TheAgitator.com
This Week in Innocence
Monday, February 2nd, 2009Last March, USA Today reported that Marquette University dentist Dr. L. Thomas Johnson and a colleague are developing computer software they hope will “legitimize” bite mark analysis. The problem, as outlined in the article, is that…
…critics say human skin changes and distorts imprints until they are nearly unrecognizable. As a result, courtroom experts end up offering competing opinions.“If the discipline lends itself to opposing experts, it’s not science,” said Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project, which works to free wrongfully convicted inmates.
Since 2000, at least seven people in five states who were convicted largely on bite-mark identification have been exonerated, according to the Innocence Project.
Johnson’s effort to bring acceptance to his beloved art may have just hit another roadblock–a man his analysis helped convict was released last week.
Robert Lee Stinson walked out of a Wisconsin prison today after serving 23 years behind bars for a murder DNA shows he didn’t commit. Lawyers at the Wisconsin Innocence Project joined with the Milwaukee District Attorney’s office in asking a judge to throw out Stinson’s 1985 conviction today, based on new DNA evidence of his innocence and a new analysis showing that bite mark evidence used to convict Stinson was wrong…
Stinson was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide in 1985 based almost exclusively on evidence purporting to match bite marks found in the victim’s skin to his teeth. Since the time of Stinson’s trial, new evidence has come to light that strongly supports his claim of innocence. First, four nationally recognized forensic odontologists — David Senn, Gregory Golden, Denise Murmann, and Norman Sperber, who all volunteered their time — evaluated the dental evidence and conclusively excluded Stinson as the source of any of the bite marks found on the victim. Furthermore, DNA evidence corroborated these conclusions — male DNA found on the victim’s sweater also excluded Stinson.
I always knew bite mark evidence was a bunch of crap. Guilt should be determined by scientifically analyzing the bumps on the defendant’s head. Anything else is purely speculative and subject to the prejudices of the investigator.
The man deserves a pat on the back for the pithiest (and probably most unintentional) trashing of Sociology that I have ever seen
I think bite mark analysis is extremely useful – it proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the biter in fact does have a mouth, and therefore eliminates the entire plant kingdom as suspects.
Actually, I think this is great news from my perspective as an ex-lab rat scientist and now lawyer.
(a) By doing the research, they will have to make all their assumption etc explicit, publishable and testable. This will make it much easier to destroy in court, because they can no longer hide behind assertions akin to magic.
(b) IF they can make it into a scientific method, e.g. like DNA evidence, then good. Another tool in the arsenal. Better than jailhouse informants.
Of course, there could still be corrupt labs (like a certain pathologist and a certain bite mark “expert”), but at least there is some objective rigor that can be examined and tested.
Chance,
It could be Dionaea muscipula.
What SJE said: doing actual scientific research on this problem is exactly what we need.
All the objections by the critics in the story amount to: “current understanding of bite marks is way too limited to be used in court”. All the scientist is saying: “I am planning to improve our understanding”. There is no contradiction here. Perhaps after he does the research, forensic bite-mark analysis will still impossible; perhaps he will show that some analysis is possible. Who knows? We should not judge the research until it is complete.
What is fairly likely is that his results will prove the intuition that current understanding is weak. That by itself will be useful for people convicted because of bite-mark “experts”.
@ktc2 If it was muscipula, then I blame the victim.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit that when the witness should have been aware of the consequences of stimulating my client’s trichomes”.
I don’t know why they resort to the study of bite marks when these cases could be settled using a phrenological analysis.
no heiney biting!
And how many of those seven were in Mississippi?
@Robin #8
Nonsense! The Kirilian Aura is far more definitive.
To be fair, bite mark evidence is good for determining whether or not a crime was committed by a vampire.
Although this revelation does kind of ruin that episode of Seinfeld where George was driving John (not Jon) Voight’s car…
Robin,
Of course you would say that. You have the brainpan of a stagecoach tilter.