TheAgitator.com
Michael West Responds
Sunday, March 1st, 2009Disgraced bite mark witness Michael West angrily responded yesterday to charges I first reported at Reason that he tampered with evidence by pushing a dental mold of a suspect’s teeth into the corpse of 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux. I’ll address the rest of West’s defense in a subsequent post. For now, I’d like to focus on this passage, quoting West.
“I’ve exonerated three or four times as many people as I’ve convicted,” he said. “I’m a little old dentist from Hattiesburg, and I’ve got the top lawyers in the country coming after me. The New York Times wrote an editorial on me. Why? They can’t stand the evidence.”
I’m not sure what “They can’t stand the evidence” means. But there’s a reason lawyers and experts across the country are coming after him. In addition to West’s key role in the Oliveaux case and in the wrongful Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks convictions—all discussed in my article last week—here’s a look at the other “evidence” of West’s expertise over the years:
• In the 1995 Louisiana case State v. Van Winkle, West testified that marks on a dead boy’s stomach were consistent with the soles of a pair of hiking boots owned by his mother. The mother was convicted of manslaughter, but the conviction was later overturned, in part due to West’s testimony.
• In 1992, West matched a bite mark on an elderly rape victim to a Mississippi man named Johnny Bourn. Bourn was arrested and imprisoned for 18 months due to West’s testimony, even though hair and fingerprint evidence pointed to someone else. Bourn was freed when DNA testing on fingernail scrapings taken from the victim conclusively excluded him as the assailant.
• In the case of Eddie Lee Howard (which I blogged about here), a dissenting opinion from the Mississippi Supreme Court noted that at the time of Howard’s first trial in 1994, West had testified in “forty-one murder trials; thirty-two times as a wound pattern expert; one time as a trace metal expert; three times as an expert regarding gun shot residue; three times as an expert in gunshot reconstruction; three times as a death investigator expert; two times as a County Coroner; six times in child abuse trials; three times as a crime scene investigator; and one time as a blood splatter expert. He also asserts that he has made 600 dental I.D’s and 300 bite mark I.D.’s. Of the 100 board certified forensic odontologists in the United States, about 90% of them have testified for the opposite side when Dr. West is called as an expert witness.”
• In the 2000 Mississippi case of Leigh Stubbs and Tammy Vance, two women accused of various drug and assault charges, West expanded his expertise to include video enhancement, and claimed he could match the latches on a toolbox to the wounds on the alleged assault victim.
• In the 1997 case Banks v. Mississippi, West claimed to have matched the bites in a half-eaten bologna sandwich left at the crime scene to the defendant’s dentition. West then destroyed the sandwich before the defense could test it. The defendant was convicted. That conviction was later overturned, and West’s testimony was tossed.
• In the 1990 Mississippi case State v. Maxwell, West definitively matched the serrations on a butcher knife to stab wounds on three elderly victims, and also with a slash on a door. He also claimed he could trace slight indentations on the suspect’s palm to rivets on the knife’s handle. When West’s lab photos of the alleged indentations came back overexposed, he merely photocopied the suspect’s hand, then drew the indentations in. He was still allowed to testify. West’s testimony is all that linked the defendant Larry Maxwell to the crime scene. Maxwell was convicted. Citing West’s improbably testimony, a court later overturned Maxwell’s conviction. The state later dropped the charges, and Maxwell was freed.
• In State v. Oppie, another Mississippi case, West claimed he could definitively match scratches on a murder victim to the suspect’s fingernails. Not by DNA, but merely by the appearance of the scratches and the structure of the suspect’s fingernails.
• In a 1993 Ohio case, West was able to get himself certified as an expert on liquid splash patterns. A 17-year-old was charged with manslaughter for deliberately pouring bleach onto his disabled sister. West testified that the splash and burn patterns from the bleach showed the bleach had been poured intentionally, not spilled accidentally.
