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The destructive path of bitemark analysis
Posted in Bite Marks, Bitemarks, junk forensic science
Tagged innocence project bitemarks
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Get your forensic science certificate cheap AAFS 2015
AAFS 2015 Get your forensic expert certificate cheap. Raise your status to expert level for court admissibility. One day workshop.
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Last ditch efforts to stay another execution in Texas. Plus a new series from the Washington Post on resistance to forensic reform.
A last minute effort to stay Rodney Reed’s execution in TX is based on new expert review of erroneous Time of Death opinion at the conviction trial. The litigation is led by the Innocence Project. There is a petition to the Texas court to stay his execution which is March 5. [excerpt]
Late Thursday, the Innocence Project filed a motion before a Texas court urging that it stay death row inmate Rodney Reed’s execution-scheduled for March 5-and order a new trial based on new evidence pointing to his innocence.
According to the motion, three respected forensic pathologist have recently reviewed evidence in connection with the case and concluded that the victim, Stacey Stites, was murdered much earlier than the prosecution claimed at trial, that she was killed in a different location and that her body was taken to the location where it was found by a land appraiser on the side of the road in the afternoon of April 23, 1996. The motion also includes affidavits from two of Stites’ former co-workers who corroborate Reed’s claims that he was having a clandestine romantic relationship with Stites.
A topic of interest to the public at large, and those in the forensic sciences who are interested forensic reform. How “scientific” bite mark analysis has led to wrongful convictions. New series from @radleybalko at WaPo. First of a four part series.
A prosecutor candidly reflects and his analysis that a prosecution and conviction was flawed.
300 police detectives refuse to voluntarily provide their DNA samples for a Dutch forensic institute database, but cynics might wonder if there are ulterior motives. Article
Wednesday’s Quick Clicks…
Chicago’s conviction integrity unit doing its work plus continued state by state attempts to improve criminal justice.
- In NY, the wrongfully convicted petition for prosecutorial oversight
- Colorado to consider eyewitness lineup reforms
- In Japan, will wrongful convictions be catalyst for criminal justice reform?
- With a judge’s order throwing out his murder conviction in-hand, Tyrone Hood truly became a free man as he was exonerated at a Monday morning hearing after spending more than 20 years in prison for a slaying he’s continued to insist he did not commit.
“I can’t even describe how I feel right now,” he said. Nearly a month ago, outgoing Gov. Pat Quinn commuted Hood’s sentence, releasing him from prison. The decision by Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to dismiss the convictions against Hood and his co-defendant Wayne Washington, Jr. follows more than two years of investigation by her office’s conviction integrity unit – which began looking into the case in 2012 after the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project championed Hood’s…
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Murders in the South. 4000 Lynchings revisted.
Unspeakable but must be remembered.
Forensic Science Mess-ups, Cover-ups and Worse: Cheating DA Affect Murder Case: Recognition for CSIDDS Book:
Minn. Public Defender takes on forensic science assumptions of infallibility. She works tables on the weekend to pay the bills.
New director for DEL crime lab hopes to solve its history of mess-ups.
Entire genome mapping by forensic crime lab offers a new twist to established protocols and genetic discrimination between identical twins.
Guilty, Then Proven Innocent. North Carolina Innocence litigators.
RECOGNITION FOR THE BOOK
Forensic Testimony. Science, Law and Forensic Evidence. I had something to do with it.
BAD FORENSIC NEWS
Caption: Memorial in front of burned out city hall
Forensics experts slam Mexico’s 43 missing students probe
A team of Argentine forensics experts is questioning Mexico’s probe of the disappearance of 43 students, saying that the evidence does not support the government’s conclusion and that it should be allowed to investigate all theories.
Mexican government’s response. Via its Attorney General.
The 21/7 terror trial cover-up: Government explosives experts say they warned police forensic evidence was wrong but their report was buried.
GOOD FORENSIC NEWS
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology can now profile highly damaged DNA samples that contain 75 percent less base-pair information, compared with previous systems.
SOME PROSECUTORS JUST NEVER LEARN
DA’s misconduct leads to reduced sentence for convicted murderer.
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Forensic Science Mess-ups, Cover-ups and Worse: Cheating DA Affect Murder Case: Recognition for CSIDDS Book:
RECOGNITION FOR THE BOOK
Forensic Testimony. Science, Law and Forensic Evidence. I had something to do with it.
BAD FORENSIC NEWS
Caption: Memorial in front of burned out city hall
Forensics experts slam Mexico’s 43 missing students probe
A team of Argentine forensics experts is questioning Mexico’s probe of the disappearance of 43 students, saying that the evidence does not support the government’s conclusion and that it should be allowed to investigate all theories.
