This is just one very public example of desperate folks who dislike hearing colleagues legitimate opinions on forensic reform. Other examples are more sneaky. http://www.theagitator.com/2011/12/27/bite-mark-news/
This is the case that destroyed the reputation of a forensic method long considered suspect outside the realm of the American Academy of Forensic Science. https://csidds.com/2014/05/01/ray-krones-exoneration-from-bitemark-evidence-the-inside-story-csidds/
Baden does not quote his last week’s testimony given to the Ferguson grand jury. But, not surprisingly, he lays out statements regarding his findings and opinions. Thus is the latitude of forensic experts.
You have to endure some commercial interludes at the beginning.
California Innocence Project Client’s Conviction Reversed After 36 Years
Longest Wrongful Incarceration in California History – First of the California 12 To Be Released
Ventura, November 18, 2014 – A judge has overturned the conviction of Michael Hanline, convicted of a murder that was committed in 1978, after lawyers from the California Innocence Projectand the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office agreed that documents were withheld from Hanline at his original trial showing that others may have been responsible for the crime.
Additionally, new DNA evidence pointing to Hanline’s innocence undermined the District Attorney’s confidence in the conviction.
At 36 years, this ends the longest wrongful incarceration in
California history.
Hanline was wrongfully convicted of the shooting death of
victim J.T. McGarry in 1980. At the time, prosecutors argued Hanline was jealous of McGarry because the two were romantically involved with the same woman, and that Hanline and an accomplice killed McGarry in revenge. Hanline has always claimed others were responsible for the murder, and that he had been wrongfully accused.
The California Innocence Project began looking into Hanline’s case in 1999, the year the project was founded, and fought for years to obtain evidence from the 1978 murder. Finally, in 2008 a federal magistrate ruled that his conviction should be overturned. Unfortunately, another federal judge overruled the reversal. Hanline’s case seemed to be over, and his only other option appeared to be the granting of clemency from the Governor. His case was one of the California 12—twelve cases where innocence clemency petitions were presented to Governor Brown 18 months ago after a 712 mile Innocence March from San Diego to Sacramento by lawyers from the California Innocence Project.
“DNA testing recently conducted shows that another individual committed this crime and proves Mike’s innocence,” said Justin Brooks, Director of the California Innocence Project at California Western School of Law and one of the lawyers who walked 712 miles in the Innocence March. “It’s amazing that Mike will finally be released after 36 years of wrongful incarceration. It’s time for him to get back to his family and his life.”
“I’m so pleased that the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office agreed to examine the case and join us in the petition to reverse the conviction,” said Alex Simpson, Associate Director of the California Innocence Project at California Western School of Law and the attorney who argued the petition. “This is how cases should be resolved.”
Hanline will appear before Judge Donald Coleman of the Ventura County Superior Court on November 24 where he is expected to be released.
About the California Innocence Project
The California Innocence Project is a California Western School of Law clinical program dedicated to the release of wrongfully convicted inmates and providing an outstanding educational experience for students enrolled in the clinic. The California Innocence Project receives approximately 2,000 claims from inmates each year and has earned the exoneration of 11 wrongfully convicted clients since its inception.
Celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2014, California Western School of Law is the independent, ABA/AALS-accredited San Diego law school that prepares graduates for the practice of law through a carefully sequenced program of study combining traditional legal theory with hands-on learning in real and simulated client environments.
For four years in a row, California Western has been named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll in recognition of the school’s numerous community-focused projects including the California Innocence Project, Community Law Projects, Mediation Clinic, Bail Project, and more. Students, faculty, and staff yearly donate more than 20,000 pro bono and service hours to nonprofits, clinical programs, and law offices.
Read more stories of success on our website, www.CaliforniaWestern.edu.
This blog has arrived at 10,500 hits! Its growth seems to be almost exponential since I started FiF a couple years ago.