• In the mid-1990s, West claimed to have found a bite mark on the shoulder of a woman whose body was exhumed after being buried for 14 months. No other doctor had seen the mark. Unfortunately, West says he put the skin sample in a “preservative” that destroyed the mark he claimed to have found. He was allowed to testify anyway. Relying on West’s memory and West’s word, jurors convicted a Louisiana oyster fisher named Anthony Keko of killing his wife. Keko served 2.5 years in prison before the state dropped all charges against him, and set him free.
(Note: This list of cases are summarized from this 1996 article in the ABA Journal, this 2007 paper by Paul Giannelli and Kevin McMunigal, and my own research and reporting.)
These are merely the cases where West gave testimony that was outrageous enough to have been later overturned or cited by his critics. There are countless other cases where he has given testimony that’s plausible, but given his obvious credibility problems, should never have been allowed anywhere near a courtroom. Yet judges kept allowing him to take the stand. The “little old dentist from Hattiesburg” has done quite a bit of damage.
Unbelievable. What absolute scum.
I can’t imagine anyone being this malicious. This has to be one delusional, incompetent bastard.
How can be a delusional, incompetent bastard, who causes this much harm to people, not be criminal?
I am curious as to his specific claim that “I’ve exonerated three or four times as many people as I’ve convicted”. When has he worked for an exoneration? Much less “three of four times” as many people as he’s fraudulently imprisoned?
Is he actually freeing real criminals in addition to locking up innocent people? Because if he is actually “exonerating” people, I refuse to believe without evidence that his “exonerations” bear any more relation to actual guilt or innocence than his convictions.
These are just evil people. My wife’s family is from the Hattiesburg/Laurel area. It’s frightening to think what would happen to them if they find themselves in an ugly legal situation through no fault of their own.
My guess is he’s working on these “exonerations” when the price is right.
I read West’s response in both the Hattiesburg American and The Clarion Ledger.
West said he didn’t make the laws and denied that you could make these bitemarks post-mortum.
Here is my response on BOTH articles on the ‘comments’ area to his weak whiny defense:
Well Dr. West, I guess the elusive TOOTH-FAIRY made those BIG PRETTY PURPLE MARKS on this kid’s face so bad it looked like someone used a claw hammer on her.
And no, you don’t MAKE the law you simply BREAK the law.
Since you seem to have some sort of ‘super power’ that enables you to see things no one else can, with the exception of Hayne, who is your partner in crime, make sure you don’t get exposed to Kryptonite….you know what it did to Superman…POOF, his powers disappeared.
If Duncan HELD her under water as you and Huckleberry Hayne claim, then where’s the wounds from that? Where’s the semen, DNA, in other words…EVIDENCE?
Oh that’s right…if it ain’t there…well we already KNOW the ‘rest of the story’.
By the way, this is a BIT of poetic justice…you using a visual to prove something is there and then claiming the video YOU shot is NOT really what WE are SEEING!
Talk about a double standard.
I can’t wait to see the final cut of this saga and watch the credits roll!
And YES you CAN and DID “make an inflammatory response on a dead person.”
According to Dr. Robert Dorion, the Director of Forensic Dentistry at the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale, Ministry of Public Security for province of Quebec since 1973 an author of the book BITEMARK EVIDENCE, it can occur.
Dr. Dorion says in his book “Certainly, if the forces applied are sufficient, blood is still fluid and tissue is still loose enough to permit graviational ooze of blood.”
So, in your FACE, pardon the pun.
“I’ve exonerated three or four times as many people as I’ve convicted”
He probably means people he failed to convict with his shit evidence.
‘For every innocent person I’ve sent to the big house, I’ve been prevented from sending three or four more! I’m a hero!’
I found an interesting BLOG called MY HATTIESBURG with some disturbing COMMENTS about West.
http://www.myhattiesburg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=895850
After reading this, I find myself wondering how INTOXICATED West was when he performed his ‘job’.
Hey, no one’s perfect.
According to West and Hayne they are experts in everything. They are all-knowing and all-seeing and their judgments cannot be questioned. I wonder which one of them is God.
