1
00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:04,520
Speaker 1: Hey, folks, Kate Judson here, I'm a lawyer and the

2
00:00:04,559 --> 00:00:08,080
Speaker 1: executive director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences.

3
00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:12,520
Speaker 1: We're back with another episode of Junk Science, a series

4
00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:15,840
Speaker 1: we first released in twenty twenty, but these stories are

5
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:19,159
Speaker 1: just as relevant as ever. The episode you're about to

6
00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:23,520
Speaker 1: listen to is about bloodstain evidence, the inexact art of

7
00:00:23,600 --> 00:00:26,600
Speaker 1: figuring out where the source of blood came from and

8
00:00:26,640 --> 00:00:29,840
Speaker 1: how it got there. The key phrase here is art,

9
00:00:29,920 --> 00:00:33,600
Speaker 1: because it is far from being a science, and that

10
00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:35,720
Speaker 1: is something that is true of a lot of the

11
00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:40,080
Speaker 1: so called forensic sciences. Bloodstain patter analysis, in particular, is

12
00:00:40,159 --> 00:00:44,440
Speaker 1: so open to interpretation and guesswork that oftentimes the same

13
00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:47,760
Speaker 1: evidence can be analyzed a dozen times by a dozen

14
00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:51,720
Speaker 1: people and they'll reach a dozen different conclusions. And that

15
00:00:51,880 --> 00:00:56,440
Speaker 1: simply is not reliable science. In twenty twenty two, Jane

16
00:00:56,440 --> 00:00:59,960
Speaker 1: Derodic of San Diego, California, was exonerated of the two

17
00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:03,040
Speaker 1: two thousand and one murder of her husband. The original

18
00:01:03,040 --> 00:01:06,520
Speaker 1: analyst of the evidence, a man named Charles Merritt, claimed

19
00:01:06,520 --> 00:01:08,679
Speaker 1: to be an expert in this type of forensics, but

20
00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:12,160
Speaker 1: his abilities and his findings were called into question in

21
00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:17,319
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, an expert who reviewed Merritt's work remarked

22
00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:20,560
Speaker 1: on his lack of basic blood stain knowledge, which was

23
00:01:20,600 --> 00:01:24,440
Speaker 1: apparent in his report and testimony. In fact, some of

24
00:01:24,440 --> 00:01:27,720
Speaker 1: the bloodstains that Merit attributed to the murder victim were

25
00:01:27,760 --> 00:01:31,840
Speaker 1: not blood at all, while other stains were not human blood,

26
00:01:31,959 --> 00:01:36,679
Speaker 1: having been caused long before by the family's dogs. This

27
00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:39,119
Speaker 1: case and the one you'll hear in the episode are

28
00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:42,680
Speaker 1: just two examples of bad forensic analysis and should lead

29
00:01:42,760 --> 00:01:50,960
Speaker 1: us all to question the reliability of this forensic art.

30
00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:56,200
Speaker 2: It's five PM and you call your spouse. You say,

31
00:01:56,320 --> 00:01:58,720
Speaker 2: don't wait up, I'm going to be working late. I

32
00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:01,720
Speaker 2: love you, I'll see you when I get home. You've

33
00:02:01,760 --> 00:02:04,680
Speaker 2: been married for seven years and you have a good relationship.

34
00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:08,240
Speaker 2: You bicker from time to time. It's not perfect, but

35
00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:12,040
Speaker 2: what marriage is. You get home around eleven o'clock at

36
00:02:12,160 --> 00:02:15,240
Speaker 2: night and the front door is open, which is strange.

37
00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:18,000
Speaker 2: It's always locked when you come home late from work.

38
00:02:18,919 --> 00:02:21,480
Speaker 2: You walk in, toss your keys on the kitchen table,

39
00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:26,679
Speaker 2: and call out for your spouse. No response. You walk

40
00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:29,720
Speaker 2: through the living room towards your bedroom and you notice

41
00:02:29,720 --> 00:02:33,640
Speaker 2: that the lamp has been knocked over. The power cord

42
00:02:33,680 --> 00:02:38,160
Speaker 2: has been pulled from its socket. You walk down the

43
00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:41,880
Speaker 2: hall and shove your bedroom door open, and you're greeted

44
00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:46,079
Speaker 2: by a scene that is so horrific your mind can

45
00:02:46,120 --> 00:02:53,000
Speaker 2: barely comprehend what your eyes are taking in. There's blood everywhere.

46
00:02:54,560 --> 00:02:58,079
Speaker 2: It's on the carpet, the bed, on the wall, above

47
00:02:58,080 --> 00:03:04,200
Speaker 2: the dresser. Your spouse is on the floor, mouth open.

48
00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:08,480
Speaker 2: There's a large pool of blood coming from their head.

49
00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:12,560
Speaker 2: It's dark and thick, and as you move closer you

50
00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:16,400
Speaker 2: see that it's still pooling. The blood is still flowing

51
00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:21,440
Speaker 2: from somewhere. At this point, your body has gone into

52
00:03:21,480 --> 00:03:25,560
Speaker 2: some state of shock. You're drifting between consciousness and some

53
00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:31,600
Speaker 2: paralyzing dreamlike state. You manage to call nine one one.

54
00:03:31,800 --> 00:03:35,080
Speaker 2: You plead, you scream, You cry for them to come

55
00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:39,880
Speaker 2: right away. You reach down and touch your spouse. You

56
00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:43,760
Speaker 2: feel for a pulse. You put your ear to their chest.

