Via the comments to this Eugene Volokh post, it looks like the Ninth Circuit has just thrown out (pdf) a guilty verdict over precisely the problems with predicting odds when doing cold DNA database searches that we discussed earlier this week. Excerpt from the opinion:

Here, [DNA expert Renee] Romero initially testified that [defendant Troy Don Brown]’s DNA matched the DNA found in [rape victim Jane Doe]’s underwear, and that 1 in 3,000,000 people randomly selected from the population would also match the DNA found in Jane’s underwear (random match probability). After the prosecutor pressed her to put this another way, Romero testified that there was a 99.99967 percent chance that the DNA found in Jane’s underwear was from Troy’s blood (source probability). This testimony was misleading, as it improperly conflated random match probability with source probability. In fact, the former testimony (1 in 3,000,000) is the probability of a match between an innocent person selected randomly from the population; this is not the same as the probability that Troy’s DNA was the same as the DNA found in Jane’s underwear, which would prove his guilt. Statistically, the probability of guilt given a DNA match is based on a complicated formula known as Bayes’s Theorem, see id. at 170-71 n.2, and the 1 in 3,000,000 probability described by Romero is but one of the factors in this formula.

Once again, it’s worth noting that if other evidence points to a suspect, and you then get a match to your suspect after running the crime scene DNA against a database, you can be reasonably certain of guilt. I’m just wary of using cold matches as the starting point of an investigation. Precisely because many people misunderstand the fairly high odds of false matches with large databases, you run the risk of the investigation becoming more about finding proof that the match committed the crime than about investigating who committed the crime. The problem grows when you’re talking about decades-old cases where evidence has degenerated, witnesses have died, and records may or may not still be around.

First, have a look at this video, from tonight’s episode of 60 Minutes:

Brady v. Maryland was the Supreme Court case that made it illegal for prosecutors to withhold exculpatory evidence from defense attorneys. The problem is that there’s rarely if ever any punishment for breaking the rule, even when it has led to wrongful convictions and imprisonment.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, featured in the above video, is now publicly advocating that prosecutors who knowingly violate the rule (that is, who knowingly break the law) should face criminal charges, not just professional sanctions (which also rarely happen).

"Something should be done," said Craig Watkins, whose jurisdiction leads the nation in the number of DNA exonerations. "If the harm is a great harm, yes, it should be criminalized."

Mr. Watkins said that he was still pondering what kind of punishment unethical prosecutors deserve but that the worst offenders might deserve prison time. He said he also was considering the launch of a campaign to mandate disbarment for any prosecutor found to have intentionally withheld evidence from the defense.

Such ideas could not be more at odds with the win-at-all-costs philosophy that was the hallmark of legendarily hard-line Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade and, to a lesser extent, of subsequent administrations.

It is rare for a prosecutor to advocate strict penalties for misconduct – even when it’s intentional, said Mr. Gershman, a former New York prosecutor. "I couldn’t give you five cases in the last 40 years of criminal charges against prosecutors," he said.

The Duke lacrosse case was great in that it brought national attention to the possibilty of wrongful prosecutions and prosecutorial misconduct. But it may have also fostered the misconception that prosecutors like Mike Nifong are routinely punished when they make the same mistakes he made. In truth, it almost never happens. Still, it’s fun to watch law-and-order, "the law is the law" prosecutors backpedal when asked why they themselves shouldn’t face charges when they violate the law.

Watkins, by the way, is a rock star. Read my interview with him here.

Steve Chapman had a column last week about the benefits of assembling large DNA databases of the populace for the purpose of solving crimes.

The L.A. Times has a story this weekend on why that creates some problems that might not be readily apparent.

The main problem is that the odds of a false match increase exponentially when you’re running a DNA sample against a database of hundred of thousands of people (in Britain, the number is well into the millions)–a Bayes’ Theorem problem. The problem is exacerbated when you’re dealing with decayed DNA from old “cold cases,” where you have even fewer markers than in well-preserved DNA samples.

Let’s say the U.S. adopts a Great Britain policy on collecting DNA–basically a move toward, at some point in the future, having DNA on file for everyone in the country. Well now the 1 in 1.1 million odds against the suspect in the L.A. Times case are being run against a database of 380 million people. The numbers say that you’re going to pull up about 345 matches in the U.S. alone. In the California case, the database is obviously much smaller than the entire U.S. population, and only one of those 345 people showed up from the 330,000-person FBI DNA database–the (admittedly unsympathetic) subject of the article. But any of the other 344 potential matches in the U.S. (or the 2,200 matches worldwide) could have committed the crime. They just weren’t in the database.

