Are #defenseexperts all on the Dark Side? Does #InnocenceProject really do any good?
Early in my #lawenforcement career, I remember thinking that anybody who worked for the defense was out to subvert justice and set criminals free.
Then I encountered Deputy Jesus Durazo. In 1992, He submitted latent print lifts to my lab that he reported he took from the windows and door handle of a drug load vehicle, but it was obvious they had come from an inked print card. He expected me to identify the fingerprints and unwittingly testify that they were genuine latent prints. His plot failed and he ultimately ended up in prison himself.
Because I had been exposed to police corruption by Deputy Durazo, when I received a phone call from Iain McKie in 1998 asking me to review the #fingerprintevidence against his daughter, Shirley McKie, I was more open minded.
Anybody familiar with high profile cases of fingerprint fraud will know the case of Shirley McKie. If you don’t, see www.shirleymckie.com or read Iain McKie’s book, “Shirley McKie: The Price of Innocence.” I will also have several chapters about that case in the book I am writing, hopefully to be published in 2024.
That case led to the cases of David Asbury, Alan McNamara, and Fred van der Vyver, to name a few of the more blatant cases of police fraud and error I have uncovered. I have served as a #defenseconsultant in well over 100 cases since then and what I have discovered is that most #defenseattorneys who contact me simply want an unbiased expert to help them understand the evidence.
A few lawyers I met were only out to win their case, even if it meant presenting a bogus defense – and there are plenty of unethical defense experts willing to help them do that. As Bob Hazen (former section chief of the FBI Latent Print Section) used to say of those experts, “A reasonable doubt for a reasonable fee.” But I have never been that person.
In my experience, when a defense attorney calls me, the situation is that the police are telling one story and the client is telling an opposite story. The attorney simply wants to understand the evidence in order to prepare the best defense and one that will stand up on appeal.
In probably 95% of the defense cases I have examined for defense, the police did everything right and I was able to help the attorney understand how to present a defense in the face of evidence that the police had reported correctly. In one trial outside of the US, the defense attorney even hustled me out of the country when he learned that the prosecutor was going to call me as his first witness next morning!
In two cases in Ireland, I have found nothing but the very highest quality work by the Garda . In San Diego, a case that had all the earmarks of evidence fabrication proved to be remarkably interesting, but excellent police work (that case will also have a chapter in my book).
In all the defense cases I have worked, only one defense attorney has stiffed me for my bill because he didn’t like my opinion. He found another examiner that fit Bob Hazen’s description.