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The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South?
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speaking of junk forensic science, here's one of the most bone-chilling books i've ever read. when you start to think of the implications this story lays bare it will make you puke.
> a good attorney will find another expert who will say that’s bullshit
While I think that's correct, I'd also note that I think it's bullshit, period, it's not just about manipulating a jury. Pattern matching evidence, even fingerprint analysis, does not hold up well to rigorous challenges.
I've got my copy of The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist somewhere around here. In it the author mentions that when fingerprint analysts were presented with claims that a person previously matched to a fingerprint might be innocent, 3 out of 5 came to the conclusion that the match was incorrect, 1 that it was inconclusive, and 1 that the match was right. In reality, all 5 were from matches the analysts had previously testified to at trial.
Pattern matching isn't just nonsense because defense attorneys say so, it's nonsense because it's nonsense.
Tangentially, there’s a very scary book called The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist about how much power the local coroner has in Mississippi, and how easily the person holding the position gets corrupted (spoiler alert: it’s heavily influenced by racism).
Not to burst your bubble, but I don’t think you understand how gross court “experts” can be.
If you’re interested you should read:
https://www.amazon.com/Cadaver-King-Country-Dentist-Injustice/dp/161039691X/ref=nodl_
Bite mark forensics has been widely discredited and is rarely used anymore, but there are still many people sitting in jail because of it.
If you want to learn more about it (and many other outrages in the science of criminal prosecution), this book is an interesting easy read:
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South
>As I understand it, Undisclosed only gave her the 8 photos that were admitted at trial. She may have believed she was looking at disinterment photos, but she wasn't.
She says otherwise in her report.
>By the time they are writing the report, they know what their conclusions are. The burial position was irrelevant to their conclusions, and stated tersely only as background information. The burial position only became material once Innocenters started making arguments about the lividity being inconsistent with the body position. Of course, if there were anything to any of that, then presumably the 2 MEs who conducted the autopsy would have noted the inconsistency. That they didn't is telling.
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This is nonsense. Complete nonsense. It is typical of the imaginary evidence so many guilters rely on, however. The ME's conducted their report as they usually do. It's not overly detailed, but they don't like to do that because they don't like creating "bad evidence." It's unfortunate, but ME's aren't very independent of law enforcement in most places. Some are worse than others, as Radley Balko detailed exhaustively in <em>The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist.</em> But they didn't elide the lividity issue. They just didn't go into detail on it. The report clearly states two things: anterior lividity and a right side burial. Further, they don't expect the report to be read absent the autopsy photographs.
>I think it was probably a mistake for her to stake her professional reputation on an opinion she made with incomplete information. I bet she regrets it, which is why we haven't heard from her in, what, 4 years now?
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She didn't. That you assume bad faith because you're too biased to engage in good faith says nothing about her.
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>What I go by is the fact that Adnan's legal team has never raised this issue in court, and Undisclosed dropped it entirely. That shows it was all smoke and mirrors from the start.
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>As far as I remember, the HBO documentary focused not on burial position, but rather the diamond pressure marks.
They haven't raised it because it's foreclosed. The chance to raise it was at trial. Perhaps Adnan could have tried to make it an IAC issue, but it's a weak one. Lividity is far from a sure bet, and courts don't like to second-guess what could well have been a trial strategy. Perhaps if CG were still around to testify that she flubbed it, but she's not. The only reason the Asia alibi issue worked at all is because ignorance isn't a strategy except to people who are so committed to Adnan's guilt they can't think rationally.
The diamond marks were what jumped out at Dr. Grosniak more than anything, but she also confirmed the anterior lividity and right side burial. She's right, too: there's nothing recorded at the burial site to account for those marks.
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