DNA database searches are an excellent starting point for law enforcement. But given the odds of false matches when running DNA against an extensive database, we should be very careful about moving the burden of proof onto matches to prove their innocence. It’s also unfortunate that the judge in the case profiled in the L.A. Times would only allow the prosecution’s miscalculated 1 in 1.1 million chance of a false match into evidence, and not the more statistically sound 1 in 3. Even if one were to accept the idea that the scientific community is divided over the proper way to calculate the possibility of a false match (and I’m not convinced there’s really that much of a debate), you’d think a judge should either allow the jury to be made aware of that division of opinion, and that there are serious statisticians and scientists who would put the odds much, much lower than the odds suggested by the prosecutors in the case.

DNA testing clears man after 27 years in prison.

He’ll be the 18th exoneration in Dallas County alone, and he has mostly Craig Watkins to thank for his freedom.

Sad story in the Washington Post on how difficult it is for people wrongly convicted to get their lives back together. Probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that a big part of the problem is foot-dragging by politicians and bureaucrats.

In Illinois, to regain a certifiably clean record and collect compensation–a lump payment of $60,150 for five years or less in prison, or $120,300 for six to 14 years–an exonerated inmate must obtain a “pardon based on innocence” from the governor. A 15-member state review board interviews the petitioners and makes a recommendation, but the governor is not obligated to make a decision.

“The governor is not acting on them,” said Karen Daniel, senior staff lawyer with the Center on Wrongful Convictions, which is pressing [Gov. ]Blagojevich to decide on Pollock’s case and others. “In most of these cases, it’s really not a hard decision. Sometimes there’s still some controversy left after the conviction is thrown out, but in most of these cases there is no disagreement.”

You’d think that a state like Illinois–which is where this whole wrongful conviction movement started–would be leading the country on this stuff, not lagging it.

…. is now available on the reason website.

Here’s some rare good news on the accountability front: A judge and commissioner in Indiana are being investigated and may be disciplined for taking over two years to release a man who had been wrongly convicted of rape.

Harold Buntin served 11 years in prison before a DNA test exonerated him of the rape for which he was accused. The poor guy then served another two years while the judge and commissioner sat on their hands.

The Jackson Free Press wrote up the Innocence Project’s move for Dr. Hayne’s medical license. But the article also includes some info about Cedric Willis, the third exoneration in Mississippi this year–one we haven’t heard nearly as much about.

Exonerated Jacksonian Cedric Willis spoke to the audience about spending 12 years behind bars, nine of them in Parchman, for a murder he did not commit—even as Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter made no move to exonerate him during those years he spent wrongfully serving time, despite the existence of evidence that could clear him.

“He had a motion on my freedom for years, and I never got a response from him. The judge had a right to say, ‘this is not right,’” Willis said, earlier questioning how DeLaughter could “sleep at night” knowing he’d sent an innocent man to rot in prison.

Here’s how:

DeLaughter was the assistant district attorney at the time, working under District Attorney Ed Peters, who prosecuted Willis. Judge Breland Hilburn was the judge in the Willis case; neither he, DeLaughter or Peters pushed to allow DNA evidence and witness testimony that could have proved Willis innocent. The real killer remains at large.

So the judge who heard most of Willis’ appeals was an assistant DA in the office that prosecuted him. Lovely. Oh, and then there’s this:

DeLaughter is currently under investigation for allegedly taking bribes from Peters, on behalf of attorney Dickie Scruggs, to influence cases. The Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance recently suspended DeLaughter from the bench while the federal investigation continues.

This is worth noting, too:

“When Cedric Willis was prosecuted, the state of Mississippi knew full well that they had an innocent man,” Maw said. “This was not a case where the prosecutor thought he maybe had a weak case but … went ahead with the prosecution with some reservations.”

Maw added: “They knew outright that Cedric Willis did not commit this crime and they said so themselves in the newspapers—then they willingly kept out evidence that would have proved him innocent, and they let him sit in jail.”

“They should be punished for that and probably never will be because state law says that if the prosecutor does something wrong they have almost absolute immunity.”

