Time and again, we are reminded that ‘junk science’ can so easily lead to injustice. This need not just be wrongful convictions, but can damage confidence in the justice system in many ways, including giving false hope to victims. However, it is shocking to still see cases where BAD science can lead to people being wrongfully convicted. It is still happening daily around the world. In the US, ‘bite mark’ evidence is still being used to convict, EVEN when the bite mark evidence given at trial is later reversed by the same experts - read the shocking story here….
Fortunately for one suspect – DNA evidence came to his rescue – albeit 3months after his arrest and imprisonment on child rape charges. The suspect had been identified by the victim AND failed a lie detector test, but was eventually freed when DNA testing that he had pleaded for, linked to another convicted felon who lived nearby. The Prosecutor had only reluctantly agreed to DNA testing, stating previously that it would be ‘a waste of taxpayers money’. Read here…
This is a shocking reminder that prosecutors and governments as a whole, often think of forensic science as a ‘cost’ that can be cut. This is playing out now in the UK, with the ongoing cost-cutting which has seen the closure of the Forensic Science Service and full privatisation of the forensic science ‘market’, as well as the slashing of police science budgets. Now, finally, the media are reporting on the shocking delay in the UK of utilising advances in DNA profiling. Read more here….
How long before we are counting the cost in terms of wrongfully convicted individuals?
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Kentucky in a unanimous decision, reversed a lower court ruling and opined that appellants were entitled to DNA testing in a non-capital case. The testing was sought by two men convicted in the 1992 murder of Rhonda Sue Warford. The men have always claimed innocence.
The opinion reflected the high court’s surprise by the state’s resistance to do the testing in view of the state’s own argument that the testing might not exculpate Continue reading
Posted in DNA, Editorials/Opinion, North America
Yesterday, the Texas House voted on HB 166, a bill that would create the Timothy Cole Exoneration Review Commission. This so-called innocence commission would investigate past exoneration cases to find out why the wrongful conviction happened in the first place. The group would not intervene in pending cases or open cases without an exoneration.
A Vancouver man suing for compensation for 27 years in prison for sex assaults he didn’t commit has won a preliminary round in court against the provincial government. The government opposed Ivan Henry’s application in B.C. Supreme Court to change his legal claim that would spell out the circumstances where the province can be held liable for breaching his rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The government claimed the rule of prosecutorial immunity only allows claims for charter breaches to succeed if they arose from malicious conduct by the prosecutor. But Justice Richard Goepel ruled in Henry’s favour, finding “that a claim lies against the province for charter damages if the plaintiff can establish that Crown counsel acted in a marked and unacceptable departure from the reasonable standards expected of Crown counsel.”
Judge Louis Sturns of Fort Worth today issued an arrest warrant for former Williamson County Prosecutor Ken Anderson, currently a Texas District judge, for his handling of the case of Michael Morton. According to the Wall Street Journal (here), following a weeklong Court of Inquiry earlier this year, Judge Sturns has ruled that there was sufficient evidence that Anderson “was guilty of all three charges brought against him: criminal contempt of court, tampering with evidence and tampering with government records.” Continue reading
Posted in DNA, North America, Prosecutorial conduct (good and bad)
Tagged Ken Anderson, Michael Morton
Congratulations to Jeramie R. Davis and to the Innocence Project Northwest!
From Spokane, Washington (The Spokesman-Review):
A man who spent nearly six years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit had one request today after a judge set him free: a double cheeseburger from Zips.
Jeramie R. Davis, 42, also looked forward to bonding with his 5-year-old son, Elijah, who was born shortly after his arrest in 2007.
“He really doesn’t know who I am,” Davis said of his son. “I want to get to know him.
Today’s release ended years of investigations, a conviction, DNA tests, a second trial that convicted a different man and scores of legal arguments stemming from the June 17, 2007, bludgeoning death of 74-year-old porn shop owner John G. “Jack” Allen.
“I’m grateful,” Davis said of years of legal battles by defense attorneys Anna Tolin, Kevin Curtis and others who labored on his behalf. Continue reading
This is my second stab at responding to an opinion piece (here) in the New York Times written by Leila Schneps, a mathematician and mystery writer, and her daughter Coralie Colmez, who have co-authored “Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom.” (I deleted yesterday’s post to give this more thought and expand on the issues raised in the op-ed piece.) I’ll first briefly address the authors’ troubling and rather contrived tie-in to the Italian High Court’s overturning of the acquittal of Amanda Knox. The NY Times piece otherwise makes a point worth stressing. Continue reading
Posted in DNA, Editorials/Opinion, Forensic controls, Junk science
Tagged Amanda Knox, forensic science
On 11 March 2013, the Singapore Court of Appeal quashed the conviction of a death row inmate. Mervin Singh had been sentenced to death for drug trafficking by the lower court.
Singapore’s Misuse of Drugs Act presumes that a person is possesses a drug for the purpose of trafficking if he or she is found with certain drugs above specified amounts. The said person is then required to rebut this presumption. Singh argued that he had not known that the package he had been found with contained drugs. Rather, he believed that the package held contraband cigarettes. The Court of Appeal accepted Singh’s argument. Among others, the Court of Appeal cast doubt on the narcotics officer’s claims that he had seen Singh opening and looking into the package, highlighting inconsistencies between the officer’s earlier statement and his testimony at trial.
The court also noted that Singh’s DNA had not been found on the box, the newspaper sheets, or the plastic bags containing the drugs.
The important role played by DNA testing in this case is noteworthy. Many studies show how the practice of DNA testing has led to the prevention and overturning of wrongful convictions in many countries. Singh was fortunate on many counts. He was lucky that there was evidence that could be subjected to DNA testing. He was lucky that DNA analysis was conducted. And he was lucky that the Court of Appeal gave sufficient weight to the results of this analysis. This raises a number of points: 1. Sometimes a piece of evidence that could be submitted for DNA analysis may not be available at the time of trial or the said evidence, though available, may not have been tested due to unintentional oversight or mistakes made in good faith; 2. It is necessary to ensure that there are laws or regulations in place that provide for the preservation of evidence, access to evidence, and DNA testing; 3. There should be accessible and transparent procedures that enable convicted persons and their legal representatives to request access to preserved evidence or submit new evidence for DNA testing at a post-conviction stage.
Last Friday a federal jury awarded $13.2 million in compensation to David Ayers, who served 13 years of a life-without-parole prison sentence for a murder that DNA eventually proved he didn’t commit. This should certainly get the attention of Cleveland and Ohio taxpayers if the horror of an innocent person languishing in prison while the true murderer escapes justice is not troubling enough. It should also motivate voters to signal zero tolerance for official misconduct (a recurring contributor to wrongful convictions) and to require implementation of known best practices in criminal justice procedure.
As reported earlier on this blog and (here), and (here), former Cuyahoga County Housing Authority police officer, David Ayers was convicted on December 11, 2000, of Continue reading
While the U.S. Supreme Court debates whether police should have the right to take DNA samples from all people arrested for crimes, Eric Posner, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, goes further. He says governments should take DNA from everyone as the best way to prevent wrongful convictions as well as to solve more crimes. You can read his Slate commentary here.
Amanda Knox will give her first TV interview, since being absolved of murder charges in Italy, with Diane Sawyer on ABC April 30, 2013.
See story here.
