It's Time for Defense Attorneys to Challenge Forensic Reports In Every Case

The series of articles the Broward Law Blog has done on the decompensating authority of past forensic analysis is summarized in these blogs:

http://browardlawblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Forensics

An article in the weekend NY Times exposes flaws in Alabama so severe that "Alabama authorities plan to review as many as 100 forensic cases by a medical examiner whose botched autopsy of a baby led a judge to throw out a murder charge against the mother."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/us/11brfs-REVIEWOFFORE_BRF.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

The handwriting is on the wall. We have been so reliant on this technology that we have not questioned it thoroughly, challenged it effectively, or overturned it successfully. We have buffaloed and bulldozed by guys in white suits wearing the title of experts and accepting foolishly their representations to courts and jurists.

And now study after study is showing just how supplicant we have been and how wrong they are. If I ran a public defender's office, or managed a state attorney, I would ask them to join together to form an 'Innocence Project' and scrutinize jointly all these outside forensic experts they have been contracting with for years, and demand review and further analysis on all those cases where the purported accuracy of forensics was cause for a verdict. Let's do what is just for anyone and and not just what is expedient for everyone.

Criminal Justice Reform on US Senate Agenda

Speaking of prisons, and editorials, the NY Times is encouraging this weekend too, writing to adopt Senator Jim Webb's call for a commission to review our misguided criminal justice system, far more criminal than it is just.

"America’s criminal justice system needs repair. Prisons are overcrowded, sentencing policies are uneven and often unfair, ex-convicts are poorly integrated into society, and the growing problem of gang violence has not received the attention it deserves. For these and other reasons, a bill introduced last week by Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, should be given high priority on the Congressional calendar.

The bill, which has strong bipartisan support, would establish a national commission to review the system from top to bottom. It is long overdue, and should be up and running as soon as possible.

The United States has the highest reported incarceration rate in the world. More than 1 in 100 adults are now behind bars, for the first time in history. The incarceration rate has been rising faster than the crime rate, driven by harsh sentencing policies like “three strikes and you’re out,” which impose long sentences that are often out of proportion to the seriousness of the offense."

As Lenny Bruce said, 'in the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.'

Florida 'Google Mistrial' Captures NY Times and National Attention in Legal Community

Was there not a scene in '12 Angry Men' where a juror retrieves a knife out of his pocket and says that 'look this resembles the murder weapon, and it is a common pocket knife anyone can carry with him at any time; it does not make you a murderer?' Well, yes, there is that scene involving Juror number 8. You know, there is so much you can say about this film, shot in one room, all black and white, names not used, almost worth going back and watching again and again just as a refresher.

But what if the juror to prove his point could have googled the knife in question? What if? Well, it could not have happened in 1957 but it is sure happening in 2009. Forget the juror who brought a dictionary to a trial in the Salesman case last week in Broward causing a mistrial. How many times do you think jurors in the past year might have taken their I Phones and googled up a confusing word directed to them by a judge?



Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in the Southern District admitted to the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the Internet, directly violating the judge’s instructions and centuries of legal rules. But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury, he got an even bigger shock, the NY Times reports. Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing. The federal judge, William J. Zloch, had no choice but to declare a mistrial, a waste of eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers.


“We were stunned,” said a defense lawyer, Peter Raben, who was told by the jury that he had been on the verge of winning the case. “It’s the first time modern technology struck us in that fashion, and it hit us right over the head."



And the NY Times has the story today. It is being called the Google mistrial. It is the future and it has jumped upon us. What was it the comic strip character Pogo said: 'We have met the future and it is us?'

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/us/18juries.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

The Internet is a good thing. But jurors have to be free of taint. And now there may have to be a new rules committee which addresses just how much access jurors can have during a trial. Boilerplate instructions no longer suffice. The technological landscape has changed, and so too must we with it. It's a brave new world. I am happy to be here and be part of it. Newspapers may be dying but the information age is not.

Russian Remake of '12 Angry Men' Opens in Big Apple

'12 Angry Men' is considered one of the best legal movies of all time. Matter of fact, you can see a you tube link to a scene from the film on the right hand side of The Broward Law Blog, if you just scroll down.

Comes now what the NY Times is literally calling an 'operatic remake' with a Soviet venue, opening in Manhattan today. Wow. Had no clue.

Says reviewer Stephen Holden, "the clashes among 12 Muscovites charged with determining the guilt or innocence of a young man accused of murder form a composite portrait of post-Soviet Russia. "

Running time is three hours. Shades of Benjamin Britton ! Still looking forward to it! And here is the link to the NY Times review..

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/movies/04twel.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

'End of Exclusionary Rule?' Editorial in NY Times

“Nothing can destroy a government more quickly,” the court noted, “than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.”
=US Supreme Court in Mapp v. Ohio
Will yesterday's ruling hold up today??

Read about it in the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/opinion/16mon4.html?_r=1&th&emc=th