It’s way past time to start rethinking absolute prosecutorial immunity.

I’ll have more on Mississippi’s wacky medical examiner Dr. Steven Hayne over the next few days. But today, the national and Mississippi Innocence Projects have filed a whopping 1,000-page complaint to the Mississippi Board of State Medical Licensure calling for the revocation of Hayne’s medical license.

The report "outlines several violations – spanning two decades – of the Mississippi state law that regulates medical practice," including the Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks cases, as well as several of the cases I first reported for reason last October.

From the press release:

“Steven Hayne’s long history of misconduct, incompetence and fraud has sent truly innocent people to death row or to prison for life. This is precisely why regulations are in place to revoke medical licenses. Steven Hayne should never practice medicine in Mississippi again, and the complaint we filed today is an important step toward restoring integrity in forensic science statewide – and restoring confidence in the state’s criminal justice system,” said Peter Neufeld, Co-Director of the Innocence Project.

[...]

“We have only presented the tip of the iceberg to the State Board of Medical Licensure, but this evidence shows Steven Hayne’s unprofessional, dishonorable and unethical conduct that has deceived, defrauded and harmed the public,” said W. Tucker Carrington, Director of the Mississippi Innocence Project.

The complaint filed today says, “We believe the conduct in this complaint alone is sufficient to justify immediate revocation of Dr. Hayne’s license … His work compromises the accuracy and integrity of medicine and criminal justice throughout the state. We urge you to put an end to his misconduct through an expeditious, thorough investigation of his work and revocation of his license."

In February, I spoke with the head of the Mississippi State Medical Association, who said she would move to revoke Hayne’s membership in that organization.

AP coverage of the complaint here.

Last month, I mentioned the case of James Ochoa, an Orange County, California man wrongly convicted and imprisoned for 16 months for carjacking.

The state of California is now refusing to compensate Ochoa for his wrongful conviction because, they say, by accepting a plea bargain, Ochoa contributed to his own railroading.

A glimpse at the facts of this case shows why that decision is absurd. The OC Weekly reports:

Robert Fitzgerald, a sassy Superior Court judge with an embarrassing track record of being rebuked by appellate courts for judicial improprieties, confronted Ochoa outside the presence of the jury with this offer: Plead guilty and get a two-year-prison sentence, or face the possibility of life in prison if you continue the trial and the jury finds you guilty.

Here’s what Ochoa was thinking:

The threat frightened Ochoa. Later, he described to me the factors in his decision: how the Buena Park police detectives had raided his parents’ house and arrested him for a crime he didn’t commit; how prosecutors had refused to consider the weakness of their case; and, finally, of the white, suburban-dominated Orange County jury members, whom, he believed, would accept law enforcement’s word as gospel.

Two years versus life. Taking the plea wasn’t part of some elaborate scheme to defraud the state out of wrongful conviction compensation. It was an act self-preservation. I probably would have done the same thing.

And his suspicions about the system that was prosecuting him were probably more justified than even Ochoa knew at the time.

Remember, this is the case where DNA testing showed that the hair left at the crime scene did not match Ochoa. According to the crime lab technician who conducted the testing, that result was met with fierce resistance from the prosecutors’ office, who on two occasions asked her to change her results.

Talk about adding insult to injury. Neither the judge nor the prosecutors have suffered any repercussions for their behavior. Indeed, post-exoneration, the only person being punished for his role in the railroading of James Ochoa . . . is James Ochoa.

Interesting comment from someone claiming to be a prosecutor in this Volokh discussion about my interview with Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins:

These “innocence projects” are a colossal waste of money, if you actually examine some of these supposed “exonerations” they turn out to be nothing of the kind. I agree that if convincing evidence of the accused’s innocense [sic] falls into a DA’s lap, he has obligations to do something about it. Where I would likely disagree with this Watkins guy is what constitutes evidence of innocence that is sufficiently substantive to merit looking into it. We all know that genuinely innocent defendants, let alone genuinely innocent *convicts*, are rare birds. For every “one-armed man” who really exists there are a million cock-n-bull stories pitched by guilty-as-hell defendants to their attorneys, jailors, and anybody who will listen to them.

Good at least to know that kind of attitude is out there, regrettable as it may be.

