WEBVTT - Bite Marks 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:05.920 If you're gonna place your left hand on the Bible 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:09.440 and raise your right hand, and please repeat after me, 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:13.920 I do solemnly swear you haven't titled action. Find the 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.320 defendant guilty of the prime. It makes no sense, it 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:21.119 doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must equit. We 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:23.680 all took the same of of office. We're all bound 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.960 by that common commitment to support and defend the Constitution, 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:29.840 to bear true faith in allegiance to the same that 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:32.680 you faithfully discharge the duties of our office. Do you 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.040 solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:38.480 give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.120 but the truth. From Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio, 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:54.160 this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. You know 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:58.520 the term the c S I fact he changed everything. 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:05.240 Everybody believed that what you saw on TV was for real. 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:08.960 You don't use forty two lasers of the crime scene 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:13.600 leasures cost about five. So that was preposterous, right, and 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:19.000 nothing gets done today n c S. Another show, My 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:23.360 wife watches out that a crow pecks out someone's hypohol 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.800 and then carries it off. And when they found the eyeball. 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:35.120 They found a fingerprint on the eyeball. Preposterous at best. 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.960 It's not like that. See, they get lost in the 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.840 fact that it was just TV show. They started having 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.280 to explain to the juries, do you believe things that 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:51.320 you see? Oh yeah, if it's on TV, it's it's no, 0:01:52.200 --> 0:02:05.440 that's not how it is. M That was Chris Robinson, 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.600 a forensic consultant I've worked with on many of my cases. 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.519 In this episode, we're going to look at that c 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.240 s I effect he was talking about, and we're going 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.320 to hear the story of another man who was locked 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.799 up for twenty three years in a case that involved 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:25.600 police corruption and junk science. Before we hear about Bill, 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.880 I wanted to talk with my colleague, Ashley Merchant. She's 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.200 a lawyer I've worked with many times in the past, 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:34.520 and I know that she's had to educate herself on 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:39.040 forensic science, particularly bad forensic science, and how it's used 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:47.280 in our legal system. Junk science is very difficult to 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.120 deal with when the government offers something and they put 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.520 a fancy name on it, like the you know, FBI 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.120 or the crime Lab, and you know, they bring in 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.919 all these these fancy acronyms and stuff juries just eat 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.000 it up hook line and saying are a lot of 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.920 defense attorneys aren't very good at shedding light on the 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:09.680 junkiness factor of it, because you know, we're lawyers. Like 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.600 I've never shot a gun. You know, I don't understand ballistics, 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:13.840 but I had to go learn it. How to go 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.440 learn blood spatter, how to go learn DNA, how to 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:20.639 learn about fingerprints. I had a case probably fifteen years 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.280 ago with a handwriting expert, and then you know, a 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.480 couple of years later, boom, handwriting experts are it's junk 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.800 science and it's not admissible. We have this evidence that 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.880 the state presents handwriting for example, blood spatter for example, 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.840 and we're arguing, as defense lawyers, this is crazy. This 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.280 is a junk you know. And then finally, years down 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:43.240 the road, you get exoneration and the exonerations are linked 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.800 to this junk science, and finally, retrospectively the government saying, oh, 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.640 you know what, you're right, that handwriting stuff was, that 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:55.040 was crazy, but the people are still in jail. As 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.760 defense lawyers, I think we don't challenge it enough. I 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.440 think that we don't question already enough because it's science 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.680 we believe that the government is doing the right thing 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.000 and doing their job, which to me as a defense lawyer, 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.000 scary because if I don't question the blood spatter, why 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:13.920 would I expect the jury to question the bloods better. 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.600 So you see a lot of times in trials where 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.040 the defense lawyer has no question for the blood spatter expert. 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.279 It's like they just rubber stamp this stuff just because 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:24.600 some scientists in a lab says that it is. They 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.680 don't really question it, and juries don't question it, and 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.799 defense lawyers don't question it. And I understand why because 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.440 we're Hamstrong. We're not scientists. We're not given funding for experts. 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:37.720 I mean, half the time we're still trying to get paid, 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.240 you know, let alone asking our clients family for ten 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.159 grand for an expert to fly in who's got a 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.760 pH d and d n A. They barely have the 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.520 money for their defense. We don't challenge that evidence, but 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:54.440 I think we need to. Jurors want actual physical touch evidence, 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:56.679 evidence they can put their hands on, they can see. 