Another bitemark-based conviction overturned. Dentist calls original testimony “junk.”

Posted on October 1, 2015 by csidds

This is the 25th conviction or incarceration aided by dental bitemark experts that has been overturned or dismissed in the US. How many more are there? The bitemark organization, the ABFO, is deaf and dumb and lying to the State of Texas. 

AP

A judge on Thursday heard testimony overturned a woman’s murder conviction and prison sentence after a bite mark expert who testified against her at trial said he now believes his findings were “junk science.”

Fayette County Judge John Wagner ruled in the case of 38-year-old Crystal Dawn Weimer, of Connellsville, after a brief hearing about 40 miles south of Pittsburgh. Weimer has repeatedly insisted she’s innocent in the 2001 beating death of 21-year-old Curtis Haith.

She was convicted of third-degree murder in 2006 and sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison. A man imprisoned in the case had testified that Weimer helped lure Haith to the scene. A dental expert, Dr. Constantine Karazulas, testified that a bite on the victim’s hand matched Weimer.

But the witness who placed Weimer at the scene has since recanted, and the dentist changed his mind, too.

Now its up to the DA to decide whether to retry Weimer.

Full article from Oct 1, 2015

Also read about these court approved experts are not being overly cooperative with Texas’s Forensic Science Commission active investigation of this debunked and unreliable comparison method. Some of its remaining practitioners were making excuses to the Commission last month. 

 

Posted in AAFS, ABFO, Bitemarks, criminal justice reform, CSI | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Vivid case of child-to-child bitemark activity according to police in San Antonio, TX

Posted on October 1, 2015 by csidds

Being able to reliably determine a skin injury can be diagnosed as a human bitemark is often a point of confusion and disagreement for forensic bitemark people and ER nurses and docs. . This case goes beyond that as police are certain the the marks were made by a child onto another child. There are 27 marks mentioned in this news article.

Child daycare home is investigated. 

Posted in Bite Marks, Bitemarks, Forensic Science | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wednesday’s Quick Clicks…

Posted on September 30, 2015 by csidds

In depth review of wrongful conviction litigation in the US and abroad. The amount of prosecutorial misconduct commonly contained in this type of casework is incredible. That they have no consequences due to the US Supreme Court and have immunity absent a few exceptions should be shocking to most citizens.

Mark Godsey's avatarWrongful Convictions Blog

View original post 17 more words

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A federal prosecutor’s technical spy expert gets some egg in a high-level espionage case dismissal

Posted on September 30, 2015 by csidds

The Justice Department on Friday moved to drop wire fraud charges against Temple University professor Xiaoxing Xi, marking a setback in efforts by the FBI and the Obama administration to counter what they say is a growing problem of economic espionage.

In a rare example of feds turning from a prosecution, with all their tech resources in science, the recently dismissed spy charges against  US Temple University physics professor Xi Xiaoxing is rare. He was accused of sending technical information [ a “schematic of lab equipment” which first was called a “pocket heater” which was later refuted as “not a pocket heater” and then re-described as an example of “thin-film research” ] to a Chinese colleague. Various reasons given for the dismissal boils down to  “new evidence” [ not explained by the feds ] appeared which led to a  “in the interest of justice” change of direction.

“…it appeared that the government never consulted with experts before taking the case to a grand jury.” [from his defense attorney who opened up on the mish-mash of fed misinterpretations ]

In a motion to dismiss, filed late Friday [on Feb 11 ], prosecutors said that since they filed the charges, “additional information came to the attention of the government” that warranted the case’s being dropped. A spokeswoman with the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment further. The office asked to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning it could be revived. That helps keep the defendant very quiet. At the time of this post, the judge has not issued a determination on the DOJ motion.

The new evidence came from experts outside direct governmental control explaining some “tech science” to the feds.

Can the professor sue for damages? Nope. Or at  least very unlikely. Plus the dismissal motion is allows for reopening his prosecution.

WHO DID THE FEDS USE AS THEIR EXPERT? They’re mum about that as well. Maybe he can go after whoever it was in civil court. That hasn’t worked too well either.

Professor Xi comments says it all.

“I don’t expect them to understand everything I do,” Dr. Xi, 57, said in a telephone interview. “But the fact that they don’t consult with experts and then charge me? Put my family through all this? Damage my reputation? They shouldn’t do this. This is not a joke. This is not a game.”

Jurist Sept 13, 2015

Wall Street Journal Sept 11, 2015

New York Times Sept 11, 2015

Philly.com Sept 13, 2015

 

Posted in Exoneration costs, Forensic science misconduct | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Forensic Science from many different directions, some not so much “science”

Posted on September 29, 2015 by csidds

Through the years, scientists say a "CSI effect" has taken hold shaping the way jurors and prosecutors perceive crime scene investigations.

I will kill Radovan Krejcir if he escapes, says forensic consultant Paul O’Sullivan. The expert who sleuths with the police and may be taking things a bit too far regarding being a “neutral” spectator of fact and science.

300 episodes of “CSI” has established its “effect” in actual case work expectations by juries. 

More on Oregon’s state wide crime-lab reviews. 

The “Smell of Death” is a conundrum. 

Cyber crime lady inspires the media to do a TV series properly called “Cyber crime.”

The “bone detective (s)” at the Smithsonian Anthropology department.  This institution has been the cutting edge anthro facility for generations.

9 examples of junk forensic science. 