It can’t be a coincidence that this year’s top theme in FiF (determined by WordPress) has to do with junk forensic science. Those readers who regularly view my posts won’t be surprised either. The netherworld of forensics vs non science “forensics” has been readily available in my postings and comments. Major news sources (AP, WP, The Verge, The New York Times, The Daily Mail, etc) have picked up on the perimeter of “the darkside” of self interest and the culture of impunity that exists in corners of organized forensics like the AAFS. But some journalists might not realize this corner is occupied by very few when compared to the thousands of professional and scientifically trained members of the AAFS and other groups. I am not applauding the AAFS’ resistance and blind eye to public safety dangers of these one percenters types. 1%’ers always cause the most trouble. In the judicial system, this “trouble” is mis-identification and faulty conviction of the innocent and the damage of wrongful convictions in lost freedom and executions.
The “poster child” of active forensic methods undeserving of its presence in forensic circles has had a rough year. The irony is its continued presence at forensic meetings and recognition by National Commission on Forensic Sciences (who appointed a study group chairman who then put only one recognized researcher up against a cadre of pro-impression evidence ‘matching’ bitemark dentists joined by one crony.
The rough part has to do with the cases coming out in the press about their decomposition into irrelevancy and quackery.
Most popular post #1. An example of a recent case describing the ultimate story of scientific unreliabilty regardless of professional position, titles, degrees, and accolades.
Most popular post #2. An ABFO mantra has always been, when you have no data, publish your conclusions FIRST. Example of how dangerous forensic science “stays in court.” They publish untested theories as if fact/research supported. Which is NOT true. Their “system” of decision making for bitemarkers is listed as a paper at the next AAFS convention in Feb 2015. The literal truth. No data.
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Plus a few other topics related to forensics. I like this one.
Why waking up in a morgue isn’t quite as unusual as you’d think | Carla Valentine. “Premature burial” gives me the creeps along with Edgar Alan Poe when I was eight.
Famous Forensics case. Poison bottles and spectacles ‘owned’ by Dr Crippen go up for sale http://dailym.ai/1yvKtqY via MailOnline This American quack medicine MD went to Britain and then went to failure and execution as a convicted murder of his wife. Case notable for chases across the Atlantic and the use of Marconi’s wireless to alerts authorities in Nova Scotia. HUGE press in its day.
There is no better judicial micro-climate than Mississippi to study the self-contradictory and illegitimate misuse of unvalidated forensic opinions in the US. This story describes dubious forensic sciences experts and their untestable methods continuing to be used in courts. No surprise that bitemark ‘matching” (still supported by the ‘elite’ AAFS) is mentioned as a dangerous forensic method.
Read this from ‘The Watch’ by WP journalist/blogger Radley Balko.
I can say very little about this child murder case except……I told you so. Plus I’d bet most of these esteemed bitemark folks are on the esteemed bitemark committee for NIST’s Forensic Science Commission. Read about it here.
This response from NY Inn Project co founder Peter Neufeld broadens what the real issues exist in erroneous conviction litigation within and out of Alvarez’ jurisdiction. The generic theme from hard-core advocates is “finality of convictions at all cost.”
Forensics : This can’t be good. Bugs in DNA Extraction Kits = Contamination | The Scientist Magazine® http://shar.es/10V5Ap
Some local “protect and serve” government agencies have money problems or are just greedy. Its just like shopping at Walmart. Police Use Department Wish List When Deciding Which Assets to Seize http://nyti.ms/1APRCrH Plus from “The Watch” on how drug interdiction stop cops in TN get their…….not much. Just money.
When Forensic Science and Crim Justice reform met the Billionaire Koch brothers, things began to happen.
“They have been very, very supportive of our efforts to reform the criminal justice system,” said Norman Reimer, the executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL). Reimer says he’s been able to put whatever political disagreements he may have with the Kochs aside in order to work to fix the country’s broken justice system. Read here…
The Ferguson grand jury gets to hear Michael Baden (Brown family hired pathologist; probably doing it pro bono) soon. This should be very interesting. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/forensics-expert-testify-ferguson-grand-jury-26857917 …
Does anyone watch The Good Wife? The show is all about Illinois politics, crim justice and arguments of misconduct, fraud, lying in court, and other dirty tricks.
This next story is a roundabout of years worth of attack and counter-attack between the Chicago Prosecutor Anita Alvarez and litigators and investigators and law students associated with the NW IP and Medill Journalism school regarding a double murder case from decades ago. The “true crime” plot twist is that at times 2 separate men have been convicted for the same crime. They may have even met when one left prison and the other entered prison. Now the second guy is out.