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:00.240 You see a huge pull for the prosecution and to 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.920 get this type of science, you know, junk science, whatever 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.920 it is, to try and admit that it's fallible because 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:11.359 it's a scientist determining if it's a fingerprint match, you know, 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.200 where the next scientists might not determine it's a fingerprint match. 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:18.880 We do have standards. We do have certain standards that 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:21.840 have to be met. We have Fry and Dowberd. Those 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.320 are the standards in federal court. Anytime you're gonna admit 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:27.440 a certain type of evidence, it's got to meet a 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:32.920 certain level of scientific or reliability. One of those things 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.400 that it has to be subject to peer review. Other 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.680 scientists have to be able to go and check your work. 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.839 That's a huge one. In state court in Georgia, for example, 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:44.719 we have a standard called Harper standard, which is lower. 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.520 It's ironic to me and I always use my husband 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:50.680 as an example. He was a civil litigator before he 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:52.919 joined my law firm, and now he does criminal difference 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.360 with me. He did, you know, a lot of these 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.120 massive litigations that had all these fancy scientists and things. 0:05:58.160 --> 0:05:59.919 He did as Best Jos litigation, a lot of it. 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.640 When he came on as criminal defense, He's like, when 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:09.280 you're taking someone's life, it's a lower standard for admitting evidence. 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.599 It's harder to get evidence in there's higher standard of 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.200 reliability to get evidence in a civil case we're you're 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:17.360 shooting over money than it is in a criminal case 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:22.320 where someone can go to jail. It's insane people, I mean, 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:24.600 they just they want guilty people to be locked up. 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.080 People are scared of letting guilty people out. And a 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.279 lot of times the state argues, need, we can't meet 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.200 the Fried standard, it can't be verified, but we need 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:36.839 this evidence. I mean, I hear that argument all the 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:38.600 time from the state, but I really need this evidence, 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.080 so the judge lets it in. I think that you 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.080 should have a higher standard when you're dealing with people's 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.760 lives first, as you're dealing with people's money. Just makes 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:52.600 common sense to me. One man who had that c 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.080 s I effect work against him is our next Exonoye 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:02.960 Bill Richards. Our system in California here is probably one 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.320 of the biggest prison systems in the world. We have 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:10.600 more people in prison here than most countries. It's hell 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:15.200 on every level, especially for somebody who live normal life 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.680 and working man. You know, honest person. I mean, my 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.720 criminal career consisted of a couple of traffic tickets spread 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:25.440 over twenty years of speeding on the freeway. But everything 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.320 is terrible, and Menico was terrible. Now in my late 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.239 sixties with advanced cancer because they didn't treat me in prison, 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.440 had years I knew I had it, didn't even tell me, 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.640 and now it's too late. I mean, I can't think 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:40.680 of anything that isn't terrible. I don't know how to 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:43.800 describe it. I could go on for a week and 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:48.360 never scratched the surface. It is so abnormal for human 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:56.880 being to put under those conditions. My name is William Richards. 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.240 I'm an exnerie. I served twenty three years for rum. 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:02.120 I didn't commit, and I have been out for a 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:06.640 post of three now at my age and just trying 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.160 to live on my retirement and put a life together. 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.680 I came home and I found my wife dead. She 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:18.560 had been murdered. I called the police three times, actually 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.120 because I was a little bit upset, as you can imagine, 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.760 and they would take a long time getting there. First 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:28.160 top on the crime scene was just a patrolman. Everything 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:30.160 man said was proven to be all I not only 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.000 that night, but everything he says any time. He's a 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:37.280 strange felt But he turned around in the sidewalk. He's 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:41.200 Columbo he's got the guy right here. He said, my 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:43.360 actions are strange. Well, as you come home and find 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.120 your wife killed like I did, what are your actions 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:50.400 supposed to be? So he decided I was guilty, he 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.800 told the detective. They decided that by the time they 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.520 got to the crime scene, they never investigated, They never 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.680 collected DNA fingerprints or anything from the crime scene, and 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:05.280 just proceeded to start a case against me. Every top 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:11.000 understand lied a sign of evidence, destroyed exculpatory evidence when 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.000 the process of digging it up now for civil actions. 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.240 But they just set on a course to get the 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.199 easy suspects, and that was it. I was just profiled, 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:27.959 and the husband is always guilty. At the time she died, 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.560 that were forty six miles away in another city, in 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.240 another county, and I was in a building with thirty people. 