Home By Marquel The Afghanistan Banana Stand Criminal Evidence

The Afghanistan Banana Stand Criminal Evidence

Image 37Marquel, TPVs NYTimes Hickey Section correspondent, was talking to a stranger when he stopped, blew his nose, and then read Doubts About Bite-Mark Forensics Are at Center of a Death Row CaseEddie Lee Howard Jr. was convicted of murder largely because of what many experts call a far-fetched match of his teeth to purported bite wounds. They categorize it as “pseudo science,” along with other doubtful evidence, such as identifiable bad breath, distinctive coughing and sneezing, cane tapping, distinctive footsteps, identifiable eating, and other evidence. Marquel was particularly interested in this topic because, having used a cane on occasion himself, he wondered whether his was distinctive and identifiable.
What is amazing, thought Marquel, is that people have suffered the death penalty based on such indefensible evidence. So Marquel went to the FBI to see if they had expertise in these areas.
The agent I spoke to was particularly miffed at the present case because it was one of two bite-mark cases he had worked on.
“You know, the expert was a dentist, a dentist! He confirmed the evidence. No doubt, he said, the bite mark on the body came from the defendant and only him. A dentist!” Said the agent.
“But how many bites could he have identified to be so expert at it?” I asked, “it’s not like fingerprints where we’ve seen literally hundreds of millions with no duplicates. How could a bite mark yield such precision?”
“Look at Dr. Hickey,” said the agent. “He can match a hickey to a suspect based on only one hickey. That takes expertise. They’re not like you and me, laypersons, they’re people who’ve devoted their entire lives to hickeys and bites.”
“I’m not a layperson,” I remarked, “I’m a journalist. But is there really a Dr. Hickey?”
“We call him that,” said the agent, laughing, “but no, he has a different name.”
“And people have gone to the death chamber based on one hickey?” I asked.
He shook his head. “We have another expert who can match the eating sounds of a suspect with a recording where the suspect was eating. Having listened to the recording, he asked the suspect to eat some potato chips in the courtroom and said he was certain beyond a medical certainty that the sounds we’re the same.”
“A capital case?” I questioned.
“Yup, and there was no other physical evidence, just an alibi supplied by the defendants psychiatrist. ” Said the agent.
“The psychiatrist said he was with the suspect at the time of the crime and they convicted on eating noises?” I wondered.
“That’s a fact,” said the agent. “Executed just last year. Asked for barbecue chips as his last meal.”
I had to rest a minute at what I considered a parade of unjustifiable convictions. “What,” I finally asked, “other unusual experts have you come across?”
“Hmmm,” said the agent, “we had this guy on a badly lit video that was unusable although the sound was good, but the guy had a cane. We brought in an expert who asked the suspect to walk across the courtroom with a cane. The guy took two steps and the expert shouted, ‘that’s him, beyond any doubt.’ The defense tried to tear his testimony apart, even had their own cane tapping expert say it wasn’t him. But it turned out our expert had spent sixty years studying cane noises, had been hired by industry to design quieter canes, and had studied over 80,000 cane users in his career. The jury believed our expert. Off to death row.”
“Do you believe it’s really possible to identify someone by the noise of his cane?” I questioned.
“Sure do. We had an expert in sneezing who identified an interstate thief who sneezed on tape, and that was compared to him sneezing in court. Exact match, said the expert.” Said the agent.
“What was he stealing across state lines?” I asked.
“Benadryl®,” said the agent. “Not a capital crime, but still…expertise that you and I don’t have.”
“What is the most memorable of these cases,” I inquired.
The agent put his fist to his chin and thought.
“Maybe the Ledbetter bed case. This guy Ledbetter had killed his wife and then slept the night next to her until the cops arrested him the next morning. They took a plaster cast of the bed. In court the expert, a chiropractor who had examined thousands of patients in bed, asked the defendant to lie down in a bed in court for fifteen minutes. As soon as he got up, the expert examined the bed and said it perfectly matched the curves in the plaster cast of the murder bed. He, too, had been hired by industry to design better beds. A real expert.”
“So you think the Supreme court should uphold this bite mark conviction.” I said.
“Oh yes, we depend on this kind of evidence to keep society safe. They outlaw this testimony, in a few years the market for their skills will dry up and we’ll lose important expertise as well as cases.” He said.
“That would be a shame,” I said, getting up and trying to depart without leaving evidence behind. I stifled a cough, then a sneeze, and tip-toed home.
***
BY MARQUEL: The Afghanistan Bananistan Criminal Evidence

9 COMMENTS

  1. superb!
    “Look at Dr. Hickey,” said the agent. “He can match a hickey to a suspect based on only one hickey. That takes expertise. They’re not like you and me, laypersons, they’re people who’ve devoted their entire lives to hickeys and bites.”

  2. This is even better:
    The agent put his fist to his chin and thought.
    “Maybe the Ledbetter bed case. This guy Ledbetter had killed his wife and then slept the night next to her until the cops arrested him the next morning. They took a plaster cast of the bed. In court the expert, a chiropractor who had examined thousands of patients in bed, asked the defendant to lie down in a bed in court for fifteen minutes. As soon as he got up, the expert examined the bed and said it perfectly matched the curves in the plaster cast of the murder bed. He, too, had been hired by industry to design better beds. A real expert.

  3. True afghanistan bananistan criminal evidence. As long as the prosecutor says something stupid everybody seems to be dumbfounded and buy the suggestion.

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