At this stage of news releases and such, all I can say is that its a great story. She did her press announcement at a state prison while letting an innocent guy out (after a year long investigation). She never did that for all the other wrongful convictions that have cost Illinois over $500,000,000 in settlements and jury awards (look it up at http://www.bettergov.org).
All these players have been slamming each other for decades regarding numerous wrongful convictions in the court jurisdictions surrounding Chicago. Ive been involved in post conviction litigation involving 3 cases of this type in Chi-town. All 3 as a defense expert regarding the mistakes and junk science of AAFS/ABFO forensic dentists. I’m sure this prosecutor’s strategy slap at the NW IP will start to be copied elsewhere. In fact, I know it has. More on that in the future.
Chicago Trib October 31, 2014
“I’m not here to criticize my predecessor,” said Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez Thursday, speaking to reporters about her dramatic decision to release prison inmate Alstory Simon.
Indeed she was not. She was there to criticize others — the journalism professor who in 1998 launched an investigation into Simon’s possible involvement in a 1982 double murder; the private detective who took the first of Simon’s many confessions to those murders; and the attorney who represented Simon at his sentencing.
That crew, she said, used “a series of alarming tactics” in an effort “so flawed that it’s clear the constitutional rights of Mr. Simon were not scrupulously protected.”
OK. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that they did.
The Daily Northwestern news service counters in this article with an opinion of this conflict.
October 31, 2014
The Cook County state’s attorney vacated the double-murder conviction of Alstory Simon on Thursday, raising questions about an investigation assisted by former Medill Prof. David Protess.
Protess led the Medill Innocence Project, whose landmark investigation resulted in the release of Anthony Porter from death row.
Porter, who was convicted for killing two teenagers in 1982, was released from prison in 1999. Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan cited Porter’s case when he initiated the suspension of the death penalty in the state.
As part of its investigation, the Medill Innocence Project said Simon was guilty of the killings. Simon was later convicted of the crime and sentenced to 37 years in prison.
However, on Thursday, State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez released Simon from prison and raised questions about the integrity of Protess and his students’ investigation. The Innocence Project worked with Paul Ciolino, a private investigator, who obtained a video of Simon confessing to the murder.
From 3 years ago…
The third side of the coin has been in the news for 3 or more years. 2011 is when co-founder of the NW Innocence Project and a Medill School of Journalism prof David Protess expresses his new role as a target for the Illinois State Prosecutor’s Office.
and here…………… This onehas a great headline. Written by Protess himself.
Today, in a landmark ruling, Justice Mark Dwyer of New York Supreme Court, Kings County, held that the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s (OCME) Low Copy Number (aka High Sensitivity) DNA testing as well as OCME’s Forensic Statistical Tool (FST) do not meet the Frye standard of general acceptance in the relevant scientific community. Justice Dwyer’s ruling marks the conclusion of two years of litigation by lawyers from The Legal Aid Society of New York City.
A team of lawyers from The Society, spearheaded by Jessica Goldthwaite, Clinton Hughes, Susan Friedman, Daniel Ades, Karen Faraguna, and Susan Morris mounted a historic challenge by presenting testimony from internationally renowned experts in the field of forensic DNA testing. The experts testifying for the defense included Dr. Bruce Budowle, former veteran senior scientist for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Dr. Ranajit Chakraborty, who was instrumental in developing the national DNA database system, and Dr. Eli Shapiro, a former supervisor at the OCME. Justice Dwyer’s decision relies on the extensive, unparalleled factual record established over the course of the hearing which commenced in 2012 and has far-reaching implications for the admissibility of the OCME’s controversial testing methodologies in criminal cases throughout the city.
Comment: This is truly amazing, as a year ago, a similar exclusion of evidence hearing (different court; different judge; different AAFS sub group, re: dentists) concluded that a few bitemark believers working through this same NY Medical Examiners Office were top notch scientists and worthy of testifying (based on their “scientific community” of about 10). We can characterize this as an ironic example of judicial in-con-sis-ten-cy. (sic) This may never be overcome regarding bitemark junk science as the much heralded National Commission on Forensic Science has stacked its dental study group with these same forensic soothsayers and alchemists.
FORENSICS and LAW in FOCUS @ CSIDDS | News and Trends 