NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A consequential legal u-turn has come for a Louisiana man who has spent almost 30 years on death row. A district judge has sset aside the man's conviction, in a case that has endured far too many years in the judicial system, courts, and on appeal for one to be able to describe it any other way than decided by "junk science"—forensic evidence on which the conviction was based.
In 1998, Jimmie Duncan was charged with the first-degree murder of his girlfriend's young daughter. The prosecution contended that he had raped and then drowned the child in a bathtub.
Bite mark analysis and an autopsy performed by two experts provided the bedrock on which the prosecution built its case. These experts have since been implicated in several wrongful convictions. In sharp contrast, the defense has characterized the experts as discredited "charlatans" and has maintained that Duncan is innocent.
Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Alvin Sharp annulled Duncan's first-degree murder conviction. The case involved expert testimonies. They indicated that the bite mark analysis used in the trial was "not scientifically defensible" and that the cause of death appeared to be the result of "accidental drowning."
Forensic odontologist Michael West and pathologist Steven Hayne, who both work in Mississippi, examined the remains of Haley Oliveaux, the daughter of Duncan's girlfriend.
Many people have been wrongly convicted, arrested, or charged because of bad bite mark evidence, according to the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that helps figure out who was wrongly convicted.
Duncan was the last person awaiting an execution based on the pair’s work, which Sharp said in his ruling appeared “questionable at best.”
In court documents, Duncan's defense team declared that the evaluations performed by West and Hayne had been linked to no fewer than ten wrongful convictions in the past. They characterized the pair and their methods as "unreliable."
A video recording of the examination reveals West "forcibly pushing a mold of Mr. Duncan's teeth into the child's body--creating the bite marks" that were subsequently used to secure his conviction, as stated in a court filing submitted by Duncan's legal representatives. During the trial, a state-appointed expert, unaware of this controversial methodology, testified that the bite marks on the victim's body corresponded to those of Duncan.
In September, forensic odontologist Dr. Adam Freeman was called by Duncan's defense team to testify at a hearing. He stated that the assumptions which form the basis of bite mark analysis are no longer valid and, in effect, represent a form of "junk science," court filings show.
A recent legal evaluation has seen expert witnesses harshly assess Dr. Hayne's autopsy. They characterize his work as follows: "sloppy in practice" and "inadequate overall".
In his ruling, Judge Sharp emphasized that the qualifications of Dr. Hayne were lacking in certain ways to an extent that called into serious question the pathologist's expert designation.
In addition, Sharp considered a medical expert's testimony from September to be "very compelling," stating that the expert indicated the boy's death was not a homicide but rather an accidental drowning.
Duncan's future is uncertain. No one knows when, or even if, he will see the light of day again.The 4th Judicial District's district attorney, Robert S. Tew, has numerous choices before him: he can appeal the ruling, retry Duncan on the murder charge or a lesser offense, or accept the court's ruling and set Duncan free. Tew has not returned phone calls and emails asking for comment. Duncan's legal team also has chosen to remain silent.
A lot of convicting individuals has gone on in Louisiana, and these are not just some low-profile court cases.
In the past 30 years, you can count 11 people whom the state condemned to death and later found to be innocent. That's more exonerations than in any state except Illinois. Half those Illinois cases, by the way, were from the mid-1990s alone. So much for the vigorous pursuit of justice in our neighboring state.
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