The OC Weekly follows up on an absolutely outrageous case in which a carjacking suspect took a plea under a direct threat from the trial judge that he’d put the man in prison for life if he continued to maintain his innocence and was still convicted. This, after DNA evidence excluded the man. The crime lab expert says when she showed the test results to the prosecutor, she said she "didn’t care" about the findings, "I want him not excluded." More disturbingly, she added,

About every week, we ask the crime lab to reconsider findings. Sometimes, they make changes.

Can’t think of a better argument for reforming the forensics system. Who the hell are prosecutors to ask crime lab experts to “reconsider” their findings? Findings are findings. They’re supposed to be grounded in science. If technicians in Orange County are “reconsidering” their findings at the request of prosecutors, they’re either sloppy the first time around, or they’re tweaking their results to help the state win convictions. Neither prospect reflects well on them, or on justice in Orange County. Of course, the prosecutor could just be lying about all of this. Which, given her conduct in this case, doesn’t seem all that far-fetched.

But kudos to the crime lab technicians in this particular case for holding their ground. In fact, the technician here was prepared to testify for the defense. As she absolutely should do–and be permitted to do–when prosecutors proceed with a case in the face of exculpatory forensic evidence.

The suspect was later exonerated when the crime lab was able to match the DNA to a career criminal.

(Hat tip: The Innocence Blog)

Via the Clarion-Ledger, the national Innocence Project is currently representing seven clients in Mississippi, while reviewing 111 other cases. The Mississippi Innocence Project (which is separate) is looking closely at 10 other cases, and reviewing at about three dozen others where Drs. West and/or Hayne have testified.

The next year or so should be interesting.

The Clarion-Ledger reports today that Mississippi District Attorney Forrest Allgood has now officially dropped all charges against Levon Brooks, who spent more than a decade in prison for a crime another man now admits he committed. That now makes three people Allgood has convicted of murder who were later exonerated or acquitted. And he kept one of them—Kennedy Brewer—in prison an extra five years after DNA testing cleared him, because Allgood refused to let go of testimony from disgraced bite-mark "expert" Dr. Michael West.

There’s not much other news in the article, save for this:

Neither Brewer nor Brooks is getting compensation from Mississippi for the years they wrongly spent behind bars, but they can bring lawsuits.

Mississippi’s legislators will probably want to set up some sort of structured compensation system fairly quickly. I have a feeling federal jurors aren’t going to be kind to the state as these exonerations pile up, and it comes out just how ready and willing the state’s prosecutors have been to put bad expert testimony into evidence.

This Eugene Volokh post is interesting, and I’d like to hear some reaction from the defense attorneys who read this site.  Two criminal defense attorneys knowingly allowed an innocent man to serve 26 years in prison because they were bound by attorney-client privilege from revealing that their client committed the crime.  What’s the ethical thing to do, here?  What would you do?

Reminds me a little of the odd dichotomy developing in North Carolina I wrote about a while back, where the state’s supreme court ruled that once a client dies, defense attorneys are obligated to come forward with information that might help the state convict other people, but not if the information could help acquit someone wrongfully convicted.

The state’s second-largest newspaper says it’s time to investigate Mississippi’s embattled medical examiner.

And in pretty strong language:

Even if it means that all of the cases that Hayne and West worked on come under review, the investigation should advance. Even if it costs thousands of dollars and thousands of hours, it will be worth it if even one person wrongly convicted is freed or wins a new trial.

[...]

The Innocence Project should be commended for its efforts and the Mississippi judicial system, already under a cloud of suspicion from the indictment of powerful attorney Dickie Scruggs and others, should be ashamed.

I don’t agree with this part, though:

We also have to wonder why defense attorneys did not raise questions about the so-called experts’ testimony. Why did it take the efforts of a New York-based group to ask the tough questions and do the heavy lifting?

I might add that a certain journalist from Washington, D.C. did a fair amount of lifting in all of this, too.

And while I have certainly heard some complaints about inadequacies with Mississippi’s defense bar, there are several reasons why they’ve been unsuccessful in challenging Hayne.  First, the guy’s been getting certified by the state’s courts for 20 years.  It’s understandable if, after a dozen or so unsuccessful attempts to get the guy discredited, a defense lawyer might through up his hands, and conclude that he’s better off focusing his limited time on other aspects of a case.  Second, defense attorneys down there have tried to challenge his certification as an expert witness.  They get shot down every time.  Even since my articles on Hayne came out last fall, several defense attorneys in Mississippi have tried to file briefs calling for a Daubert hearing on Hayne.  Thus far, they’ve been rejected every time.  In one case, they were rejected even when they merely sought funds so an indigent defendant could hire an outside expert to review Hayne’s work.