57
00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:48,839
Speaker 2: There's no movement, there's no sign of life. You lean

58
00:03:48,880 --> 00:03:51,520
Speaker 2: down and try to give them CPR. You don't even

59
00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:53,920
Speaker 2: know how long you've been doing it. You lose sense

60
00:03:53,960 --> 00:03:58,360
Speaker 2: of time, but eventually you hear sirens there blaring, and

61
00:03:58,400 --> 00:04:02,400
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, chaos the room is filled with people.

62
00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:06,360
Speaker 2: A paramedic puts a hand on your shoulder and says,

63
00:04:06,760 --> 00:04:09,880
Speaker 2: let us start working here, and pulls you into another room.

64
00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:13,320
Speaker 2: Then they tell you what you already know but don't

65
00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:20,479
Speaker 2: want to admit. Your spouse is dead. You're not crying,

66
00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:25,240
Speaker 2: You're heaving, trying to catch your breath. The police try

67
00:04:25,279 --> 00:04:28,280
Speaker 2: to console you. They tell you they're sorry, but that

68
00:04:28,320 --> 00:04:30,880
Speaker 2: you have to try to calm down. They need to

69
00:04:30,920 --> 00:04:35,240
Speaker 2: figure out what happened and they need your help. You're

70
00:04:35,279 --> 00:04:38,360
Speaker 2: in no state to drive. You're put into the back

71
00:04:38,400 --> 00:04:41,520
Speaker 2: of a police car. When you get to the police station,

72
00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:45,800
Speaker 2: a detective comes in with a sweatshirt and sweatpants, and

73
00:04:45,839 --> 00:04:48,760
Speaker 2: he says, take off your clothes and put these on.

74
00:04:49,560 --> 00:04:51,920
Speaker 2: You're somewhat relieved to get out of your clothes, which

75
00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:55,880
Speaker 2: are soaked with your spouse's blood. A different detective comes

76
00:04:55,920 --> 00:04:58,839
Speaker 2: in and she asks you how you got blood on

77
00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:01,839
Speaker 2: the back side of your pants. Where were you standing

78
00:05:01,839 --> 00:05:03,599
Speaker 2: when you got blood on the cuff of your shirt

79
00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:07,600
Speaker 2: on your sock. You don't know the answer to these questions.

80
00:05:07,600 --> 00:05:12,120
Speaker 2: It was all such a blur. Over the next several weeks,

81
00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:14,880
Speaker 2: you're asked to come down to the police station. Over

82
00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:20,159
Speaker 2: and over again. The detective's questions become more aggressive, and

83
00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:24,200
Speaker 2: it's becoming quite obvious that they suspect you did this.

84
00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:29,640
Speaker 2: You were eventually charged with the first degree murder of

85
00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:34,479
Speaker 2: your spouse. At your trial, the prosecution calls to the

86
00:05:34,560 --> 00:05:38,680
Speaker 2: stand a blood stain pattern analyst. That expert gets on

87
00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:41,880
Speaker 2: the stand and tells the jury that the story of

88
00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:44,960
Speaker 2: the murder of your spouse is soaked into the blood

89
00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:47,080
Speaker 2: of the clothes you were wearing when the night the

90
00:05:47,120 --> 00:05:51,960
Speaker 2: crime was committed. The blood stain pattern analyst walks the

91
00:05:52,040 --> 00:05:56,200
Speaker 2: jury through each and every stain on your clothing, droplet

92
00:05:56,400 --> 00:06:00,719
Speaker 2: by droplet, you see that stain. The defendant swung the

93
00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:04,599
Speaker 2: weapon at a ninety degree angle twice right into the

94
00:06:04,640 --> 00:06:08,080
Speaker 2: victim's head, which created the splatter pattern you see here

95
00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:12,400
Speaker 2: on his shirt high velocity projected spatter. They tell the

96
00:06:12,480 --> 00:06:16,479
Speaker 2: jury no other explanation for it. They say that the

97
00:06:16,520 --> 00:06:18,920
Speaker 2: stain on your sock was dropped from your bloody hand

98
00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:21,600
Speaker 2: as you held the murder weapon. They never tell the

99
00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:24,680
Speaker 2: jury what the murder weapon actually was, and they never

100
00:06:24,720 --> 00:06:27,960
Speaker 2: recovered that object. They just tell the jury that you

101
00:06:28,040 --> 00:06:30,640
Speaker 2: must have gotten rid of it right before you stage

102
00:06:30,680 --> 00:06:33,599
Speaker 2: the nine to one one call. The expert says that

103
00:06:33,640 --> 00:06:37,760
Speaker 2: they've examined the blood drops, the stains, the puddles, the pools,

104
00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:42,320
Speaker 2: and they're able to reconstruct precisely how you committed this murder,

105
00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:45,919
Speaker 2: the angle at which you swung the weapon, the force

106
00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,080
Speaker 2: with which you inflicted the blows, and where your spouse

107
00:06:49,160 --> 00:06:52,760
Speaker 2: was standing when they were beaten to death. The stains

108
00:06:52,839 --> 00:06:56,039
Speaker 2: proved that you did not perform CPR. You did not

109
00:06:56,240 --> 00:06:59,280
Speaker 2: check for a pulse, because if you had, there would

110
00:06:59,320 --> 00:07:02,560
Speaker 2: not be this bray pattern that's projected onto your shirt.

111
00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:07,839
Speaker 2: These stains all indicate that you committed this murder. You

112
00:07:07,920 --> 00:07:11,560
Speaker 2: glance over at the jury. Most are taking rigorous notes.

