New York Times article reports problems with Stephen Hayne testimony, need for review

    The New York Times reports tomorrow on the need for a review of Mississippi criminal convictions based on testimony of Dr. Stephen Hayne.
    The story begins:

     JACKSON, Miss. — For a long time, if a body turned up in Mississippi it had a four-in-five chance of ending up in front of Dr. Steven T. Hayne.
     Between the late 1980s and the late 2000s, Dr. Hayne had the field of forensic pathology in Mississippi almost to himself, performing thousands of autopsies and delivering his findings around the state as an expert witness in civil and criminal cases. For most of that time, Dr. Hayne performed about 1,700 autopsies annually, more than four for every day of the year and nearly seven times the maximum caseload recommended by the National Association of Medical Examiners.
     During the past several months, in courthouses around Mississippi, four new petitions have been quietly submitted on behalf of people in prison arguing that they were wrongfully convicted on the basis of Dr. Hayne’s testimony. Around 10 more are expected in the coming weeks, including three by inmates on death row.

    I've already said what a disgrace I think this is. These cases need to be reviewed. Better some guilty people go free then to have lots of innocent people locked up.

As promised, I've contacted the governor; now it's your turn

    In my most recent blog post, I said I was going to contact Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant concerning the possibility that Mississippi is planning to execute a possibly innocent man, Jeffrey Havard.
    Will it do any good? Probably not. But I've done my duty as a citizen.
    Here's my letter, submitted on Phil Bryant's website:

Dear Gov. Bryant:
    As an attorney, I believe there is a real possibility that Jeffrey Havard is innocent. I do not know that; he was never given adequate funding for a defense and once reasonable doubt was raised post-conviction the Mississippi Supreme Court said it should have been raised at his trial. Of course, it couldn't have been raised at his trial because the judge refused to provide any money for medical tests!
    I'm sure you know the facts of the case. His conviction is based almost entirely on the testimony of disgraced medical examiner Stephen Hayne. No one should even be in jail based on this man's testimony, much less put to death.
    Please do the right thing and commute this man's sentence to life imprisonment so that he will have the opportunity to continue to fight to clear his name. And if he loses, at lease Mississippi will not have killed a possibly innocent man.
    For what it's worth, I am a conservative Republican. This is not a liberal versus conservative issue. It is an issue of wrong versus right and the rule of law. Jeffrey Havard may be guilty but we certainly can't be sure, and given the extreme level of doubt that exists, he simply should not be put to death.
    Please don't let Mississippi execute a possibly innocent man!

Should you wish to email Gov. Bryant, just click here.

The Hayne nightmare continues -- Mississippi getting ready to kill a possibly innocent man

    Radley Balko reports for the Huffington Post on the latest travesty of justice in Mississippi. Our state is getting ready to execute a man who is quite possibly innocent.
    Please take a few minutes out of your day to read the article linked to above. For years Mississippi prosecutors used Mississippi medical examiner Stephen Hayne as an expert witness to put people in prison or on death row. By reputation he is the type of person who would say just about anything the prosecutors wanted him to say to secure a conviction. He wasn't board certified, and eventually the law was changed to keep him from testifying in any further trials.
    I used to support the death penalty. I don't any more and haven't for a number of years. It's cases like this one, the Duke Lacrosse case, the George Zimmerman case, and many others that have convinced me that too often the police and/or unscrupulous prosecutors either frame innocent people or decide on guilt and throw out the rule book. Most prosecutors are honest and fair, but it only takes a few bad ones to commit what amounts to legalized murder.
    I doubt that contacting Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant will do any good, but as citizens we have a duty to do so. I certainly will, and will ask that the death sentence of Jeffrey Havard be commuted. I don't know whether Havard is guilty or not, but what I do know is that no one, and I do mean no one, should be convicted -- much less put to death -- based on the testimony of Stephen Hayne.
    I hope anyone reading this will join me in contacting our governor.
    I might add that at some point I will be contacting our attorney general, an old friend in whom I am gravely disappointed.

Thanks to Y'all Politics for bringing the Balko post to my attention.

_____________________________

    Radley Balko has been doing the Lord's work down here in Mississippi. All Mississippians not yet executed are in his debt. 

    Also, now might be a good time to read my blog post about former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Jimmy Robertson's lament over his very minor role in sustaining the conviction of an innocent man (he wasn't on the three-judge panel but concurred in t he opinion). The blog post is linked to a newsletter article he wrote, so you can read Jimmy's writing rather than mine!

Reminder: Balko panel discussion to include showing of Mississippi Innocence

    I reported back in August that civil libertarian Radley Balko would be speaking at Ole Miss on Tuesday, Oct. 25. My original post said he was speaking at the law school, but in fact he is speaking at the Overby Center for Journalism and Politics in Farley Hall at 5:30 p.m. More information about the panel discussion can be found right here.
    Balko is going to be part of a panel discussion that will follow a screening of "Mississippi Innocence," a locally made film about two innocent men who were convicted of murder based on junk science and arguably false testimony. For example, the dentist who testified against the men has sent one woman to jail with testimony that he can tell a lesbian bite mark from a heterosexual bite mark. Steven Hayne, another witness, has testified that he can tell from a bullet hole whether a gun was held with one or two hands.
    I saw Mississippi Innocence at the Oxford Film Festival. It is a powerful film. I also heard Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks tell their story. They both had sadness over their experience, but an amazing lack of rage or anger.
    I provided a short biography of Balko in my original post back in August. I see no need to repeat it here. You can just read the original post. As I said then, I hope I convince my children to come with me; I think it's important for them to understand how our criminal justice system works -- and doesn't work.