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:37.240 It was a secure bullet the traffic for troll and 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.560 was allowed to testify the time at death based on 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.800 his vast experience with their bodies, which of course we've 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:48.280 now proven his alfuls. Real doctors said their injuries on 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:50.560 my wife as are two hours old prior to death, 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:52.920 determined she had been dead for several hours. Who I 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:59.800 got home. Police have total control over the cranching and 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.079 in the corners investigator whose job the crime scene is 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.319 the body, did not have an opportunity to examine the 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:10.440 body and collect the information that would have made it 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:14.160 easy to determine time of death. The two doctors who 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.880 did look at the case independently for the defense had 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:19.920 to look at poor feel stuff, you know, things like 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.200 photographs of injuries and said, well, injuries over two hours 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.679 prior to death, But they didn't get the body temperatures 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:30.080 and things like that that would probably be taking I 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.560 think it's a huge mistake for the police in Bill's 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.360 case to have handled the crime scene the way they did, 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.440 But I also know that as a defense lawyer, I 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:41.480 have to build a case off of reports and photographs 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.520 long after the alleged crime has been committed. I spoke 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.480 with Chris Robinson, the forensic consultant you heard at the 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.520 beginning of the episode, about what kinds of things he 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.560 looks at in the files that he gets and the 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.800 reliability of the forensics that he works with. My name 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.800 is Christopher Robbins, and I'm a forensic consultant. I generally 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:09.359 examine reports, evidence, documents, photographs, and I report my findings 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:12.960 back to the attorneys who have hired me. I'm certified 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:17.120 there as of crime scene reconstruction, ballistics and fires analysis, 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:23.400 gunshot wounds, blood spatter analysis, shooting reconstruction. See the beautiful 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:25.880 thing with what I do? Now, they give me the 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:30.400 entire case file and they say, read this, here's the statements. 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.520 Tell us is our client li? Is he telling the truth? 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.040 Do you think it's validated by what you see? And 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.320 then I'll report that I'm working a case where an 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.880 individual supposedly shot at his mother down the hallway, and 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.000 she's given all these statements. She said she heard the 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:47.760 bullet go by your ear. No, you didn't hear the 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:49.600 bullet go by your hear because it's a forty five, 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:53.040 so it's not breaking the sound beard. And then the 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.839 holes in the wall are not lined up with her heads. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:57.720 I'm saying, you didn't hear the bullet go by your head. 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:00.319 The fast of the bullet, the sound way just begin 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:02.920 to spread out perpendicular to the bullet as it moves 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.400 through the air. A slower bullet, they moved with the bullets, 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:08.520 so the bullet had to almost touch your leg being 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.760 you feel it. Now you hear the concussion from the gun. 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:14.720 You know you're jerking is a hundred sixty death was 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:19.280 slow like a chainsaw, an airliner right beside your head. Now, 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.079 I'm already thinking, ma'am, I don't like your story because 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.040 you're telling me what you believe you heard. And that's fine. 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.360 I'm not calling your liar. I'm just saying, that's why 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:31.880 I like the evidence. The evidence doesn't lie. It's simple. 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.839 When you look at the evidence, you pull trajectory rides 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.480 through the holes of the shot, you triangulate back the 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.480 path of the bullets, how the gun injects, the cartridge cases, 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.000 and when you put all these things together, I'm giving 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.240 the statement and I'm saying, no, ma'am, see, it can't 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:57.120 happen this way because this is the evidence. One of 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.400 the things Amelia brought up in the last episode was 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.760 how for six science needs to change and evolve with 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:09.600 new technology. Blood spatter is very expeclative. You have three 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.880 or four people look at the same blood spatter and 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.840 they'll give you a different variation of what they see. 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.120 You have to be careful because at a crime scene 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:24.120 where there's massive amounts of blood spatter, you have transverse things, 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:28.320 you have cast off stains. You have high velocity meaning velocity, 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:32.000 low velocity which you might call medium, I might looking good. 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.600 I think it's more like a low velocity. I do 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.959 get into that a lot where they'll call in their 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:39.680 expert and I'll go up against them, and it's just 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:41.679 the jury has to listen to us and they make 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:46.240 the decision. The biggest problem is when the forensics is 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.960 not tested by an outside source. One of the things 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.120 I admire about Chris, and one of the reasons I've 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.480 used him in my own cases, is that he doesn't 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:58.600 necessarily draw his own unreasonable conclusions, but he lets the 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.000 evidence speak for itself. I mean, I can give my 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:06.000 opinion what I believe happened, how I believe it happened. 