113
00:07:12,480 --> 00:07:16,119
Speaker 2: One is so taken so wrapped that he stopped taking

114
00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:20,000
Speaker 2: notes altogether and just sits staring at the expert, covering

115
00:07:20,040 --> 00:07:23,400
Speaker 2: his mouth with his hand. You look over at your

116
00:07:23,400 --> 00:07:28,520
Speaker 2: defense attorney and think, how in the world is this happening.

117
00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:38,320
Speaker 2: I'm Josh Dubin civil rights and criminal defense attorney and

118
00:07:38,400 --> 00:07:42,320
Speaker 2: Innocent Ambassadors to the Innocence Project in New York today

119
00:07:42,600 --> 00:07:46,679
Speaker 2: on wrongful conviction junk science. We're going to explore blood

120
00:07:46,680 --> 00:07:50,920
Speaker 2: stained pattern evidence. Like other forms of junk science used

121
00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:55,160
Speaker 2: in criminal trials. Blood stained pattern evidence falsely claims that

122
00:07:55,200 --> 00:07:58,880
Speaker 2: it can identify the culprit of violent crimes. But blood

123
00:07:58,920 --> 00:08:03,120
Speaker 2: stained pattern evidence has no grounding in any verifiable science.

124
00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:06,840
Speaker 2: So how did this kind of junk science become admissible?

125
00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:11,680
Speaker 2: It turns out that blood stain pattern analysis was born

126
00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:15,520
Speaker 2: in the basement of one man's home in a small

127
00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:27,720
Speaker 2: town named Corning, New York. When I think of Herbert MacDonell,

128
00:08:28,200 --> 00:08:31,040
Speaker 2: I wonder what his neighbors must have thought of him.

129
00:08:31,720 --> 00:08:34,760
Speaker 2: I imagine one of his curious neighbors, startled by the

130
00:08:34,800 --> 00:08:37,920
Speaker 2: sound she's hearing from next door, tiptoeing over to his

131
00:08:38,040 --> 00:08:41,679
Speaker 2: red house. I imagine the neighbor crawling on her hands

132
00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:44,560
Speaker 2: and knees to peer into Herb's basement through a small

133
00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:48,800
Speaker 2: window that peeks out from underground. She finds herself going

134
00:08:48,840 --> 00:08:53,160
Speaker 2: over there day after day, half horrified, half intrigued by

135
00:08:53,160 --> 00:08:58,040
Speaker 2: what she sees. One day, she sees Herb aiming a

136
00:08:58,080 --> 00:09:02,240
Speaker 2: gun at a dog, pulls the trigger, then walks over

137
00:09:02,280 --> 00:09:06,280
Speaker 2: to examine the blood sprayed onto the wall. Another day,

138
00:09:06,320 --> 00:09:09,520
Speaker 2: Herb isn't alone. There are some young women in lab

139
00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:12,520
Speaker 2: coats in the basement. They dip their hair into a

140
00:09:12,559 --> 00:09:16,160
Speaker 2: thick red substance. Then they swing their heads around to

141
00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:20,440
Speaker 2: make Jackson Pollock esque splatters onto the paper covered walls.

142
00:09:21,720 --> 00:09:24,560
Speaker 2: The next week, the neighbor sees what appear to be

143
00:09:24,600 --> 00:09:28,640
Speaker 2: dead bodies and she's got to be mistaken, But then

144
00:09:28,679 --> 00:09:32,400
Speaker 2: she sees Herb take aim shoot the lifeless body, and

145
00:09:32,480 --> 00:09:38,040
Speaker 2: blood slowly oozes onto the basement floor. Herbert McDonnell actually

146
00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:41,720
Speaker 2: used these techniques in his basement, giving birth to the

147
00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:47,000
Speaker 2: forensic science a bloodstained pattern analysis. Herb was a chemist

148
00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:51,760
Speaker 2: who worked for Corning Glassworks, which makes Corning wear casserole dishes,

149
00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:56,240
Speaker 2: but his passion was crime scenes, and so he doubled

150
00:09:56,280 --> 00:10:00,920
Speaker 2: as a forensic professor at a local community college. For Herb,

151
00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:05,200
Speaker 2: every crime scene, and particularly the blood stains left behind,

152
00:10:05,240 --> 00:10:08,920
Speaker 2: told a story. Not only did he believe the bloodstains

153
00:10:08,920 --> 00:10:12,440
Speaker 2: provide clues, he took it much further than that. He

154
00:10:12,559 --> 00:10:15,120
Speaker 2: believed that he could re engineer the choreography of the

155
00:10:15,160 --> 00:10:19,920
Speaker 2: crime just from analyzing the blood stains. Herb styled himself

156
00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:23,040
Speaker 2: as a sort of modern day Sherlock Holmes. He even

157
00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:25,000
Speaker 2: posed for the cover of one of his books and

158
00:10:25,040 --> 00:10:28,959
Speaker 2: the trademark deer Stalker hat and a pipe. In nineteen

159
00:10:29,040 --> 00:10:33,200
Speaker 2: seventy three, Herb started an unaccredited school right out of

160
00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:38,280
Speaker 2: his basement. He named it the Blood Stain Evidence Institute.

