TheAgitator.com
Lockerbie and Old Lace
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009My crime column for Reason this week looks at the unusual connection between the 1997 murder of a Scottish spinster, some embarrassing mistakes by a world-renown crime lab, and the FBI’s attempt to cover those mistakes up so as not to jeopardize the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
It’s an intriguing little story.
“The McKie case shows how far law enforcement agencies can be willing to go to protect a high-stakes conviction. The SCRO was willing to ruin the reputation of a police investigator, falsely try her for perjury, and let an innocent man rot in prison to cover up its mistakes.”
The State will defend itself by any means necessary.
I’m sure there’s a greater good served by all of this. It just escapes me right now.
Considering what has unfolded as you investigated Hayne and his dentist buddy, Radley, you are showing great courtesy in calling the misidentified prints in this Scotland case ‘mistakes’.
If 160 other experts are willing to testify that the prints were not a match, then it sounds like they were probably very clearly not a match. Which means it was not a mistake.
Q: “Whose prints are these”
A: “Whose would you like them to be?”
Makes you wonder just how many innocent people have had their lives destroyed by lying forensic ‘experts’. It could be in the millions.
True, the state will stop at nothing to further itself (and nothing is safe…those lessons are coming for everyone).
I am reminded of the story a few days ago about “guilt or innosence doesn’t matter, just that a fair trail was given”. Man, SCOTUS is a bunch of crazy old bastards.
Sorry for making OT a habit, but I thought I’d offer up this “new professionalism” roundup:
http://radgeek.com/
The seeming endlessness of it is numbing. Walk away from the State, PLEASE!
But crime labs are never wrong! I saw it on CSI!
#6 The ME on Law and Order was willing to admit mistakes, at least when it was a cop’s neck in the noose.
The more I learn about Lockerbie the more the whole thing stinks. I’ve heard Jim Swire on the radio, who’s daughter died that day, and he doesn’t come across as the usual conspiracy theory nut. His website: http://www.lockerbietruth.com
This is another example of the cancer affecting law enforcement: Convictions are considered wins, regardless of evidence. If cops and prosecutors counted it a loss when a criminal goes free because someone else was convicted, instead of just when a not guilty verdict is declared, the world would be a juster place (except for Radley, who’d have to find another job).