blood spatter evidence in bryan case

Retzlaffs testimony stood in contrast with that of two other crime lab employees who testified in the case and who, the commission found, remained within the limits of their expertise and did not offer speculative observations or conclusions., The report also noted that while Bryans trial attorneys were able to correct some of Retzlaffs statements during cross-examination, the defense should not be required to clean up misleading testimony after the fact.. After the meeting, Reaves and Freud said they were heartened by the commissions findings, which come just weeks after the conclusion of an evidentiary hearing in Comanche, Texas, during which they dismantled numerous aspects of the states case. The following year, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University awarded her the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism. Regardless, the Bryan case has already spurred forensic science reform. Police: Father was girl's killer in 2008 case Drips, spatters, smears and sprays the distribution of blood at a crime scene can provide possibly useful information about what weapon was used, where a victim was positioned and whether he or she was moved before or after being killed. "You don't need actual innocence, you just need reasonable doubt," said Rahmani, who is president of West Coast Trial Lawyers. (Dan Winters for The New York Times. Dr. Paul Leland Kirk first testified about the significance of blood evidence in 1954 in the case of Sam Sheppard, an Ohio doctor accused of murdering his wife.Dr. Griffin had told us that even if we failed the final, we would still receive a certificate of completion, but rarely, he added, did anyone fail. Prosecutors dismissed or ignored many pieces of potentially exculpatory evidence, like an unidentified palm print in the bedroom where Mrs. Bryan was shot to death, a cigarette butt on the kitchen floor (neither of the Bryans smoked) and the absence of any bloodstains in Mr. Bryans car. Mr. Bryans attorneys, Walter Reaves and Jessica Freud of Waco, will present witnesses and evidence to support their argument that Mr. Bryan should be granted a new trial. No DNA profile could be established from the speck, and whether it was her husbands blood remained unknown. Though Joe has always insisted on his innocence and the evidence prosecutors presented was entirely circumstantial Joe was attending a conference 120 miles away, in Austin, around the time of the killing he was convicted and sent away to the Walls Unit in Huntsville. Despite 'Unsupportable' Bloodstain Analysis, No Relief for Man Peter De Forest, a forensic scientist and professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said he believed that part of the issue with bloodstain-pattern analysis cases is that there are no clear guidelines about what is scientifically valid. It remains uncertain whether this analysis can now proceed. MacDonell himself testified around the country for four decades, helping to build bloodstain-pattern analysis reputation and legitimacy. Sheppard was subsequently acquitted, and Kirks forensic analysis was credited with almost single-handedly reversing the outcome of the eras most notorious murder case. As recently as this February, a judge vacated the conviction of a Missouri man named Brad Jennings for the 2006 murder of his wife, Lisa. The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine discusses the testimony of an expert in bloodstain-pattern analysis but does not actually rule on the issue of admissibility of such testimony. Thormans testimony had been critical, because the states theory of the case posited an extraordinary sequence of events. Ms. Almanza, who now goes by the name Retzlaff, could not be reached for comment. "One of the things they look at are voids and so sometimes it's not where the blood spatter hits but where it doesn't hit," Coffindaffer said. Rossi determined that the dark-brown flecks on the flashlight did not radiate back in a radiating pattern as they would in a back-spatter event. In other words, the bloodstains were not consistent with a close-range shooting. Correction, June 8, 2018: An earlier version of this article included an outdated affiliation for Toby Wolson. On the final day of the hearing, in a dramatic about-face, the bloodstain-pattern analyst whose testimony had proved critical in convicting Bryan renounced some of his previous testimony. An influential state commission issued a highly critical assessment on Friday of a second key player in the murder conviction of Joe Bryan, saying a Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab chemist had overstated findings, exceeded her expertise and engaged in speculation when she testified in 1989. Bryan was tried twice, first in 1986 and then again in 1989. Freud found another clue in the records of Ranger Joe Wilie, the lead investigator: On Oct. 16, 1985, the day after the murder, Wilie jotted down a note about two women Met Dunlap at Lazy Fisherman Friday nite? who may have been with Dunlap at a restaurant in Waco. As DNA testing has revolutionized forensic science and helped to exonerate hundreds of wrongfully convicted people, it has also shined a light on the inadequacy of earlier methods. Working in the 1950s and 60s, researchers, often in laboratories, observed the shapes and patterns blood created when it struck surfaces at various angles and velocities, and they sought to use that knowledge to better understand crime scenes. Just how reputable were these methods, and what exactly were expert witnesses opinions based on? Joe Bryan, a former Texas high school principal, spent more than three decades behind bars for the 1985 murder of his wife . As far as anyone else at the Police Department was concerned, the Bryan case was closed, Smith told me. MacDonell testifies that blood patterns on the defendants clothes suggest that his wifes blood spattered on him while he attacked her. The presiding judge will then make recommendations to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, whose justices will be the final arbiters. Texas DPS declined to comment on how many cases Retzlaff had worked on, or testified about, during that time. In general, judges dont want to go back, she said. Someone like Thorman, who had not been affiliated with a crime lab, would have difficulty complying with the new standards. The United States Department of Justice publishes a report, Flight Characteristics and Stain Patterns of Human Blood, by Herbert Leon MacDonell, an instructor at a two-year college in New York with a masters degree. Regardless, the Bryan case has already spurred forensic science reform. How could they think that I would do something like that when they saw me every day, every week? he said. After the publication of the story by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, the Texas Forensic Science Commission asked Rossi, a locally prominent bloodstain-pattern analyst, to re-examine the case. NYTimes.com no longer supports Internet Explorer 9 or earlier. Each pointed to the very same bloodstains as evidence. . The Supreme Court of Idaho decides that bloodstain-pattern analysis is an