 

 

Posted in AAFS, Forensic Science | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Illinois State Police lab has some validation problems – toxicology

Posted on September 27, 2015 by csidds

Sounds like these labs exist in a parallel universe of sloppy machines  and unvalidation. 2 SD deviation of results is OK? Who is running this show? 

http://abc7chicago.com/news/forensic-failures-at-state-crime-labs-may-jeopardize-cases/998927/

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Forensics: Police “Predictive Data” used to intimidate persons with criminal past or who hang out with “bad people”

Posted on September 27, 2015 by csidds

Sounds like a crime preventive measure that so far hasn’t had a published cutoff threshold for separating innocent from the real perps. I bet once you are picke up in this archive of “suspicious types” it will probably be permanent. Civil rights lawyers will go wild over this as it hints as a form of a “no fly” list by Homeland Security.

Notice that it is advertised as a “pinpoint” level of accuracy. Thats like a typical PR tag ploy commonly seen in forensic news.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Oregon Governor investigates state crime labs

Posted on September 26, 2015 by csidds

Gov. Brown forms workgroup to evaluate crime lab procedures

http://www.katu.com/politics/Gov-Brown-forms-workgroup-to-evaluate-crime-lab-procedures-329562621.html?mobile=y

 

Posted in AAFS, Crime lab scandal | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Writ of Habeas of Corpus in tatters lays obstacles for appeals and exonerations.

Posted on September 24, 2015 by csidds
The Demise of Habeas Corpus and the Rise of Qualified Immunity: The Court’s Ever Increasing Limitations on the Development and Enforcement of Constitutional Rights and Some Particularly Unfortunate Consequences

Stephen R. Reinhardt*

The collapse of habeas corpus as a remedy for even the most glaring of constitutional violations ranks among the greater wrongs of our legal era. Once hailed as the Great Writ, and still feted with all the standard rhetorical flourishes, habeas corpus has been transformed over the past two decades from a vital guarantor of liberty into an instrument for ratifying the power of state courts to disregard the protections of the Constitution. Along with so many other judicial tools meant to safeguard the powerless, enforce constitutional rights, and hold the government accountable, habeas has been slowly eroded by a series of recent Supreme Court rulings that aim ultimately at eliminating that judicial method of protecting individual rights.

In this age of calls for the near-total abolition of habeas and scathing rebukes of judges who fail to toe the not-so-hidden party line, it is easy to lose sight of how we got here. It is convenient to blame it on inevitable historical or jurisprudential trends, or to insist that it followed necessarily from passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). One can then proclaim that there is no reasonable alternative to the Supreme Court’s present construction of that statute, even though any participant in our habeas regime would have to agree that it resembles a twisted labyrinth of deliberately crafted legal obstacles that make it as difficult for habeas petitioners to succeed in pursuing the Writ as it would be for a Supreme Court Justice to strike out Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle in succession—even with the Chief Justice calling balls and strikes.

* Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. I would like to thank my law clerk, Jeremy Kreisberg, 2014–15, for his invaluable assistance. The views expressed are mine alone; they do not represent the views of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

 

Michigan Law Review

Posted in AAFS, exoneration, Exoneration costs | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Respected DNA experts Rudin, Inman, and Seigel weigh into DC Crime Lab politics and DNA “secret” statistics”

Posted on September 23, 2015 by csidds

The following is an excerpt of some of the juicer parts of a in-depth after action article by Norah Rudin and Keith Inman in the California Association of Criminalists news letter. They dissect (the long article with accompanying documents starts on page 6 of the CACNews) the time line from the creation of the Washington DC “independent” crime lab in 2012 to its rapid deconstruction in 2015 by the mayor and DA of DC. They had some help from a hired reviewing company called ANAB, DC partisan politics, their ignoring the DC Science Advisory Board, the ANAB certification board having its own standards on DNA mixtures unlike its more prominent competitor ASCLD certifying company’s position, a rush to accept “improved” DNA mixture statistics ( as yet published and secret) made by the ANAB certifier who is an ex-DNA director for the FBI, and the fact that there is bad blood within the DNA community regarding competitive “interests.” Oh, one more: A senior DA involved in all this has a girl friend at the outside DNA lab now vendoring all the DC DNA work.

From Rudin and Inman. (Special thanks to @celiagivens and the Legal Aid Society DNA Newsletter)

Could Your Lab Be Next? A Sentinel Event in the Profession of Forensic Science

Generally, the question exists as to why analytical casework had to be farmed out when the stated issue was with the interpretation protocols. Why could DFS [the DC crime lab] not continue to generate results, and Dr. Budowle or some other expert of their choice provide statistics until DFS implemented its updated protocols and trained its analysts on them? Paying an outside lab to analyze physical evidence is extremely costly; paying a consultant to simply calculate statistics would have been a much simpler and certainly more cost-effective temporary solution. As for Mr. Ambrosino and his girlfriend at Bode Technologies, that is just B-movie sordid—but perhaps standard practice in D.C. politics. An issue of particular concern is the complete and utter disregard for the role of the Scientific Advisory Board, specifically put in place by the legislation to review and arbitrate issues and complaints, exactly of the sort proffered by the USAO [DC bean-counters] and Budowle [the ANAB examiner who now works in TX recently said to the Texas Forensic Forensic Science Commission that DNA analysis’ history as a “gold standard” was a “big mistake”].

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment