TheAgitator.com
Patricia Moore: Continuing Forensics Scandal in Texas
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009In the late 1990s, Harris County, Texas, medical examiner Patricia Moore was repeatedly reprimanded by her superiors for pro-prosecution bias. Yet she was still able to keep her position doing official autopsies for the county until 2002. In 2004, a statistical analysis showed Moore diagnosed shaken baby syndrome (already a controversial diagnosis) in infant deaths at a rate several times higher than the national average. Roger Koppl and I noted her case in recommending statistical analysis as one way of checking the integrity of state forensic specialists.
One woman convicted of killing her own child because of Moore’s testimony was freed in 2005 after serving six years in prison. Another woman was cleared in 2004 after being accused because of Moore’s autopsy results. In 2001, babysitter Trenda Kemmerer was sentenced to 55 years in prison after being convicted of shaking a baby to death based largely on Moore’s testimony. The prosecutor in that case told the Houston Chronicle in 2004 that she had “no concerns” about Moore’s work. Even though Moore’s diagnosis in that case has since been revised to “undetermined,” and Moore was again reprimanded for her lack of objectivity in the case, Kemmerer remains in prison.
Now another innocence claim has been filed in a case where Moore diagnosed shaken baby syndrome. According to the Chronicle, the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office has “quietly rewritten” the results of a 1998 autopsy performed by Moore that was used to convict a nurse of killing a child in her care. The revision downgraded Moore’s homicide conclusion to an “undetermined” cause of death. So far, the prosecutors in that case are standing by their conviction.
According to the Chronicle, Moore today works for a private firm that performs official autopsies for six Texas counties.
Although I am not expecting anyone to really provide the answer, I’m going to ask the question. Why do prosecutors stand by their conviction in situations such as this, especially the last one? Are they that egotistical that they cannot admit fault? Or are they so worried about the personal ramifications to their career that they just won’t look again? I’m not certain that I will ever understand.
Moe-
I think the answer is simple: admit one fault, one error, and every case you ever tried will be called into question. The innocent and the truly guilty will line up and ask for retrials or to have their convictions overturned. Part of the mystique of our system is that the State is infallible once the conviction is handed down and appeals are filed.
Mike Leatherwood has it right. If one of Ms. Moore’s cases is tossed due to misconduct / malfeasance / prosecutorial bias then all of the cases where she testified for the prosecution are potentially subject to appeal.
However, it seems to be that the focus is on shaken baby syndrome cases specifically, so one could argue that it doesn’t necessarily open up her entire historical caseload.
The prosecutors don’t want to go down this path though as they see it as extremely slippery as to including many, many more cases that could possibly be appealed.
Nasty, utilitarian logic. If I were a lesser person I would wish unimaginable harm to befall the fuckers.
I think I’m going to vomit.
One must take into account the environment in Texas, smack dab in the middle of the buckle of the bible belt, a state board of education packed with young earth creationists, and a lege that has passed some of the most excessively authoritarian laws in the country, and gets elected because they’re so “tough on crime.”
For example, one state senator was asked if the sex offender laws went too far in the case of a guy who can’t take his own 4 kids to a park because he had sex with their mother, now his wife, when he was barely 19 and she was nearly 16. While that’s certainly not a situation I would be comfortable with (as a father of 2 girls) the state of Texas stands firm on the political benefits of being tough on crime.
In essence the senator replied, tough shit, sucka. As long as it gets my fat ass back in the lege, I don’t care what it does to you.
I wish people would realize that a key part (probably the most important) of being “tough on crime” is rooting out corruption and malfeasance within the government. If throwing a crooked government agent in the slammer requires freeing a hundred non-government criminals he helped put behind bars, so be it. The government will have a lot more resources to go after real crooks if it stops going after convenient scapegoats.
#1, it’s called no integrity, no moral foundation, no caring about anyone but themselves at any cost. These are the sort of people that you do NOT want as neighbors, in your community, in your life as they will fuck you when it’s convenient and not care about the ramifications to you, and will lie in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
The root cause issue is integrity and morals. A person with these traits will have no problem with their findings being questioned, as it’s proper to right the wrongs. If it means one has to find another line of work, then so be it. If one is found to be grossly negligent and thus may face charges, then so be it because the Sword of Damocles can swing either way when wielded by The State. You get into that line of work, you face the consequence of being punished for your actions in the line of duty. Then again, most of them have “qualified immunity”.
http://www.wltx.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=78373&provider=top&provider=email
Cops get arrested for falsifying info on police reports, serve time in jail on weekends, but on weekdays are police as if nothing ever happened. WTF??????????