Finally, there have been warnings about Hayne.  The state’s last two official medical examiners tried to sound the alarm about him in the early and mid 1990s.  State Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz warned about him in his opinion in the Tyler Edmonds case last year.  The judges in Mississippi’s courts have heard the argument against Hayne’s credibility as an expert countless times in civil cases.  Hayne also makes a lot of money testifying for plaintiff’s attorneys in medical malpractice cases.  In those cases, where the defendants tend to have the money to put up an aggressive defense, Hayne’s shortcomings have been exposed at trial and in depositions on several occasions. And the state’s best criminal defense attorneys like Andre de Gruy and Rob McDuff have been trying to call attention to Hayne for years.

Despite all of these warnings, nearly every institution in the state of Mississippi—the courts; the legislature; the executive; the professional organizations; and, yes, most certainly the press—have failed to do anything about Dr. Hayne.  It’s unfair to put this all at the feet of the criminal defense bar, which is overworked and underfunded.  Many, many far more powerful people in the state could have corrected this problem a long time ago.  They didn’t, and still haven’t.

The Mississippi Innocence Project’s website is now up.

If you’re so inclined, I’d encourage you to make a donation.  Director Tucker Carrington & Co. are obviously doing great work.

Mississippi District Attorney Forrest Allgood has come under fire since two men he prosecuted for murder were exonerated last month. Allgood kept Kennedy Brewer in prison an extra six years after DNA testing cleared him, because he clung to the testimony of bite mark fraud Dr. Michael West.

Nevertheless, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood recently defended Allgood in the Columbus Commercial Dispatch.

“Forrest Allgood has been a straight arrow. He’s always played it by the rules,” Hood said. “I don’t think there was any prosecutorial misconduct on his part.”

He said any jury would have rendered a guilty verdict based on the circumstantial evidence and witness testimony Allgood believed to be true when he prosecuted the two defendants. “There was no rush to judgment,” Allgood said. “It was done as best as it could be.”

"Straight arrow?" The guy has now convicted three people of murder who were later exonerated or acquitted. In the case of Kennedy Brewer, whom Allgood prosecuted for raping and killing his girlfriend’s daughter while babysitting her, Allgood defended his pursuit of the wrong man to ABC News by noting there was no sign of forced entry into the home, and that there "cobwebs" on the window to the little girl’s room. Actually, the window had a gaping hole in it. Allgood next told ABC News that Brewer became a suspect because he showed little interest in the girl’s disappearance. Actually, as ABC News notes, Brewer joined family and neighbors in a frantic search for the girl.

So not only has Allgood not been a "straight arrow," he’s still not telling the truth.

In my article on Dr. Steven Hayne last fall, I noted that when Dr. Lloyd White left his contentious tenure as Mississippi’s second-to-last medical examiner, he wrote a letter to a local newspaper laying out his frustrations with Hayne and the state’s coroners and district attorneys. That letter contained an interesting passage about Allgood:

White also cited a case in which he had performed an autopsy on a woman who’d been found dead in her bathtub. White concluded it wasn’t immediately possible to determine a cause of death; he needed to wait for the results of toxicology and microscopic tests. According to White’s letter, he soon received a phone call from Hayne, who told him the body had been taken to Hayne’s office for a second examination at the request of Forrest Allgood, the district attorney for Clay, Lowndes, Noxubee, and Oktibbeha counties. Although White was the state medical examiner at the time, he said the second autopsy was performed “surreptitiously, without my knowledge or permission.”

Allgood already had a suspect he wanted to charge with the crime, White said, and “he was afraid my autopsy wouldn’t provide him with the evidence he needed.” (Allgood’s office did not respond to requests for an interview.) According to White, Hayne told him he had concluded that the woman was strangled. White said Hayne then suggested it would be in White’s “best interest” to issue a report agreeing with him.

It would be bad enough if Allgood had gotten a second opinion because he didn’t like the state medical examiner’s conclusions. But it wasn’t even that. It was that he didn’t want to wait for the tests to come back, in case they proved him wrong.