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:11.720 I can't speak to someone's intentions. The gun accidentally went off. Okay, 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:13.599 First of all, I'm gonna look at the gun and 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:15.920 I'm gonna say, this gun is functioning as it was 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:19.920 designed to function. This gun is perfect. Did you actually 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.920 mean to squeeze this trigger with three pounds, five pounds, 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.360 eight pounds, I said, Once we get the ten or 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:27.840 twelve pounds, which is a double action trigger, pull a 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:29.680 heavy trigger pull, which means you have to pull the 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.040 trigger all the way to the rear. I'm gonna look 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.960 at you and go you didn't accidentally pull with twelve pounds. Now, 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:37.520 when you have a gun, it's a two or three 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.560 pound trigger pool. What were the circumstances. I took my 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.840 gun down off the counter. You came in and grabbed 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.080 the gun, and then what's your instinct. I'm gonna pull 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.240 away from you. So if you grab the gun and 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.720 pull towards you and I pull away from you, we 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.880 start to divide that way to the trigger pull. I 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.000 better look at your body though. You better have gunpowder 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:00.440 all over your clothing. You better have stiff knowing your 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.880 skin because she better be within three feet and they 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:05.760 better have powder all over you for you to reach 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:11.640 out and grab that gun. When he's brought in to testify, 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:16.120 his role is to satisfy the jury's desire for that physical, 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:20.720 hands on type of evidence. Sometimes that can even mean 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.920 putting on something of a show for the jury. When 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:26.360 you go in there and I'm rolling around on the 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:30.160 floor in front of the jury, they're amazed. I'm always 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:33.720 told when I come in, the jury perks up I'm 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.160 talking about guns. I'm not talking about d NA where 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.360 god forbid, you're talking about wanting the quadri and the 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:45.000 low sign. They get glaze over when I talk about guns. 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.120 Everybody's seen again a bullet my cartridge case. They really 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:49.880 get up. And then I get off the stand and 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:51.920 they say, show us how this happened. And I'm rolling 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.280 around the floor where I get out the dummy. These 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.160 people go, what is this guy doing? Now? I tell 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:01.160 people you play to the strengths. If you can do 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.600 a recreation, I say, you want me to get a 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:06.840 Then the jury starts to think, now I understand, this 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:11.480 is how it happened. Photograph is great, pictures worth a 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:15.360 thousand words, But a recreation in front of the court, 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.400 it's it's amazing. I've seen Chris work. I've seen him 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.400 in court. I've seen him out of court. I've seen 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:25.000 him test firing unloaded firearms. I've seen him wrestling with 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.680 dummies in a courtroom. It's a strong visual. It grabs 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.520 the jury's attention and it keeps them interested. In any time. 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:34.200 As a lawyer, you get the opportunity to educate a 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.560 jury and keep their attention and have them learn something 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.120 that they did not know about before. I'm going to 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:58.080 take advantage of that opportunity. I found my wife at midnight, 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.360 so I've been up since about seven that morning, and 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.639 they let me go five or six and next afternoon, 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.880 so I've been up thirty some hours without sleep, probably 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:12.600 twenty some hours without food, and under intense interrogation, you know, 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:16.800 trying to get me to confess. I came down again 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:19.399 trying to help them. I thought they would actually start 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.000 looking for the real killer, which of course was my 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:24.080 mistake because they didn't. So I was actually in the 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.960 police station for another fifteen hours of intense interrogation, which 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.840 is not what I came down there for. Then they 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:32.560 just finally said, well, if you want admit you did it, 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.080 you're under arrest. I always thought, okay, what if I 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.679 did admitted I've been at all. It was such a 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:43.240 stupid thing to say. That's why you get so many 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.520 false confessions. I can tell you happens. Been through these things, 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:48.480 I could see why people just give up the crack 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:50.560 of the same thing you watch, it's only your own 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.800 I listened to tape. There's an edit tape that they 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.639 claimed this was interrogation, but of course, there's only thirty 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:00.080 hours of interrogation. They have a two hour tape. But 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.880 even on that I hear myself giving them things that 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.439 I didn't want to say because I didn't remember or 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:07.760 didn't think they were true. But I assureman have said 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:14.440 I did anything wrong. The first lawyer was very good, 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:17.800 but he was a public defender. I had considerable equity 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:19.680 in my land and stuff. I could have hired a 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.520 big name lawyer. I had one lined up, and that's 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:26.200 when I found out that froze my assets. They had 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:30.600 not arrested me the first night, which surprised everybody that 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:32.760 they did a few weeks later. But in that period 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.440 of time they filed papers to freeze my assets. Oh, 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.320 I had a good name attorney, he would have walked 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:40.520 up and they're told the court, look, there's no evidence, 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:42.320 let him go. And it makes all the difference in 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:45.600 the world. Now we have such a fast amount of 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.160 advience of innocence, and we have DNA, we have hair, 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.919 we have all signs of things that proved I'm not 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.359 the killer. But when you sit there and trial and 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:58.359 you had no investigation and so forth to help you, 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.639 it's kind of a one side it's system like the 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.520 other auxonorees this season. I asked Bill what he thought 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.960 the biggest factor was in the jury finding him guilty 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.920 this time. It was something all of our forensic experts 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.480 have brought up time and again, fight evidence. There's a 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:17.440 bite on her hand that I saw at the funeral. 