161
00:10:38,480 --> 00:10:41,040
Speaker 2: It took twelve years for Herb to get his moment

162
00:10:41,120 --> 00:10:45,160
Speaker 2: to shine. In January nineteen eighty five, four people were

163
00:10:45,160 --> 00:10:48,200
Speaker 2: found dead in their home. Twenty one year old Reginald

164
00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:51,480
Speaker 2: Lewis was accused of shooting his older brother, his younger

165
00:10:51,520 --> 00:10:55,320
Speaker 2: thirteen year old brother, and his parents. Reginald's father was

166
00:10:55,360 --> 00:10:59,080
Speaker 2: discovered on fire in a hallway, having been shot and

167
00:10:59,160 --> 00:11:03,199
Speaker 2: strangled before being set ablaze. The Sherlock Holmes of Corney

168
00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:06,040
Speaker 2: to New York her MacDonald testified as an expert witness

169
00:11:06,120 --> 00:11:09,400
Speaker 2: in this case. He claimed that dozens of tiny specks

170
00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:12,040
Speaker 2: of blood on Reginald's clothing placed him at the scene

171
00:11:12,040 --> 00:11:15,880
Speaker 2: of the crime. Reginald Lewis was convicted and sentenced to

172
00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:20,800
Speaker 2: four ninety nine year sentences. Herb's recognition continued to grow.

173
00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:24,200
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety five, even testified for the defense at

174
00:11:24,200 --> 00:11:28,400
Speaker 2: the oj Simpson trial. But bloodstained pattern analysis was never

175
00:11:28,520 --> 00:11:32,080
Speaker 2: proven to be a reliable scientific method, and yet it

176
00:11:32,160 --> 00:11:36,080
Speaker 2: continued to be admitted in case after case after case,

177
00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:40,560
Speaker 2: spreading its tentacles into the criminal justice system in our country.

178
00:11:45,320 --> 00:11:54,720
Speaker 3: This is an entirely interpretive form of forensics. This involves

179
00:11:54,760 --> 00:12:02,119
Speaker 3: somebody viewing a pattern and then stating that with their training,

180
00:12:02,559 --> 00:12:05,680
Speaker 3: that they are able to tell you how that pattern

181
00:12:05,840 --> 00:12:11,000
Speaker 3: was created, what the trajectory was of the blood, where

182
00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:16,280
Speaker 3: the wound was, where the bullet or knife was in

183
00:12:16,440 --> 00:12:20,040
Speaker 3: the room, and therefore who was wielding it and how,

184
00:12:21,320 --> 00:12:26,080
Speaker 3: which is a pretty incredible claim if you think about it.

185
00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:30,160
Speaker 2: Joining us today is Pamela Koloff. And Pam's a senior

186
00:12:30,200 --> 00:12:32,880
Speaker 2: reporter at Pro Publica and a staff writer from New

187
00:12:32,960 --> 00:12:38,080
Speaker 2: York Magazine. So, Pam, when you really look into these

188
00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:42,800
Speaker 2: forensic sciences and see how they originated, I have to

189
00:12:42,840 --> 00:12:46,960
Speaker 2: say that in all of my work and researching various

190
00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:51,960
Speaker 2: disciplines of forensic science, blood spatter analysis has easily the

191
00:12:52,320 --> 00:12:56,760
Speaker 2: craziest story of them all. And you've researched this intensely.

192
00:12:57,840 --> 00:13:00,600
Speaker 2: I want you to tell us more about her. MacDonell,

193
00:13:01,080 --> 00:13:05,120
Speaker 2: the so called grandfather of blood spatter analysis.

194
00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:10,719
Speaker 3: His belief was, and what he sort of told generations

195
00:13:10,800 --> 00:13:16,000
Speaker 3: of police officers was that yes, bloodstain pattern analysis was

196
00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:21,439
Speaker 3: based on highly complex trigonometry and fluid dynamics, but that

197
00:13:21,520 --> 00:13:25,600
Speaker 3: they could master the skills to this in as little

198
00:13:25,640 --> 00:13:30,640
Speaker 3: as a forty hour class. And he began to teach

199
00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:36,320
Speaker 3: these classes all over America at local police departments and

200
00:13:36,360 --> 00:13:41,520
Speaker 3: did so for decades, and in turn turned police officers

201
00:13:41,559 --> 00:13:45,839
Speaker 3: with no training in physics or high level of mathematics

202
00:13:46,440 --> 00:13:48,480
Speaker 3: into quote unquote experts.

203
00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:53,359
Speaker 2: So he turns these people with no training in physics

204
00:13:53,440 --> 00:13:56,679
Speaker 2: or mathematics into experts. You don't have any training in

205
00:13:56,679 --> 00:13:59,720
Speaker 2: physics or mathematics, and you took the class and became

206
00:13:59,760 --> 00:14:01,080
Speaker 2: an expert. Right.

207
00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:06,560
Speaker 3: I went to Yukon, Oklahoma, where the police department was

208
00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:10,000
Speaker 3: offering a week long class. I took it with about

209
00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:16,960
Speaker 3: twenty law enforcement officers, and I was stunned at what

210
00:14:17,040 --> 00:14:20,360
Speaker 3: I saw. We were sort of rubber stamped through just

211
00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:25,680
Speaker 3: the most basic basic concepts of blood stain pattern analysis,

212
00:14:25,720 --> 00:14:28,840
Speaker 3: and we would have to identify stains according to this

213
00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:34,080
Speaker 3: taxonomy that the discipline has these particular kinds of spatters

214
00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:37,280
Speaker 3: and drips and spurts and swipes and smears. They have

215
00:14:37,280 --> 00:14:40,440
Speaker 3: all these different names for things. The final day of

216
00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:45,800
Speaker 3: the course where our instructor set up these sort of

217
00:14:45,920 --> 00:14:52,440
Speaker 3: mock crime scenes, and he used blood to on sort

218
00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:56,680
Speaker 3: of like butcher paper to show us what blood stains

219
00:14:56,800 --> 00:14:59,600
Speaker 3: would look like at a crime scene. And then our

220
00:15:00,760 --> 00:15:03,400
Speaker 3: and this is part of our final grade, was to

221
00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:08,280
Speaker 3: come in and just by looking at that, no other clues,

222
00:15:08,440 --> 00:15:13,720
Speaker 3: no other context clues, use that to say what had

223
00:15:13,800 --> 00:15:18,160
Speaker 3: happened at the crime scene, and then to learn how

224
00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:21,400
Speaker 3: to say it on the stand in a way that

225
00:15:21,600 --> 00:15:25,760
Speaker 3: sounded like a scientist and like someone with scientific certainty.

