Saturday, October 10, 2009

Texas (In)Justice?

"The Harris County Medical Examiner's office has quietly rewritten the results of a 1998 autopsy, prompting renewed innocence claims on behalf of a baby sitter sent to prison nearly a decade ago for allegedly shaking a 4-month-old infant hard enough to cause fatal injuries. ... But the modified autopsy report made public calls the cause of death 'undetermined' and found no evidence of 'trauma' in the postmortem exam. Those changes came five years after local officials announced a review of problematic autopsies conducted by a former Harris County associate medical examiner, Dr. Patricia Moore. ... Assistant District Attorney Lynn Hardaway said prosecutors remain confident about their case based on other 'evidence presented at trial from doctors who thought [Aubrey Clements] was a victim of shaken baby syndrome'," Lise Olsen, at the Houston Chronicle, 14 September 2009, link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/moms/6617198.html.

Another Harris County DA's office stinker. Hardaway, get lost. Reverse Cynthia Cash's conviction. Now. This case shows one of the many things wrong with our criminal justice system, it's run by criminals. DAs can have any supposed "expert" say anything to secure convictions. Like OJ's case in Los Angeles. Some of Marsha Clark's "expert" testimony was absurd. So? What does out Texas Court of Criminal Appeals do about this? It spews forth nonsense about not "lightly" overturning convictions. If the cause of death is not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, there is not enough evidence to sustain a conviction. Shame on you Hardaway. Nowadays DAs use "experts" as "oath helpers" because they are too incompetent and too lazy to assemble circumstantial evidence cases. If one criminal case in 10,000 get the "Gary Sinese" treatment, it's a lot. DAs like "summary arrest" cases. Why? They take no brains to prosecute. If the jury believes the cop, you get a conviction. It's that simple.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Open court documents and precesses to more public scrutiny... how could you enforce better behavior out of the judicial league otherwise?

Everything benefits from sunlight... including the behavior of Harris County Assistant District Attorneys.