The answer is because prosecutors couldn’t give a shit about justice, only convictions. Look who usually fights requests for DNA testing by inmates. Prosecutors fight tooth and nail to stop new evidence from being obtained that may overturn one of their convictions. This to me, is the glaring proof that prosecutors have no interest in truth. Only keeping their convictions. Fuck that guy doing the time.
#9, and a person like that has no integrity and morals, and thus the root cause is the lack of those traits. Such a person behaves incorrigibly in other situations, because their behavior at work can’t be turned off when they leave the office because they’re HUMAN. Nobody can turn behavior on and off like a light switch depending on the situation — some can appear to do so, but there are always signs that someone is full of shit that we just don’t want to believe.
I’d like to know why someone gave me a -1 and why you disagree. It will be interesting to hear the argument against my logic.
since I live in Texas, I was hoping Texas would be better than Mississippi or Louisiana . Guess not. Things are probably like this all over.
“The answer is because prosecutors couldn’t give a shit about justice, only convictions.”
Or, to put it another way, prosecutors get elected for winning results, not for just results.
Christ, isn’t that like tampering with evidence or suborning perjury or something?
Where’s seeker to tell us the State is speaking for these babies?
Similar problem in NE where the head of the Omaha CSI has been accused (& acquited) of faking evidence in a double homicide. Needless to say, his boss can’t wait to put him back on the payroll. Sad thing is, now we can’t even believe “hard” forensic evidence.
Or to put it more accurately, it is hard to contemplate that for a long time you have believed what you are now finding out were lies. It’s The Awakening, AKA taking the red pill, etc.
http://www.arrod.co.uk/essays/matrix.php
There is a ton of things wrong down here when it comes to crime prosecution. You could spend the rest of your career examining the courts, police and the jail in Harris County . . . and as for fair and impartial journalism . . .
Definitely not the Houston Chronicle!
The most depressing part for me is that I’m thinking of this article as good news, because somebody was actually reprimanded for pro-prosecution bias, instead of getting a promotion and a raise.
wow. the one mother gilliam didn’t even get convicted, just charged and held until she could post bail. yet her parental right were still terminated and her other child was allow to be adopted. how does that happen? how could any judge terminate a parent’s right and put their children up for adoption when that parent hasn’t even been convicted of a crime? did the gilliam get her child back? the article does not elaborate.
so much for innocent until proven guilty. of course, i know that supposed premise of our justice system has no more meaning. actions like those gilliam’s case pretty much prove that to be the case, at least in texas.
Because there is no law which empowers the defense to strip them of their liberty and property if they use unreliable evidence or witnesses after they’ve been shown to be unreliable.
Personally, I think Deuteronomy 19:16-20 would be a great way to go: false witnesses, false accusers and court officials who rely on them are to be sentenced to the full punishment for which the defendant is accused (meaning execution in murder cases).
People wonder why I distrust government. I wonder why they don’t.
I’m a pathologist, and I’m especially appalled by the situation in Texas. They have an incompetent, amoral medical examiner who still has her job and her state license despite numerous incorrect autopsy findings. They have numerous prosecutors who believe that anyone arrested is a criminal even when the evidence that led to conviction is proved false. Unfortunately, these situations are not rare. (Remember the debacle with the FBI lab that was inventing a huge number of its results?)
My son was murdered in Hearne texas july 10,2008 at the executive inn #125. Patricia Moore was the pathologist that did not scrape my son’s fingernails. There was blood under his nails. 20 months later they had to exhume my son at 27 body up from the ground to do that. It is still unsolved. the murderers are still walking free for two years now. I asked her why she did not scrape my sons finger nails and she said it was because she did not get the go ahead from law officials. that they held his body in Bryan St Josheph for 10 days. I said but he had blood under his nails…………….she said nothing. He was murdered. She said she did the best she could for my son. She did not do her job and she is still practicing in Conroe. She can’t even pratice in Harris County. Why does she still have her license?
Hi everybody
I’m from Germany and I have followed the case of Trenda Kemmerer. I’m going to make it public over here wherever I can because I feel it is such an outrageous scandal that this country (Germany) is slowly developing an Anti-American sentiment…how can it be that the life of a once young woman is ruined because of the testimony of a corrupt, incapable medical examiner and the doubtful statements of people who were conspicuously out for pecuniary gain because of their own failure of having a good source of income. All the facts in that case hint so obviously at the conspiracy of all parties involved against Trenda that there can be only one verdict! Let her out of prison and pay her for all these lost years.