226
00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:29,119
Speaker 3: And that to me was extremely disturbing.

227
00:15:29,400 --> 00:15:32,360
Speaker 2: Aside from what you witness in the class. Tell me, like,

228
00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:34,880
Speaker 2: what is one thing that stood out to you as

229
00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:38,400
Speaker 2: something that seemed off about you know, what he did

230
00:15:38,560 --> 00:15:39,760
Speaker 2: or what he had students do.

231
00:15:40,680 --> 00:15:46,240
Speaker 3: I know of several students who have shot cadavers and

232
00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:51,880
Speaker 3: controlled situations to look at the way that blood moves. Now,

233
00:15:52,040 --> 00:15:55,880
Speaker 3: think about the way that blood operates within a cadaver

234
00:15:56,160 --> 00:15:59,080
Speaker 3: versus a living person with a beating heart. I mean,

235
00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:02,560
Speaker 3: there's so many things about that that don't make sense.

236
00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:06,320
Speaker 2: Right, So with a dead body or cadaver, it should

237
00:16:06,320 --> 00:16:09,680
Speaker 2: be common sense. There's no more blood flown through the veins, right,

238
00:16:09,760 --> 00:16:14,239
Speaker 2: the person isn't moving anymore, and there's a different viscosity

239
00:16:14,320 --> 00:16:17,440
Speaker 2: or thickness to the blood when someone is dead. So

240
00:16:17,840 --> 00:16:20,440
Speaker 2: all of this makes a difference in first how the

241
00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:23,200
Speaker 2: blood travels once the body is hit with an object,

242
00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:26,200
Speaker 2: whether it be a bullet or a bat, and then

243
00:16:26,280 --> 00:16:29,440
Speaker 2: the blood will also look different once it lands, doesn't

244
00:16:29,480 --> 00:16:31,360
Speaker 2: It all come down to there are a lot of

245
00:16:31,360 --> 00:16:33,720
Speaker 2: different ways that blood can get on a surface, and

246
00:16:33,760 --> 00:16:36,680
Speaker 2: you can't say definitively which way it happened.

247
00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:42,160
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, that's exactly right. The surface that blood

248
00:16:42,600 --> 00:16:46,600
Speaker 3: falls onto makes a tremendous difference in what you can tell.

249
00:16:46,640 --> 00:16:53,480
Speaker 3: If you had a white all linoleum or marble room,

250
00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:57,240
Speaker 3: like a very controlled atmosphere like that, you might be

251
00:16:57,320 --> 00:17:02,040
Speaker 3: able to make some determinations about some things possibly, But

252
00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:05,399
Speaker 3: in real life, in a real crime scene, you usually

253
00:17:05,480 --> 00:17:12,160
Speaker 3: have blood falling onto porous things, carpet, clothing, things where

254
00:17:12,760 --> 00:17:17,200
Speaker 3: it becomes increasingly difficult to tell the angle that blood

255
00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:20,760
Speaker 3: fell onto those services at because they're so diffused when

256
00:17:20,800 --> 00:17:22,400
Speaker 3: they land on that material.

257
00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:26,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there are some cases where blood spatter

258
00:17:26,160 --> 00:17:29,680
Speaker 2: analysts have been on video trying to recreate a stain

259
00:17:29,800 --> 00:17:32,600
Speaker 2: pattern from a crime and it takes them ten or

260
00:17:32,640 --> 00:17:35,080
Speaker 2: fifteen tries to get the stain to look similar to

261
00:17:35,080 --> 00:17:37,119
Speaker 2: how it looks at the crime scene or on the

262
00:17:37,160 --> 00:17:40,000
Speaker 2: close of the accuse. I mean, I saw one video

263
00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:43,119
Speaker 2: where they finally get it right right, They get it

264
00:17:43,160 --> 00:17:45,120
Speaker 2: to look like it did at the crime scene, after

265
00:17:45,760 --> 00:17:48,840
Speaker 2: try after try after try, and they start cheering and

266
00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:53,080
Speaker 2: high fiving. So if it's so hard to tell how

267
00:17:53,119 --> 00:17:56,360
Speaker 2: a blood stain got where it did, then what kinds

268
00:17:56,400 --> 00:17:59,040
Speaker 2: of consequences will that have for someone that's been accused

269
00:17:59,080 --> 00:17:59,960
Speaker 2: of a violent crime.

