Through West’s actions, the pool is tainted and the only resolution is to throw out all the water. If the case can not be put back together that is unfortunate, but for the system to hold up as a whole, one needs to have strict adherence to not tampering with evidence.

Through such an action, the court will also surely label Mr. West’s actions in this case making it virtually impossible for him to find further employment as an expert witness. This action would be best to prevent further errors by this incompetent self serving individual.

If anything, this situation proves that Mr. West is guilty of attempted murder through his actions of tampering with evidence. If the sentence is carried out, then it is murder.

Do the right thing Mr. West and recant your testimony.

And, this is what needs to be determined! The legal system should be able to do that, if presented actual unaltered evidence!

The majority of them!

Michael wrote “An excessively forceful exam of the anus and rectum could result in superficial tearing of the mucosa, resulting in an injury that look just like anal fissures. It would really be a shame if a child molester could potentially get away with murder because of shoddy work done at the original autopsy!”

There is not one shred of evidence to suggest this child was being sexually abused. None! Jimmie Duncan admitted leaving the child alone in the bath. The police originally believed him. It was not until Hayne/West got ahold of this child and created their own conclusions including sexual abuse that it became an issue.

The reason I wondered is because the lawyer on the other site was questioning what happened to the video of the patient in between the original, clean, face and the abraded face of the next day. Apparently, there is none! It said so right in the article. I wonder why the other lawyer did not catch that. He also chided on Mr Balko about not talking to Drs West or Hayne!! Maybe he could have taken his own advice and given Mr Balko a call! He could have easily found out that way!

The question in this case seems to be the “rectal injury”. Would it not be even more sad if the evidence supplied ended up tainting the other evidence presented at a new trial? There are certain points, I would wonder about.

If a rectal speculum was used in the same, “careful” manner that the bite marks were inspected, could that evidence be any more believable? An excessively forceful exam of the anus and rectum could result in superficial tearing of the mucosa, resulting in an injury that look just like anal fissures. It would really be a shame if a child molester could potentially get away with murder because of shoddy work done at the original autopsy! This case sucks, big time!

Good point. Some evidence can provide investigators with class characteristics, but will not necessarily result in an identification. This is generally true of hair evidence. You can obviously determine hair color and racial background (ie. referred to in forensic analysis as caucasoid, negroid, mongoloid), but the root sheath of the hair must be intact if you wish to extract the DNA necessary for an actual identification. If we hold techniques like bite mark analysis to a more rigorous standard, we may, as Supercat suggests, find that we can only narrow down the suspect pool. It’s just as well though, because a criminal conviction should really be based upon multiple factors (testimonial, circumstantial and physical).

Actually, kids are far more likely to have a consistent set of ethics than adults. It takes years of training to get human beings to apply one set of ethics to some people, and another set to other people.

Humans aren’t born believing it’s okay for police and other government agents to kick people around like dirt, but many adults believe it. Children have no problem extending the basic rules of conduct (don’t hurt people or steal their stuff) to everybody, but virtually all adults do.

* No real demand? People say they want real coverage, but only pay for the shallow? Seems like a strong contender to me.

And on that note, lets talk about the Rhianna-Chris Brown thing….

Meh.

My two cents: if more people actually demanded in-depth, hard hitting stories like the kind here on the agitator, the supply of such stories should eventually rise to meet that demand, right? For the most part, that doesn’t seem to be happening. Why not?

* Is it ideology? I.e. “statists” covering for their own? Maybe in some cases, but it seems too broad to cover everybody.
* No real supply? Nothing left to report, the Agitator pretty much covered it already? (You’re strong in the Force Mr. Balko, but not that strong).
* No real demand? People say they want real coverage, but only pay for the shallow? Seems like a strong contender to me.

or Oprah gets her panties in a twist..

How many of West’s and Haynes’ victims were black? This story might just be right up Oprah’s alley…

With the points made about the lack of following the “standard of care”, it should leave Dr West open to a negligence suit. But, giving him the benefit of the doubt, it may have not been an intentional criminal act. Maybe, it needs further investigation into that premise.

I had never heard of making the skin mold, not being a forensic pathologist. (I guess I did not watch enough of CSI, yet!) And, it sounds like the most reasonable thing to do. It would have avoided this travesty completely. He proved his ignorance, in denying that he had caused the marks, by claiming it was not an inflammatory response. No one seemed to be claiming that! I hate to judge, being no ways perfect myself. But, I would be ashamed of making the statements and performing my work in the way he, allegedly, did! Especially, when it resulted in putting an innocent man in jail.

I assumed that was a bit of snark, contrasting forensic science with the far superior science science, but since Radley has changed it, I guess it was just a typo.

Even if that’s what the book says, and this is what West thinks it says, this isn’t what West DID.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

working study model
Key word there? Model. The dental mold, here, the study subject being the suspect.

impression of wound
Key word here? Impression. Not the wound, the IMPRESSION of the wound. As in, a MOLD.

As a PhD-level scientist, maybe I have some understanding of these terms that the average lay-fella may not, but I think that’s a reach. And West should certainly understand what that means.

Really, there truly isn’t a sufficient punishment for this ….

(by public I mean those momma’s who outrage when Matt Lauer furrows his brows..or Oprah gets her panties in a twist..)

Did you only want one “science” here?