News

Charles McCrory is spending his 38th year behind bars, convicted of killing his wife. The bite mark expert in his case recanted his testimony, saying he now knows he cannot say whether a bite mark on the victim matched McCrory’s teeth. Yet the Alabama courts have declined to free McCrory.

Alabama’s Court of Criminal Appeals ruled earlier this year that the jury was capable of deciding on its own whether the bite marks matched, a finding that ignores science suggesting such perceived visual matches cannot be valid. The court also cited other evidence in the case, including a witness who said he saw McCrory’s truck at the house during the time of the murder. No physical or forensic evidence links him to the crime.

Three years ago, after the bite mark evidence in his case collapsed, McCrory was offered a deal: Plead guilty and walk free. He refused.

“I refused to take it because I didn’t kill her,” McCrory told NBC News from his prison facility. “I did not kill my wife.”

The Innocence Project is now pursuing appeals through the federal courts.

“Prison is hard — a lot of the stories that you see on the news about prisons, particularly Alabama prisons, are true,” McCrory said. “It is a nasty place, and it’s not a place I would wish on anyone.”

“I don’t give up hope,” he said. “And certainly there’s days of disappointment and days when you’re down and out … but I just believe that somewhere there’s a truth in this that will come out, and you can’t give up. That’s just not an option.”

https://news.yahoo.com/bite-mark-analysis-no-basis-204726311.html

That’s disgusting that the courts just can’t admit when they are wrong. Even after the testimony fell through, they still wanted to get a guilty plea out of the guy. I’m not surprised this is in the south. smh

in a field that is already highly dubious at best

A huge amount of so-called forensic "science" is dubious. Blood splatter analysis, bite mark analysis, voice print analysis, handwriting analysis, all bullshit. Even more 'respected' forms of forensic analysis are not slam-dunks like people, including people on juries, are convinced they are. Fingerprints can be misidentified, especially if it's a partial print (and it's a myth that no two are alike anyway). DNA samples can be tainted.

Basically, the entire field of forensics is built on a lot of very shaky ground and, unfortunately, has resulted in a lot of wrongful convictions. It needs to be overhauled by actual scientists.

https://chtbl.com/track/5899E/podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/e5f91208-cc7e-4726-a312-ae280140ad11/0ce5b86e-42bf-41bd-919f-b15a0139551e/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=d64f756d-6d5e-4fae-b24f-ae280140ad36

Hope this link works. Behind the Bastards is doing a few episodes on the bastards of forensic science.

I hope you read Radley Balko. He has done so much to expose the fraud of things like bite marks and other shit done by MEs.

This is why conservatives (or anyone else opposed to science and education) should not be allowed to work in criminal justice or law enforcement.

Just chiming in to say I appreciate seeing these reasonable takes

I think you're missing the important part: be extremely wealthy.

Just like with stealing money: you steal a grand and it's jail time, you steal a million and you're a respected person

Or, the lesson is: if you want to prosecute a rapist, don't bring up rapes other than the one you are prosecuting.

The defense brought this up at trial not because Weinstein had expensive lawyers, but because any competent defense attorney would. At that point, the judge decided the defense was wrong, and the prosecution decided to take the risk that the defense was right. That risk backfired. Now, every Judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney in the juristiction is on notice about how to correctly apply prior bad acts rules to sexual assult cases, so they should be able to avoid making this mistake again.

"Victims furious after Weinstein rape conviction overturned. Bragg committed to retrying case"

It barely makes sense even on the third attempt to read it 🤣

This is what made the MeToo movement powerful. You need the high number of women coming forward to strengthen each other. It's a shame it kind of fizzled out but this is proof how deep systematic oppression runs.