270
00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:05,919
Speaker 3: A common example I've seen this many times is there's

271
00:18:06,119 --> 00:18:14,679
Speaker 3: a spouse who commits suicide, who shoots themselves, and the

272
00:18:15,119 --> 00:18:20,600
Speaker 3: other spouse discovers the person who is shot, rushes over

273
00:18:20,680 --> 00:18:24,280
Speaker 3: to the person, cradles them, tries to give them first aid,

274
00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:27,119
Speaker 3: and in the process gets blood on them. And what

275
00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:31,160
Speaker 3: I saw again and again is if someone who's injured

276
00:18:31,359 --> 00:18:36,600
Speaker 3: expels blood from their mouth or their nose onto another

277
00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:43,680
Speaker 3: person's clothing right they're coughing, they're struggling to breathe, that

278
00:18:43,920 --> 00:18:47,800
Speaker 3: pattern of blood looks very similar to the kind of

279
00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:53,960
Speaker 3: atomized blood that sprays when someone's shot. And then an

280
00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:57,320
Speaker 3: analyst for the state will be brought in and will

281
00:18:57,359 --> 00:19:03,000
Speaker 3: give this very convoluted life as to why that happened

282
00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:06,280
Speaker 3: during the commission of the crime. And then there becomes

283
00:19:06,320 --> 00:19:10,959
Speaker 3: this divergence of opinion of did the victim hold the

284
00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:15,520
Speaker 3: gun and fire this upon him or herself or was

285
00:19:15,560 --> 00:19:18,640
Speaker 3: it the spouse who fired the gun? And the claim

286
00:19:18,760 --> 00:19:21,359
Speaker 3: is that by looking at the way that the blood

287
00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:24,720
Speaker 3: is distributed at the crime scene, you know one hundred

288
00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:26,879
Speaker 3: percent what the answer to that is.

289
00:19:37,560 --> 00:19:41,440
Speaker 2: All right, Pam, you wrote a two part story entitled

290
00:19:41,520 --> 00:19:45,200
Speaker 2: Blood Will Tell. And by the way, to our listeners,

291
00:19:45,280 --> 00:19:48,479
Speaker 2: if you haven't read about this case, you absolutely should.

292
00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:52,119
Speaker 2: Will link to the article in our show notes. It

293
00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:57,920
Speaker 2: is a fascinating, fascinating piece that Pam wrote for Pro Publica.

294
00:19:58,040 --> 00:20:01,000
Speaker 2: And again it's entitled Blood will Tell the Joe Brian

295
00:20:01,119 --> 00:20:05,880
Speaker 2: Story and it tells the story of various ways bloodstained

296
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:10,080
Speaker 2: pattern analysis can go off the rails. And I want

297
00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:11,800
Speaker 2: to say that it has a happy ending, but it's

298
00:20:11,800 --> 00:20:14,840
Speaker 2: a tragedy really right. I mean, you have a man

299
00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:18,840
Speaker 2: that was loved by everybody. He's a high school principal,

300
00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:23,320
Speaker 2: he spent thirty three years in prison for the murder

301
00:20:23,320 --> 00:20:27,679
Speaker 2: of his wife. And you know your story, pain was

302
00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:31,919
Speaker 2: like the driving force, if not the critical driving force

303
00:20:32,359 --> 00:20:34,800
Speaker 2: behind getting him out of prison, So please tell us

304
00:20:34,800 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 2: about the Joe Brian case.

305
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:40,720
Speaker 3: Joe Brian was a beloved high school principal in a

306
00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:46,040
Speaker 3: little Texas town called Clifton, Texas. And in nineteen eighty five,

307
00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:49,159
Speaker 3: when he was by all accounts out of town one

308
00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:52,879
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty miles away in Austin at an educational conference,

309
00:20:53,680 --> 00:20:57,440
Speaker 3: his wife was shot and killed in their home and

310
00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:03,320
Speaker 3: this was initially investigated as a robbery gone wrong. And

311
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:09,320
Speaker 3: about a week after the murder, a flashlight was discovered

312
00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:14,159
Speaker 3: in the trunk of Joe's car that had tiny, tiny

313
00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:18,280
Speaker 3: specks of blood on it. And there was no blood

314
00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:22,680
Speaker 3: found in the car or anything like that. And who

315
00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:26,480
Speaker 3: this blood belonged to, whether it was even human blood,

316
00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:31,560
Speaker 3: all of this was unknown, but the state took this

317
00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:35,840
Speaker 3: and they brought in a bloodstained pattern analyst, a local

318
00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:41,280
Speaker 3: cop who'd had forty hours of training, and he, through

319
00:21:41,359 --> 00:21:46,840
Speaker 3: his testimony, connected that flashlight and the spatter pattern on

320
00:21:46,920 --> 00:21:50,080
Speaker 3: the flashlight to the crime scene. He said this could

321
00:21:50,119 --> 00:21:54,560
Speaker 3: only have happened at the crime scene, and his theory

322
00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:57,800
Speaker 3: of the case was that Joe had held the flashlight

323
00:21:57,840 --> 00:22:01,520
Speaker 3: in one hand a gun in the other. He'd shot

324
00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:05,840
Speaker 3: his wife, Mickey. The blood had gotten onto the splashlight,

325
00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:09,840
Speaker 3: and this was proof that he was guilty of murder.

326
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:14,200
Speaker 3: How this man, who would have been bloodied, how did

327
00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:17,720
Speaker 3: he drive off in this car that was absolutely pristine

328
00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:21,239
Speaker 3: was explained away by the expert who said things like

329
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,919
Speaker 3: after he killed her, he completely changed his clothes and

330
00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:28,919
Speaker 3: he changed his shoes, and that's why the interior of

331
00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:32,119
Speaker 3: the car was clean. But he made this error and

332
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:35,960
Speaker 3: put this in the truck, and that was enough. I mean,

333
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:40,040
Speaker 3: this is a man there was no motive, no physical evidence.

334
00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:43,479
Speaker 3: He was many counties away, he was in a different

335
00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:47,680
Speaker 3: place the night of the crime, but that expert testimony

336
00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:51,760
Speaker 3: from that cop was enough to get a murder conviction

337
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:52,840
Speaker 3: in a life sentence.