appropriate area for expert testimony. Testimony from bloodstain-pattern analysts is now accepted in courts throughout the country. Retzlaff worked at the states regional crime lab in Waco for more than three decades, from 1981 to 2012. I run out of gas quick, he said, before adding with a smile, The only thing I can still do like I did 20 years ago is talk.. Reaves was troubled by the circumstantial nature of the Bryan case, from the paucity of evidence that placed Joe in Clifton at the time of the murder to the lack of scientific rigor in Thormans analysis. Whoever lost had to fix the popcorn and the cold drinks, he said. An influential state commission said the blood-spatter analysis used to convict a former Texas high school principal of murdering his wife in 1985 was "not accurate . The court refers to MacDonells field as relatively uncomplicated and, as a result, does not require extensive proof of its reliability. Participants in the case appeared shocked to learn Friday that further DNA analysis could still be performed on the cigarette butt. The defense has long contended that the cigarette butt is proof that someone other than the Bryans, who did not smoke, entered their home on the night of the crime. Blood Spatter Evidence in Bryan Case | Forensics Forum | How the In my conversation with him that morning, he kept returning to the two subjects that preoccupied him: his late wife and the town that turned on him. During the ensuing search of the house, officers found the letters that Smith wrote tucked away in a dresser drawer in Dunlaps bedroom. I dont think anyone, including me, ever really got to the depth of Mickey.. Give us feedback, share a story tip or update, or report an error. Griffin reminded us that our class was merely an introduction to bloodstain-pattern analysis, and that we would need to complete an advanced class and a mentorship program before we would be proficient enough to call ourselves experts. "The prosecution is going to lay that story out in large part, based on not only spatter but also blood location, footprints, other blood," Coffindaffer said. His murder conviction rested largely on bloodstain-pattern analysis, a technique still in use throughout . In 1966, he put bloodstain-pattern analysis on the map when he testified for the defense in the sensational retrial of Sam Sheppard, an Ohio doctor who served nearly a decade in prison for the murder of his pregnant wife. Tom Bevel during testimony in the 2003 trial of the real estate heir Robert Durst. (The cases lead investigator claimed that he accidentally tracked it into the home on the heel of his boot.) On appeal, the court doesnt rule on the issue of admissibility of experts in bloodstain-pattern analysis, because the defendant did not specifically appeal MacDonells admission as an expert. Its totally specious, and theres no evidence to support it, he added. Thormans testimony at both trials, Reaves told me, was nothing short of appalling. Still, he knew the chances of getting Joes conviction overturned were slim. Sibleys predecessor, B.J. The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals overturns a conviction of first-degree murder, finding that a police officer who had never attended a full course in bloodstain-pattern analysis was improperly admitted as an expert at trial. So they went after me., As Smith listened to Joe, he began to consider whether a great miscarriage of justice had occurred. Despite the fact that numerous witnesses placed Camm at the basketball game around the time of the murders, investigators believed that he was the killer. Joe noted that his cell, which he shared with another inmate, measured five feet by nine feet. Many of the prison guards who know him best are convinced that hes innocent. But there was always a chance that biological material was present that could, perhaps, lead to an alternate suspect. Bounded by guard towers and crowned by barbed wire, the Walls is a foreboding sight, and as Smith surveyed the red-brick monolith, he was awed by its magnitude. A version of this article appears in print on. And yet judges in many states have accepted these experts testimony as scientifically valid not because of any concrete evidence that it is, but because other courts have accepted it before. Bloodstain-pattern analysis has been accepted as reliable evidence by appellate courts in one state after another with little or no examination of its scientific accuracy. The Murder Trial. The judges write, The evidence offered to show the reliability of the bloodstain analysis included: (1) Professor MacDonells considerable experience and his status as the leading expert in the field; (2) the existence of national training programs; (3) the existence of national and state organizations for experts in the field; (4) the offering of courses on the subject in several major schools; (5) use by police departments throughout the country in their day-to-day operations; (6) the holding of annual seminars; and (7) the existence of specialized publications. The court does not acknowledge that MacDonell himself is the source of almost all these indicators of reliability. The only thing we can count on is the evidence.. In their writ, which they filed in 2016 and amended the following year, Reaves and Freud advanced numerous claims to support their argument that Joe was entitled to another trial, contending that the newly discovered evidence about Dunlap could have swayed the jurors. Her client has previously been denied parole seven times. He also allowed the prosecution to explain away the lack of blood in the interior of Joes car when he asserted that the killer had changed his clothes and shoes before fleeing the house. Earlier this year, its inquiry into the Bryan case broadened into a re-examination of bloodstain-pattern analysis, a forensic discipline whose practitioners regard the drops, spatters and trails of blood at a crime scene as clues that can sometimes be used to reverse-engineer the crime itself. (Thorman declined to be interviewed for this article.) As a two-part series published by The New York Times Magazine and ProPublica lays out in damning detail, there was essentially no other physical evidence or motive tying Mr. Bryan to the crime. A federal court finds that Duane Deaver, who testified as a bloodstain analyst in the 1995 North Carolina case State v. Goode, had performed inadequate testing. Judges are not in positions to be arbiters of whats good science.. As he tried to tease out which investigative avenues to follow, he focused on what law enforcement had not. Many of these self-styled bloodstain interpreters testified as expert witnesses in trials, citing the classes they took as evidence of their proficiency. His testimony about a blood-speckled flashlight found by the victims brother in the trunk of Mr. Bryans car four days after the murder was the linchpin of the prosecutions case. They had to convict somebody anybody, Joe said. She was recently appointed to a working group overseen by the National Institute of Standards and Technology that is charged with strengthening standards across the discipline.
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