I wonder if West and Hayne have a pathology similar to serial killers?
I agree with Andy Craig that he has probably helped free people who should have been convicted as well as convicted people who should have been freed. After all, he is a liar for hire, so I don’t doubt that he is willing to ply his “expertise” to bite whichever hand isn’t feeding him. Of course, he is probably careful not to go too often against the prosecutors who are his bread and butter.
Not that we should be vindictive here. I would be satisfied if he served as much time in prison as the total time served by those whose convictions were later overturned due to his testimony. That’s probably not more than twenty or thirty years…
I forget what it’s called, but there’s a legal notice that prosecutors can issue, letting others know his history. I’ve seen it used punitively against honest cops that talked, ending any ability to testify. How about it? Surely there’s an honest DA out there, somewhere.
In my completely non-professional opinion:
Munchhausen’s syndrome.
Every time he comes up with incriminating evidence, prosecutors give him more positive attention.
IMO, he needs to be publicly labeled as the kook that he is.
“Yet judges kept allowing him to take the stand.”
Aside from the world sometimes being a shitty place, is there a particular reason for this? What exactly is going on here?
What’s getting me here is… Isn’t it pretty much impossible to actually be an expert on ALL of those things?
Magnum, you may be thinking of a “Brady Cop” which is one who has a record of lying on the stand and the prosecution is required to inform the defense about it. I am not sure if a similar rule applies to expert witnesses, though clearly there is a need for such. I am pretty sure judges can decide an expert lacks credibility to testify in his courtroom, though that seems to have been rarely used in the Hayne and West cases. We recently saw in the Ryan Frederick case that an honest prosecutor from another district come forward with information that the prosecution’s jailhouse snitch was a professional liar, so it does happen. Unfortunately, since prosecutors suffer no real consequences from putting people of little credibility (or even known liars) on the stand, the practice goes on.
Is anyone reminded of the crooked cop in “Touch of Evil”? Yeah, he framed these people, but they were all guilty, don’t you know.
I wonder if these guys are really that delusional, that they think the men they’ve put away were guilty and it was just up to them to prove it. In their minds, they are heroes for doing what it took to put these guys in prison over the objections of all the panty-waist criminal-hugging liberals.
What was shady about his work on the bleach spilling/pouring case? Did I miss something? Is it just that he was able to get himself certified as a “splash expert”?
Mike,
Sadly that, I believe, is the case with most cops, prosecutors and corrupt “experts”.
Obviously this guy has ZERO credibility with any impartial person, which reveals the source of the problem. The entire system is biased in favor of convict at all costs.
Oops! Forgot to switch back my name. That’s was me!
Just a little old dentist from Hattiesburg who gets his kicks and his paychecks from desecrating the bodies of dead children. Nice
“I’ve exonerated three or four times as many people as I’ve convicted.”
Is he claiming credit for “exonerating” the people who were released from prison when his testimony turned out to be bullshit?
The man needs to rot in prison. Hayne and West should have their own special places at Parchman.
Radley what does this mean exacly?:
“Of the 100 board certified forensic odontologists in the United States, about 90% of them have testified for the opposite side when Dr. West is called as an expert witness.”
There’s only 100 of them? and 90 of them have testified at one time or another in opposition to west?
Judges very rarely don’t let people testify because they have a history of lying. The rule is that te opposition can draw out all their lying and dishonesty to discredit them but judges rarely strike people because they have a history of lying. Of course, judges have to certify “expert” witnesses but technically that is about their education, training and experience not so muc (or at all) their credibility.
Judges have discretion to control their courtroom and the trial, but excluding a witness outright for credibility would open the judge up to appeal.
Oh and Dr. West should rot in hell, like starting now.
Nick T | March 1st, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Of course, judges have to certify “expert” witnesses but technically that is about their education, training and experience not so muc (or at all) their credibility.
Really? How does this certification process work? And who the hell forgot to notify the Judges in Ms. that they had to certify their experts? All Hayne and West had to do was testify for the State and create bogus evidence to garner a conviction. The result…almost every prosecutor and Judge in Ms. were falling all over themselves to get these numb-nuts on the witness stand, no questions asked.