338
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:56,399
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so difficult to listen to this, and

339
00:22:56,480 --> 00:23:00,520
Speaker 2: I wish I could say that I'm sitting here, you know, shocked,

340
00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:04,200
Speaker 2: and was able to tell you what. I've never heard

341
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 2: of a case like that before, where you know, the

342
00:23:07,480 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 2: accused is actually in a different town altogether. But unfortunately

343
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 2: I've heard this before. This happens to many defendants or

344
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:19,280
Speaker 2: people that are accused of crimes they didn't commit. Was

345
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 2: Joe ever exonerated?

346
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 3: So Joe was not exonerated, he was parolled, and the

347
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:31,639
Speaker 3: state of his case. He had an evidentiary hearing in

348
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:38,600
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen with some really really compelling testimony that suggested

349
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:43,080
Speaker 3: not only his innocence but a possible other perpetrator. In Texas,

350
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:46,719
Speaker 3: we have something called a junk science writ which is

351
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:53,400
Speaker 3: fairly unusual, but it allows somebody to take bad evidence,

352
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:58,479
Speaker 3: junk science that's been allowed into their case, and to

353
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 3: try to get the courts to take a second look

354
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:05,040
Speaker 3: at their case because of that. And so he's been

355
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 3: parolled and is still fighting to prove his innocence. Joe

356
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 3: turns eighty later this year. He's had congestive heart failure

357
00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 3: for numerous years. His health is not good, and the

358
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:21,880
Speaker 3: Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles finally decided to release

359
00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:27,159
Speaker 3: him in March, and he is now at home with

360
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 3: his brother. He's got an ankle monitor for a couple

361
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 3: more months and then he'll go back to life as

362
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:37,159
Speaker 3: much as it can be normal after thirty three years

363
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:37,879
Speaker 3: behind bars.

364
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:41,840
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of people always say they hear

365
00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 2: about this work of helping the wrongfully incarcerated, but they

366
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,639
Speaker 2: hear about it when it's too late, you know, after

367
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:53,440
Speaker 2: they have lost decades and decades of their lives. Oftentimes

368
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 2: their lives have been utterly destroyed. I mean, you know,

369
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:00,360
Speaker 2: you read the stories about them getting out, but take

370
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:06,200
Speaker 2: it from me, having worked with scores of exoneries, not

371
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 2: only my clients, but some of the innocence projects other clients,

372
00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 2: they're just never the same. The psychological damage of being

373
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 2: confined to this narrow space and all of the horrors

374
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 2: of prison that you hear about that happen to these people,

375
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:25,160
Speaker 2: and then on top of it, being in there for

376
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 2: something you didn't do. I mean, there have been studies

377
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:32,399
Speaker 2: about how it inflicts even more psychological damage on people

378
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 2: to be in there for something that you didn't do,

379
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:39,119
Speaker 2: and the lost years just can't be replaced. No amount

380
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 2: of money is going to make that pain go away,

381
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 2: no matter how much compensation they get. And yet these

382
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions just continue being propelled by junk science. It's

383
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:52,400
Speaker 2: just astounding, exactly.

384
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 3: I was flabbergasted when working on this story and trying

385
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 3: to find, well, where where is the research that backs

386
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 3: up all these claims that people are making on the stand.

387
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:11,400
Speaker 3: Where's the academic work that's been done. Where is anything.

388
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 3: This is a discipline that when you look at sort

389
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:21,119
Speaker 3: of the fundamentals of how do you prove reliability, no

390
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:25,359
Speaker 3: one can quote an error rate. There are no markers

391
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 3: that show that this is something that holds up under

392
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 3: any kind of scrutiny. And so this idea that we

393
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:38,400
Speaker 3: can not just look at blood as a clue as

394
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 3: we would at many, many, many things in a crime

395
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:44,360
Speaker 3: scene to help us figure out what happened, but as

396
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 3: something in which you can entirely, independent even of any

397
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 3: other evidence, reconstruct the crime itself, quickly leads you into

398
00:26:53,960 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 3: wrongful conviction territory.

399
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 2: I want our listeners to be rest assured that we're

400
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:16,479
Speaker 2: not just throwing around this term junk science haphazardly. Just

401
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 2: to be crystal clear, there has been extensive research on

402
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 2: the effectiveness and the accuracy of bloodstained pattern analysis. And

403
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,200
Speaker 2: this will become somewhat of a drum beat in our series.

404
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 2: We're going to continue to go back to this study

405
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 2: that was done in two thousand and nine by the

406
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 2: National Academy of Sciences, and they issued a report after

407
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 2: examining various disciplines of forensic science that are used in

408
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:48,719
Speaker 2: courtrooms across the country, everything from fingerprints to footwear impressions,

409
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 2: to bitemarks and of course bloodstains.

410
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:54,880
Speaker 3: Right PAM, the National Academy of Science is actually made

411
00:27:54,960 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 3: up of scientists who publish pure reviewed were and who

412
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 3: were involved in research with real scientific integrity, and they

413
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 3: set the bar very, very high, and they have long

414
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 3: been extremely critical of bloodstained pattern analysis and really cautioning

415
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 3: courts to not consider this a science with the sort

416
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 3: of accuracy as for example, some DNA testing or toxicology,

417
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 3: where you really you have numbers and certainty to work with.

418
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 2: So outside of DNA, the NAS study was really critical

419
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 2: of all of these other disciplines of forensic science. And

420
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 2: what it's said about blood spatter analysis is this quote

421
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 2: A capable analysts must possess an understanding of applied mathematics, physics,

422
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 2: fluid transfer, wound pathology, and that this blood spatter a

423
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 2: now is more subjective than substantive. So this report should

424
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 2: have been a bombshell in the forensic science community and

425
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 2: it really should have changed our court system. I mean,

426
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 2: why do you think it is that you have some

427
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 2: of the leading scientists in the country so critically rebuking

428
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 2: all of these forensic disciplines, but courts don't seem to

429
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 2: pay any attention to it.

