EDITORIAL: "The Kevin Martin case points to the need to reform the discovery process," published by the Washington Post on July 21, 2014.
PHOTO-CAPTION: "Kevin Martin becomes emotional while talking to reporters
after leaving DC Superior courthouse after being exonerated for a crime
he didn't commit."
GIST: "Mr.
Martin, then 19, had admitted his guilt in a series of armed robberies
similar to the events in Ms. Brown’s case but said he knew nothing about
her death and was not involved. Only when presented with forensic
evidence purportedly linking his hair to the crime scene did he agree to
the plea that saw him imprisoned for 26 years. He was paroled in 2009;
if not for the manslaughter conviction in Ms. Brown’s death, he would
have been freed roughly 12 years earlier. Mr. Martin, as The
Post’s Spencer S. Hsu has catalogued in a series of articles, is the
fifth man that federal prosecutors in the District acknowledged was
wrongly convicted due to faulty FBI forensics that relied on the
supposed legitimacy of hair-sample analysis. The four others — Kirk Odom, Donald Gates, Santae Tribble and Cleveland Wright
— collectively spent more than 100 years in prison. They represent only
the local cases; it’s estimated that thousands of cases involved flawed
FBI forensics work, which was first detected in the early 1990s. Just
as troubling as the bad lab work has been the response by authorities.
Days before Mr. Martin’s day in court, the Justice Department’s Office
of Inspector General issued a report
faulting the department and the FBI for delays in reviewing affected
cases and notifying defendants or their attorneys. In some cases, the
reviews came too late, with defendants put to death before their cases
could be examined to determine whether their convictions should be
overturned. Only now, decades after a whistleblower reported the
forensic problems, are the names of defendants whose convictions
involved FBI hair analysis being released. Prosecutors
in Mr. Martin’s case eventually did the right thing, and it’s to their
credit that new evidence was developed that cleared him. But a system
that essentially gives carte blanche to authorities to reexamine their
own mistakes on their own timetable is fundamentally flawed. It’s yet
another reason to reform the discovery process for evidence."
The entire editorial can be found at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-kevin-martin-case-points-to-the-need-to-reform-the-discovery-process/2014/07/25/377679b2-1297-11e4-98ee-daea85133bc9_story.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
I look forward to hearing from readers at:
hlevy15@gmail.com.