Also….
I hate to be the one to play the race card here but I’ve done enough homework on Hayne and read enough about West to say that in the majority of these cases the defendant(s) were indigent and black. Mississippi really is still burning!
I suspect that when Dr. West says he’s exonerated “three or four times” as many people as he’s convicted, he means that typically the police bring him four or five suspects, he picks one to prosecute, and the rest he takes credit for proving innocent.
(((Did I miss something? Is it just that he was able to get himself certified as a “splash expert”?))
Given that he’s a dentist, isn’t that enough?
One thing I never saw mentioned in the case of the child was the condition of the skin. The skin in a dead body becomes very fragile, as it does when a limb loses its blood supply. When the necrosis reaches a certain level, the skin will peel away like sunburn. I have seen it happen, when the limb was just gripped too tightly and moved. It actually can fall out on one’s hand, it acts like it is lubricated.
The ease with which the bite marks could be made in this child’s cheek, is unbelievable. Just rubbing the teeth on that fragile, necrotic, skin would have easily damaged it. It has been demonstrated, with the video, that is exactly what happened. Yet, he still denies that it could have happened that way!? Being a dentist, he, likely, may not have known what necrotic skin would do, if you keep rubbing a piece of plaster against it! It still should have been clear to him, after viewing the video, that he caused the abrasions.
“Did I miss something? Is it just that he was able to get himself certified as a “splash expert”?”
Based on the testimony Radley described, his expertise included the ability to determine from the splash the intent of the person who spilled/poured the liquid. That seems to go a bit beyond physics and into metaphysics.
“I’ve exonerated three or four times as many people as I’ve convicted”
So the defendants are innocent in 1/4 to 1/5 of his cases, eh?
Since it seems we all like to type on our computers, then how about filling this form out?
It is a COMPLAINT FORM to the Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure.
http://www.msbml.state.ms.us/ComplaintForm.pdf
Found at http://www.msbml.state.ms.us/
#28 Michael: See comment #5.
I am a former paramedic and have handled many corpses. I do not hold a PhD, however in my experience I have seen post-mortem injuries occur at different stages of livor mortis.
Commissioner Stephen Simpson said in one of the articles in the Hattiesburg American, to direct our complaints to the Mississippi State Medical Association.
I did. They passed the BUCK to the Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure.
Still waiting on a call back from them.
Seems no one wants to CLEAN UP after the PARTY!
What’s a girl to do?
#32 Judi,
I was trained as a general surgeon. We had a big vascular practice in the hospital in which I trained. I helped do a lot of amputations. It was not unusual to have the skin peel off as you were trying to lift the leg to move the patients onto the OR table. That weakness of the skin attachment is what I am referring to. When the underlying tissue gets necrotic, the skin just peels off, if you are not careful. It is very fragile, when it reaches this state. It would be very easy to damage the skin with the plaster mold, just by touching it to the skin. That is what I was referring to.
Michael, thank you. Maybe I should have re-read your post. Sorry!
Nick @24
“Of course, judges have to certify “expert” witnesses but technically that is about their education,..”
But has Hayne been lying about his certification? It turned out he walked out on the board certification test griping about a question on the test. So he can just lie to the judge and the judge believes it? When would a judge actually question anything? Tyler Edmond’s lawyer objected to Hayne’s qualifications, but to no avail and we all know how that turned out (two fingers on the trigger theory). That was when the limb broke for Hayne.
“Is he actually freeing real criminals in addition to locking up innocent people? Because if he is actually “exonerating” people, I refuse to believe without evidence that his “exonerations” bear any more relation to actual guilt or innocence than his convictions.”
This was my first thought on reading his “defense.” This guy shouldn’t be allowed to be an expert on whether the sun is up or not.
Any thoughts on this kerfuffle involving the Duncan case?
http://volokh.com/posts/1236116981.shtml