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Truth in Justice
Newsletter - December, 2004
Saying the
autopsy report was wrong, Winchester, TN District Attorney Mike Taylor dismissed a murder charge
against Margaret
Mignano, accused of killing her severely disabled
daughter with an overdose of medication. The murder charge was
based on the autopsy report of Dr. Charles Harlan of Nashville, a
forensic pathologist who is defending his medical license against state
charges of misdiagnosing causes of death in other cases and destroying
evidence in criminal investigations.
In 1984, the body of Bruce's girlfriend, Sherry Fales Williams, was found next to an interstate exit in Utah. Bruce was convicted of raping and murdering her, even though two defense witnesses testified he was with them in Stockton, CA. After 19 years, DNA has shown what Bruce has insisted all along -- he is innocent. Louis Greco died behind bars in 1995 from cancer and heart disease. He suffered horribly, losing a leg to amputation because he was denied proper care for his diabetes. Along with co-defendants Peter Limone and Joseph Salvati, Louis was framed for murder by the Boston FBI to protect their informant, mob hit man Steve "The Rifleman" Flemmi. Nine years after Louis' death, the prosecutor has acknowledged he was an innocent man. Sylvester's case is yet another example of how pressuring children to make false allegations leads to wrongful convictions. In 1984, two young girls were molested by their cousin who was also a juvenile. Their grandmother, thinking the cousin would be sent to prison, convinced the girls to accuse Sylvester Smith instead. Now grown, the victims have recanted and are supported by the trial testimony of one of them -- she told the defense attorney her grandmother said to accuse Smith.
Link: A special interactive report brought to you by journalnow.com A Special ReportThe Attack at the Silk Plant Forest JournalNow Edition * Winston-Salem, N.C. * November 21-25, 2004
On Dec.
9, 1995 Jill Marker was brutally beaten in the back of The Silk Plant
Forest, then located in the Silas Creek Shopping Center. Two years
later, Kalvin Michael Smith was arrested for the crime. This six month
re-examination of the case is based on hundreds of pages of police
reports and interviews with Marker, her family and others.
Thelma Younkin used an oxygen tube to help her breathe. Her killer used it as a murder weapon. n November 1991, the frail, 65-year-old Younkin was strangled with the tube, bitten and raped in her room at the Post Park Motel along a grim stretch of Yuma, Arizona. A fellow resident of the low-budget motel, Bobby Lee Tankersley, was convicted and sent to Arizona's Death Row for the attack, based largely on the testimony of a forensic dentist who said he had matched Tankersley's teeth to bite marks on Younkin's body. But on December 6, 2004, the same judge who sentenced Tankersley to death will hold a hearing that promises to showcase the problems of forensic science in America's courts, from the legacy of discredited experts to new DNA tests exposing the questionable science behind many other disciplines, including bite-mark comparison.
Michigan: A special prosecutor is being appointed to probe the conduct of police and the prosecutor in the case of a man wrongfully convicted of rape, a spokesman with the Michigan Attorney General's Office has confirmed. The probe is the latest development stemming from Ken Wyniemko's year-old federal lawsuit, which lays out evidence that suggests witnesses were coached, evidence was buried, conflicting leads were ignored and justice was forsaken for a conviction. Winning at Any Cost Pennsylvania: PA State Police have a unique track record for charging accidental fires as arson. They have taken this to a new low, using pizza and candy to get a 7-year-old boy to confess to setting a fatal fire at a neighbor's home that occurred when the child was miles away. The child is too young to be prosecuted, even as a juvenile. Instead, the authorities want to put him in a treatment facility for mentally disturbed kids -- Go in Normal, Come Out Twisted.
Post Mortem Drug Test Errors A technique for inferring how much of a drug a patient has taken may be putting innocent people behind bars. The problem seems to be that doctors are incorrectly applying the method to corpses, in a bid to establish how much of a drug a deceased person took, or was given, before their death. That error can result in vastly inflated readings. Independent Crime Labs The risk of deceptive forensic practices is heightened by the strong institutional kinship between the technicians who analyze forensic evidence and the law enforcement agencies that investigate and prosecute criminals. Virtually all crime laboratories have direct affiliations with law enforcement agencies. Locke Bowman and Rob Warden make a strong case for independent crime labs in Illinois. Actually, we need independent crime labs throughout the country. INNOCENCE PROJECTS
LINKS The links pages at Truth in Justice are frequently updated. Be sure to check them for resources, "must" reading, websites of inmates with compelling innocence claims and more. Start at http://truthinjustice.org/links.htm SITE SEARCH ENGINE There are now over 900 pages at Truth in Justice. The site search engine on the main page can make it faster and easier to find what you seek. And remember, YOU can make a difference! Sheila and Doug Berry Back to Top |
