunked use of skin injuries purported to be like fingerprints.

What’s unsaid are data about any current cases of bitemarks being used in criminal investigations and pending prosecutions within Texas. They do exist and some District Attorneys have not been swayed by media reporting and the comments from the Commission on why using a bitemark expert to aid a prosecution is dangerous and highly likely to be incorrect. The bitemark people are usually itinerants having some loose connection to Forensic Biology or Forensic Pathology units throughout the state.

The Commission will publish an opinion on the bitemark debate in a few weeks. Maybe that will wake up DAs in Texas and elsewhere who like the bitemarkers history of gaining a conviction.

The Houston forensics lab is a good example of how similar goofs are still occurring in forensic lab protocols and performance despite the lab’s reorganization and new directors.

 

 

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Typical Forensic brewhaha happening in Denmark over who is in charge of MH 17 disaster

Posted on January 22, 2016 by csidds

Will wonders never cease when it come to political forensic science. It should be a topic in school.

Awhile back, a forensic expert from the Russian-assisted shootdown of MH17 got canned by this Danish security minister who just got slapped for it by the Danish parliament.

http://www.nltimes.nl/2016/01/21/mps-grill-justice-min-over-mh17-forensic-expert-firing/

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Forensics : A learning point on how the Avery case shows little presumption of innocence

Posted on January 22, 2016 by csidds

If the Steven Avery case(s) shows anything positive, it is the revelation how jury decisions of guilt are predominatantly preconceived before testimony ever begins. This then is reinforced as the prosecution proceeds with their evidence.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/01/19/the-presumption-of-innocence-exists-in-theory-not-reality/

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Forensics : Details of trace evidence obtained in child murder/abuse case in Canada

Posted on January 21, 2016 by csidds

The only thing the defense could get in rebuttal was that the CSI tech didn’t “test” every object available at the crime scene residence. Its a hint that the CSI could have missed some exculpable evidence usable for the defense’s case. That’s weak but not an uncommon strategy.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/canada/1335488-forensic-expert-at-trial-for-couple-accused-of-abuse-says-he-found-hair-in-tape

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