Part 5 Innocence in Mississippi

The State of Mississippi is fortunately encountering pressure from the community to remove Dr. Steven Hayne, whose false testimony led to the wrongful conviction of both Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, as medical examiner. The Innocence Project has already filed an official complaint against Dr. Hayne.

For months, Mississippi medical examiner Steven Hayne has come under fire for years of false forensic testimony, unethical methods, nepotism and potential illegal activities. His flawed autopsies led two innocent men to spend a combined three decades in prison before they were exonerated earlier this year. He claims to work 110 hours a week and conduct 1,500 autopsies a year – earning him more than a million dollars annually.

On Sunday, the Hattiesburg American posted an editorial criticizing the state of Mississippi's slow response to what is truly a serious problem. The author of the editorial quotes three different district attorneys who say that they have found no problems with Dr. Hayne's work and are sure that he hasn't been a problem in their district. This response comes despite the fact that Dr.Hayne claims to perform on average 1500 autopsies each year. The recommended average by the National Association of Medical Examiners is 250 per year with an absolute maximum of 325. Given these numbers, the author of the editorial asks, how can the district attorneys be confident in the results?

"I have found him to be competent. I think he's qualified and I have encountered no problems or irregularities," said Jon Mark Weathers, district attorney for Forrest and Perry counties.

Jones County District Attorney Tony Buckley concurred.

"I don't think any of his actions he's being investigated for affects our district, in my opinion," Bowen said. "I just don't see a problem with him in this district."

Covington County District Attorney Eddie Bowen also said he had no issue.

This strikes as three ostriches putting their heads in the sand. How can these DA's be at all confident in Hayne's work given the information that has come out about the pathologist?

I hope that the only motivation behind these reactions is a desire to maintain a calm working environment. However, I can't help but suspect that due to the high potential for rampant lawsuits these DAs along with other state officials may want to avoid exposing flaws in their system and therefore uncovering large numbers of wrongful convictions. I realize that most state governments are strapped for cash and that a large number of overturned convictions could be a public relations nightmare as well as a financial one, but freeing innocent people is just simply more important than all of that.

Part 4 Innocence in Mississippi

Dr. Steven Hayne, who performs 80% of the autopsies in the state of Mississippi and who performed the autopsies on the victims in both the Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks cases, is being exposed as a fraud by the Innocence Project. Innocence Project attorneys in Mississippi are officially calling for Hayne's license to be revoked. Hayne's misdeeds include lying under oath about his position within the medical examiners office, performing too many autopsies in a year, and making false statements concerning the conclusions of his autopsies. Given the importance of his job and the long term effect his testimony can have, Dr. Hayne's is amazingly cavalier about his indiscretions. In response to the Innocence Project asserting that while he has performed around 1500 autopsies each year, the maximum limit of the National Association of Medical Examiners is 250, Hayne told the press

Hayne said such a number is arbitrary. “There’s one group that says you shouldn’t do more than 350, and there are other groups that don’t have a limit,” he said. “Should I call the Innocence Project to see if I’ve done too many and stop?”

He estimates he works 110 hours a week. “Some people were put on this earth to party, and some people were put on this earth to work,” he said. “I’ve always worked very hard.”

Dr. Hayne fails to ever cite any group with 350 as its limit or with no limits at all. The question of quantity is central to this case given the fact that the autopsies he has performed when evaluated by independent experts is shown to be astonishingly poor. There is also a demonstrated pattern of arriving to scientifically improbably solutions in order to support the prosecutions theory of the crime. It's not surprising then that Mississippi prosecutor Forrest Allgood had this to say,

"My experience with Hayne is that 99 times out of 100 he testifies this guy died and this is how he died," Allgood said. "How is that in any way convicting innocent people?"

As the prosecutor in both the Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer cases, Allgood really should know the answer to this question. The jury convicted both men largely based on the faulty testimony of Dr. Hayne and another pathologist. These cases have thankfully held this obviously corrupt criminal justice system under the national microscope, and the fact that both Dr. Hayne and Mr. Allgood seem to have no remorse about the wrong that was done to these two men (and now it seems probably many more people as faulty autopsies done by Hayne are being discovered as a I type this for trials that have recently concluded or have not yet begun) is very unsettling. Our criminal justice system is not perfect and never can be and mistakes will happen, but when covering up those mistakes becomes more important than the rights of innocent people then maybe Mr. Allgood needs think about stepping down as well.

Innocence in Mississippi

Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks are living proof of the importance of competence in our criminal justice system. CNN sets the scene:

At a small-town courthouse in one of rural Mississippi's poorest counties, Dr. Michael West swore under oath that a dead girl had bite marks all over her body and that they were made by the two front teeth of the man charged with murdering her.

Dr. West had appeared in numerous Mississippi trials as a paid forensic odontology expert for the prosecution.On that day in 1995, jurors found his testimony credible enough to convict Kennedy Brewer of raping and murdering a 3-year-old girl with little to no other evidence. Mr. Brewer was sentenced to death.

Three years prior, Dr.West testified in an eerily similar rape-and-murder case involving another 3-year-old girl from the same town. Dr. West testified that bite marks that were found on the victim's wrist were made by Levon Brooks. Mr. Brooks was also found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

The crimes they were charged with were not the only thing Brooks and Brewer had in common.Both defendants were accused of raping and murdering their girlfriend's child. Both defendants were from Brooksville. Both defendants were poor. Both defendants were African-American. And both defendants were innocent.

Earlier this month[February], Justin Albert Johnson, a 51-year-old Brooksville man who had been a suspect early on, was arrested and charged in one of the murders. Investigators said he confessed to both killings after DNA analysis proved that his semen was in the victim in the Brewer case.

An investigation by an Innocence Project panel of forensic odontologists from England, Canada, and the United States confirmed that the bite marks on the victims were likely the result of small insects, decomposition, and rough handling when the bodies were recovered. The panel itself did not explicitly make a charge of intentional wrong-doing on the part of Dr.West, but multiple panel participants stated that they did not understand how these marks could have reasonably been confused with human bite marks. These findings have opened the possibility of a criminal investigation against Dr. West, who prosecutors say has not been used as an expert witness since the mid-1990s. The public and various advocacy groups are also calling for review of all cases in Dr. West worked on.

Brewer and Brooks spent more than a decade of their life in jail for crimes they did not commit, while a child rapist and murderer remained free. Given the complete incompetence and possible corruption of this "expert", there could be dozens more innocent men behind bars and dozens more criminals roaming the streets under the radar. Their story reminds us that we must get involved with our local governments and let them know that incompetence and lack of oversight will not go unnoticed.

For more information, check out the Innocence Blog