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.399 Because at the time I believe that these strengths of 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.439 sciences are real, I've now learned that they're mostly jumped. 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.200 The jury was told this is mine, and it turns 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.200 out that when they did computer comparisons after conviction, none 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:34.640 of that was true. And that was the only thing 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.920 that really changed in the last trial was fite evidence. 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:41.320 That's pretty damning when you come in here and to 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:43.479 throwing all his garbage at the wall. Oh, he had 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.800 arguments every couple as argument. They beat you up with 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.879 all this stuff that kids anybody shaft they make it 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.280 must sound much worse. But when you sit there and say, look, 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.800 there's a bite on her body from the fight and 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:03.200 it's his, how could they let me go? I wanted 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:06.040 to know more about bite mark science, or as it's 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:12.000 more formally known, forensic odontology. This is dr Adam Freeman. 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:17.800 I'm a forensic odontologist located out of Westport, Connecticut, and 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.840 I am the current chair of the Odontology Section of 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:27.399 the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. My office Westport, Connecticut 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.199 is very close to New York City, where about a 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:34.720 forty five minute drive, and in the aftermath of nine eleven, 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:39.639 we lost several patients. As part of that process, it 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:46.879 became very apparent that there was not enough people involved 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:52.000 at a very granular level that really knew forensics. So 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:54.800 my example would be there were some dentists that had 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:59.560 done some identification work, but really no formal education in 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.959 the totality of forensics, and they typically were the leaders 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.800 of these operations. And I'm one of those people that 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.560 I don't like to be a little bit educated in something. 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:11.320 If I'm gonna do something, I really want to be 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:13.119 the guy or one of the guys that knows the 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:17.520 most about it. So there really are three areas that 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:22.760 brensic Good ontology are used in criminal cases. One and 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.800 probably the one that I am most proud of in 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:31.240 our field is dental identification. Often people are found dead 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:35.879 and they need to be scientifically identified, and very often 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:40.800 teeth are used as that identification. Also as an outshoot 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.520 of that is where there's a mass disaster like Hurricane 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:47.160 Katrino or nine eleven or Hurricane I, where dentists are 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:51.639 called in to do identifications on lots of people, you 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:55.000 are giving back a person the dignity of dying with 0:21:55.080 --> 0:22:01.439 a name. Another area is bite mark identify accation, and 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:05.120 that is much more controversial today, and I have testified 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:09.959 in several of those cases. And then there's dental age estimation, 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:15.280 which is becoming much more controversial because of the way 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.040 it's being applied versus the way I believe it was 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:23.879 originally designed to be applied. Bite mark identification of a 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:29.000 perpetrator has at its space several hypotheses. The first one 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:33.359 is that teeth are unique to an individual. Only a 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:37.760 individual has teeth of a certain shape, size, and arrangement. 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:43.119 That hypothesis has never been proven. The second hypothesis is 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:50.720 skin can accurately record a bite. That also has never 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:56.400 been proven. The scientific research currently doesn't even suggest that 0:22:56.680 --> 0:23:01.159 experts can even identify with some real liability what a 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:05.600 bite mark looks like. As an example of that, myself 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:08.159 and a colleague of mine, dr Ian Pretty out of 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:12.639 Manchester England. We sent every board certified forensic dennis a 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:16.720 hundred different cases where there were several photographs and said, 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:20.920 is this a bite mark? Very similar to what happens 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:24.640 when I'm presented a case. When I'm presented a case, 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:29.960 typically law enforcement will send some images of a suspected 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.320 injury that they think might be a bite mark, and 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:34.719 my job is to opine as to whether or not 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:38.199 that injury is or is not a bite mark. What 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:40.600 we did is we did that same sort of experiment 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:44.000 and there was widespread disagreement as to whether or not 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:46.600 an injury that they were looking at was in fact 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:51.760 a bite mark. So the ground science that predisposes us 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:55.160 the ability to do this bite mark work isn't there. 0:23:55.480 --> 0:23:59.520 Yet the work continues to be done. There are those 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:03.440