Mexican government’s response. Via its Attorney General.
The 21/7 terror trial cover-up: Government explosives experts say they warned police forensic evidence was wrong but their report was buried.
GOOD FORENSIC NEWS
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology can now profile highly damaged DNA samples that contain 75 percent less base-pair information, compared with previous systems.
SOME PROSECUTORS JUST NEVER LEARN
DA’s misconduct leads to reduced sentence for convicted murderer.
SOME POLICE DETECTIVES HAVEN’T A CLUE ABOUT PROPER CRIME SCENE PROTOCOLS. This guy declared immunity from local department’s protocols
Detective v State police to settle DNA dispute over cop’s privacy at crime scenes. Cop refused DNA test. Claims retaliation. Other police volunteered their blood samples.
ANOTHER MAN EXONERATED FROM FALSE WITNESS AIDED CONVICTION
For 2 decades, TSA refused him entry to USA due to conviction. His children live in NYC. The Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson signed off on the exon.
An Open Letter on Shaken Baby Syndrome and Courts: A False and Flawed Premise
This article shows how much effort is necessary to bust through the courts’ plodding understanding of invalid forensics.
A group of 34 esteemed doctors, medical professionals, and international experts has jointly published a letter regarding the problem of how SBS is currently being prosecuted in the courts.
See the Argument & Critique website posting here. Or acces a .pdf copy here: Open letter on SBS
This is a very big deal.
One excerpt from the letter: “It has to be said that there are powerful vested interests in suppressing any open discussion in, or outside, the courts about the viability of the SBS construct. The motives are financial and the preservation of reputations. One of the consequences has been the vilification of experts prepared to advance competing theories and the suppression of sensible debate.” (And if I may just interject – this is exactly what I have been saying on this blog for the last three years.)
It’s notable that Dr. A. Norman…
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Forensics: Costs of forensic expert witnesses in a murder trial with the defendant facing the death penalty.
Costs of forensic expert witnesses in a murder trial with the defendant facing the death penalty. Pathologist = $300/hr. Psychiatrist = $500/hr. “Mitigation specialist” = $100/hr. All have caps on maximum amount allowed.
Ballistics: OC Crime Lab Goes 3D – Matching bullet groves to suspect weapons considered a reliable forensic “tool.”
Opinion: Reliability is a two way street in forensic reform: In the lab and the courtroom.
[excerpt] “That forensic science is in need of restructuring is hardly earth-shattering news. Six years ago, in 2009, the National Academy of Sciences published a revealing report, “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward,” which detailed the burdens facing forensic science.” Full article.
Man wrongfully jailed for 2 months on sex crime freed after Denver police find lab tech made error
DENVER – Denver police and prosecutors say a man wrongfully jailed as a sexual assault suspect for two months was freed Wednesday after police found that a crime-lab technician had mistakenly linked the man’s DNA to the attack. Full article.
Wednesday’s Quick Forensic and Crim Law Clicks…
Continuing the topics of 1) impossible legal rules preventing exonerations, 2) China’s problem’s with wrongful convictions, 3) $$ for exoneration litigation (The Bronx Defenders can’t apply according to NYC mayor DeBlasio, 4) CA judges are upset with DAs lying. (AG Kamala Harris is running for US Senate. Her stance on exons has been anti exon), 5) Pick your state’s exon record from a map, 6) opine on 125 exons in 2014.
Some of mine:
Use of force: Shooting of unarmed motorist reaching back into his car for wallet settled for $$.
Defense expert challenges crime scene conclusions in murder case.
“I needed more information,” Billau testified. “The initial documentation from the scene concerning the crime scene was insufficient.”
There were several things that were not documented in the crime scene reports that Billau testified are important to have in making accurate conclusions during a death investigation.
It was apparent to Billau that several items in the Kent Lane home were moved both during the time paramedics were attending to Harry, as well as during the evidence collection process.
- Maine one of only two states without a felony exoneration in modern times. Former deputy AG claims it is because “Maine is different.” It appears Maine is different in at least one respect—it has strict limits on an inmates ability to seek exoneration based on new evidence.
- In China, parents of wrongfully executed man finally receive compensation; Chinese government announces it will investigate and punish prosecutors and judges who participate in wrongful conviction cases
- Law clinics in Arizona receive grants to fight wrongful convictions
- Judges in California see “epidemic” of prosecutorial misconduct
- Interactive map of exonerations by state
- Op-ed: U.S. criminal justice system overwhelmed with wrongful convictions
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