430
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 3: Judges are looking backward at precedent, and science is supposed

431
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 3: to be looking forward each year. We understand through scientific

432
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 3: inquiry things like forensic science and its accuracy better and

433
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 3: better and better. But the courts never looked at that.

434
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 3: They just kept looking back. Bloodstain pattern analysis, like so

435
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 3: many of the disciplines that are identified in that report

436
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 3: as being problematic, we're so deeply entrenched in crime labs

437
00:29:56,120 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 3: and across the country you had experts in labs that

438
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 3: were under local police departments where this was just this

439
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 3: was the way it was done. So there was no

440
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 3: effort on the part of law enforcement to change that.

441
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 3: And for prosecutors there was no incentive because a good

442
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 3: bloodstained pattern analyst on the stand who's a phenomenal witness,

443
00:30:20,320 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 3: really connects with the jury and makes things sound very simple.

444
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 3: That's gold that can make your case, and that can

445
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 3: take a circumstantial case and move it from gray to

446
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 3: black and white.

447
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 2: So, like you said, many judges rule on a case

448
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 2: based on precedent, and the President provides essentially the license

449
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 2: for judges to accept bloodstain spatter analysis as evidence. But

450
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 2: there was at least one judge who did pay attention

451
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 2: to this study, and that was a federal judge that

452
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 2: I know very well in Boston named Nancy Gertner. Nancy

453
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 2: and I are actually co authors on a textbook together.

454
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 2: I'll give a nice plug year for the law of

455
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 2: jurys in case anybody is aching to read a legal textbook.

456
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 2: But tell us about what Judge Nancy Gerdner did.

457
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:14,720
Speaker 3: I mean, she was and really sadly remains, sort of

458
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 3: a lone voice in the wilderness. She came out swinging

459
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 3: and said that judges had to take a more active

460
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 3: stand in being gatekeepers to this kind of evidence, and

461
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 3: that they could not be letting junk science into the courtroom.

462
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 3: And if we are going to continue to see some

463
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 3: of the disciplines that the NAS report has identified as

464
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 3: unreliable in our courtrooms, I want to hold admissibility hearings

465
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 3: before we ever get to trial to decide whether we

466
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 3: should allow this in. And that shouldn't have been a

467
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 3: revolutionary idea, but it really was. And she was an

468
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 3: outlier in this and got a lot of pushback from

469
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 3: prosecutors about that.

470
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 2: I mean, it's really shocking that she got pushedback, not

471
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 2: just from prosecutors, but also from her colleagues or fellow judges.

472
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:18,239
Speaker 3: She's a hero, and I think that her insistence on

473
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:24,120
Speaker 3: something as basic as fairness being controversial is really disturbing.

474
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 2: Life doesn't always imitate art, especially when it comes to bloodstains.

475
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 2: It's important to remember that shows like Dexter and CSI,

476
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 2: or Just Entertainment it isn't real life, and many of

477
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 2: the techniques that we think are science are far from it.

478
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 2: You might be listening to this wondering what you can

479
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 2: do to make sure that junk signs like bloodstain pattern

480
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 2: analysis stops being admitted into courts. In our show notes,

481
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 2: we're attaching a link to the National Academy of Sciences

482
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 2: report that we spoke about in this episode. Send it

483
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 2: to your local criminal court judges. Give them something to

484
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 2: think twice about before admitting this evidence in their courtroom.

485
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 2: Something else you can always do is make sure that

486
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 2: when you get called to jury service, you don't try

487
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 2: to get out of it. You do it, and do

488
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 2: it as a conscientious juror. When I pick a jury

489
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 2: in a criminal case, one question I always ask is

490
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 2: how many of you believe that my client must have

491
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 2: done something wrong because they've been arrested and accused of

492
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 2: a crime, more than half the hands in the room

493
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 2: always go up. Remember these principles. Let the presumption of

494
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 2: innocence only work if we breathe life into them. Someone

495
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 2: that is accused of a crime ought to be considered

496
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 2: innocent all the way through the trial, all the way

497
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 2: through your deliberations. They are wrapped in a cloak of innocence,

498
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 2: like a warm blanket. It can never be torn from

499
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 2: them unless the prosecution overcomes the highest burden in our

500
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 2: justice system, which has proved beyond a reasonable doubt. You

501
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 2: give the benefit of the doubt to the accused. Unfortunately,

502
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 2: as I've seen time and time again, the presumption of

503
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 2: innocence in this country is not a given. It is

504
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:19,839
Speaker 2: an ideal that we talk about, but we don't live

505
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 2: up to. But by uncovering the lack of credibility of

506
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:26,120
Speaker 2: junk signs and our courts, we hope to get one

507
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 2: step closer. Next week, we'll explore the junk signs of

508
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:40,240
Speaker 2: Arson with Innocence Project co founder and famed civil rights

509
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 2: and criminal defense attorney Barry Sheck. Wrongful Conviction Junk Science

510
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 2: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association

511
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 2: with Signal Company Number One. Thanks to our executive producer

512
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 2: Jason Flahm and the team at Signal Company Number One

513
00:34:56,200 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 2: executive producer Kevin Wardis and senior producers Karen Cornaber and

514
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 2: Brit Spangler. Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You

515
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 2: can follow me on Instagram at dubin Josh. Follow the

516
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction podcast on Facebook and on Instagram at Wrongful

517
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 2: Conviction and on Twitter at wrong Conviction