The judge in Louisiana Nullfs Nullifies Death Row Insasses Murder conviction based on junk science

This article was in cooperation with Prublica's local report network in cooperation with Verite News.

A judge in Louisiana lifted the conviction and the first degree of the first degree of first degree this week, whose conviction from 1998, the 23-month-old daughter of his girlfriend was killed, was partly based on Bite-Mark's evidence, the experts are now saying, Junk Science.

The decision takes place after an investigation by Verite News and Prublica in March has checked the questions about Duncan's conviction as governor Jeff Landry, a convinced lawyer for the death penalty, to speed up executions after a 15-year break.

Judge Alvin Sharp from the 4th District of Justice in the municipality of Ouachita pointed out to new certificates during an appeal hearing in September that such a bite marble analysis, which was presented by a once-stained forensics team, was “no longer valid” and “not scientifically defending”.

The original analysis came from the forensic dentist Michael West and the pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne, whose long -standing partnership as state experts fell under a legal examination after questions about the validity of their techniques occurred.

Nine prisoners have been liberated in the past 27 years after they have been convicted of inaccurate evidence by West and Hayne. Three of these men were in the death cell.

Duncan was the last person who was waiting for a execution based on the couple's work, which Sharp appeared “at best questionable” in his judgment.

Other experts said that Haynes's autopsy and its results were “sloppy” and “overall inadequate”.

“It is worth noting that the qualifications of Dr. Hayne were to a certain extent lacked the serious question in the” expert name “of the pathologist, Sharp wrote in his decision.

In his decision, Sharp also explained that he found the testimony of a specialist medicine witness “very convincing” in September, who said that the child's death was not the result of a murder but an accidental drowning.

It remains unclear when – or whether – Duncan will be free.

Robert S. Tew, district prosecutor of the 4th court district, can choose to make an appeal against the decision, to regain Duncan for murder or a lower crime or to accept the decision of the court and to put it free. Tew did not respond to inquiries about comments. Duncan's legal team refused to comment.

Louisiana has a long recording of the conviction and condemnation of the people who later found themselves innocent. In the past three decades, according to the national register of relief of 11 people, the state has exposed to the highest figures in the country.

The 56 -year -old Duncan has retained his innocence for more than three decades, while the prosecutors continued to insist that Duncan committed the murder and was to be executed immediately.

Duncan Babyscase Haley Oliveaux, his girlfriend's daughter, in the house, which she shared on December 18, 1993 in West Monroe, Louisiana. He said he left her alone in the bathtub as he washed dishes. At some point he said he heard a loud sound from the bathroom. When he went to Haley, he found her floating face down in the water. She was declared dead a few hours later.

While Duncan claimed that it was a tragic accident, the authorities accused him of the first degree murder after Hayne and West had examined and found the girl's body that there was evidence that they had been sexually attacked and deliberately drowned. After about two weeks in 1998, the jury Duncan found guilty and condemned him to death.

Years later, after the conviction, Duncan's lawyers discovered evidence that were not presented in court who, as they said, prove his innocence. This includes an informant of the prison house that wrote to the public prosecutor who exchanged Duncan's confession to the crimes in the defense claims that was an exchange against the forbearance (the informant later revoked his trial); Past head injuries Haley suffered that could explain their death; And a video in which west grinds a line -up of Duncan's teeth in Haley's body. West later claimed that these bite brands, which the defense, made the forensic dentist, had a match for Duncans teeth.

Hayne died in 2020. West did not immediately answer inquiries about comments on the judgment.

West previously said that he simply used a so -called “direct comparison technology”, in which he presses a form of the teeth of a person directly on the place of suspicion of bite traces, since according to an interview 2020, it delivers the most precise results.

West said that he no longer believed in a bite-mark analysis in a deposition of 2011 in another appointment after the convention and said: “I don't think it is a system that is reliable enough to be used in court” and admitted to making mistakes in previous cases. But in an interview of 2023, he told the new Republic that his methods are valid because other people used them.

In the decision of this week, Sharp also found the testimony of Detective Chris Sasser in September, who examined Haley's death. Sasser said there were “no blood, no signs of fight, no cleaning rags and no cleaning agents” in the bathroom or house in which the alleged crime took place. This undermined the state's claim that there was “massive blood loss”, said the judgment.

In addition, Sharp found that Duncan's process lawyer Louis Scott made an ineffective lawyer available. Sharp pointed to a witness who said that Scott did not show any “examination or submitted evidence that was available at the time of the process” that he did not “develop coherent defense theory” and that he did not disclose any conflict of interest.

Scott's wife told Verite News and Prublica that he had suffered significant health problems such as memory and language impairment and refused to comment on the judge's decision.

Duncan is one of the 55 people in the death cell in Louisiana, although until recently he and the others were not in the immediate danger of being executed, since the state had not died anyone since 2010 due to the unavailability of execution drugs. That changed with Landry's election of 2023.

Landry has made his intention clear to carry out these death sentences as soon as possible after he recently approved the use of nitrogen gas, a controversial method that is permitted in just three other countries.

This solved the way for the first execution of the state for more than 15 years when Jessie Hoffman was killed with nitrogen gas on March 18.