Attorney General Hood has conceded that he himself used shady medical examiner Dr. Steven Hayne back when he was a district attorney in Mississippi’s third district. That means any investigation of Hayne may include looking into Hood’s convictions, and may call into question Hood’s own judgment in using Hayne.

Which means that not only should we we take Hood’s defenses of Hayne, Allgood, and Mississippi’s forensics systems with a handful of salt, it means that any honest look into Mississippi’s forensics problems will have to come from outside of the attorney general’s office.

Wow.

An Ingham County prosecutor and a detective knew before trial that video evidence showed Claude McCollum was in another building when a Lansing Community College professor was killed, according to a state police report obtained by the Lansing State Journal.

Still, prosecutors went ahead with the case, and McCollum was tried and convicted of murder.

McCollum, whose conviction was thrown out last year, is suing multiple agencies for damages. County prosecutors have always maintained they did not know of a 2005 report that described exonerating video evidence until after the trial began.

Even if true, how is this a defense of the prosecutors’ behavior? Evidence surfaces showing that prosecutors got the wrong guy, but because they’ve already started the trial, they go ahead and convict him anyway?

Now that Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks have been freed, the Innocence Project is calling for a criminal investigation into Dr. Michael West. Peter Neufeld is asking that every case in which West has ever testified be reviewed. The linked article notes that there are 20 or more Mississippians in prison right now due at least in part to West’s testimony.

West still stands by his testimony. He’s now saying that even if Brooks and Brewer did not commit the two murders a third man has since confessed to committing, his testimony wasn’t incorrect: Brewer and Brooks still bit those little girls. To believe West, you’d have to believe that in two cases that occurred at about the same time, two men living just miles apart coincidentally each repeatedly bit a little girl in their care just hours before a third man unknown to either of them abducted, raped, and killed said little girls.

Alternately, you could believe that Dr. West is a quack who makes shit up. I know which theory my money’s on.

The next case involving the unholy triumvirate of West, Hayne, and District Attorney Forrest Allgood that may embarrass Mississippi is that of Eddie Lee Howard, currently on death row in Parchman for the gruesome murder of an elderly woman. The assailant stabbed the woman to death, then set her house on fire and left her to burn. Dr. Hayne testified at trial that the woman was also raped, though no semen or second-party blood or pubic hair showed up in the rape kit. Hayne did not find any bite marks. The victim was buried.

In a now-familiar pattern, Hayne then brought his buddy Dr. West onto the case. Three days later, the police detained Howard without a warrant, then immediately took him to Dr. West’s dental practice, where West took an impression of Howard’s teeth. Police then exhumed the victim, at which point West once again claimed to find bite marks no one else could see. He then noted there were similarities between Mr. Howard’s dental impression and the bite marks he said he’d found on the burned body.

There was no biological evidence linking Howard to the crime scene. The sole evidence against him was West’s testimony and the testimony of a police investigator who says Howard basically confessed to him, though the investigator never asked Howard to sign a statement of confession, nor is there any recording of it.

Eddie Lee Howard clearly has some psychological problems. The Mississippi Supreme Court granted him a new trial in 1997 after finding the trial court improperly allowed Howard, who is mentally ill, to represent himself in his own murder trial. Howard was convicted in the second trial, too. In 2006, the Mississippi State Supreme Court upheld the second conviction, and explicitly refused to throw out Dr. West’s testimony. This was well after West’s credibility had been thoroughly dismantled in the national media, after DNA proved he’d been wrong in the Kennedy Brewer case, and after he’d been thrown out of several professional organizations.

Bizarrely, the court determined that it was Howard’s fault his attorney didn’t call an expert witness to rebut West’s testimony but that, at the same time, the fact that his attorney didn’t didn’t amount to ineffective assistance of counsel. After acknowledging that Howard’s new lawyers filed piles and piles of affidavits from experts explaining that Dr. West is basically a quack, the court awkwardly came to this conclusion:

Just because Dr. West has been wrong a lot, does not mean, without something more, that he was wrong here.

If Howard is cleared, it will be the fourth (that I know of) murder exoneration involving District Attorney Forrest Allgood. Three of those people were sentenced to death. It will be the third (that I know of) involving Dr. Hayne and Dr. West. I’m investigating several others. The Innocence Project chapters in Mississippi and New York are, too.