Wrongful Conviction

On February 21, 1994, in New Orleans, LA, a 6-year-old girl was taken to the hospital after complaining of pain and unusual vaginal discharge. The doctors concluded that the young girl had been raped after she tested positive for gonorrhea. The girl was interviewed by authorities without any guardian present, and ended up saying that a family member named Patrick had touched her genitals. Despite there being other probable suspects in the family, 20-year-old Patrick Brown was charged with, and ultimately convicted of aggravated rape, and sentenced to life without parole primarily based on this one interview. Over the next 30 years, the girl continuously contacted the prosecutor’s office stating that they had the wrong guy. Yet, Patrick remained in prison. 

Guest host, Tiffany Reese, talks to Patrick Brown and Kelly Orians, Patrick's attorney. 

To learn more and get involved, please visit: 

GoFundme.com - Patrick Brown

Wrongful Conviction  is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

​​We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Built on a foundation of conjecture and best guesses that were never adequately tested according to any valid scientific principles, arson evidence experts have been telling juries for decades that one can definitively determine that a fire was intentionally set is completely wrong.

But why, after generations of experts have all been proven wrong, is there still an unwillingness to change? Barry Scheck, Co-Founder of the Innocence Project, discusses Arson Evidence with Josh.

Kate Judson, Executive Director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, updates Josh Dubin's Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science. 

To learn more and get involved, please visit:

https://cifsjustice.org/donate/

2009 Article in The New Yorker by David Grann

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/junk-science

Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science  is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

​​We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On April 23, 1984 a couple was robbed at gunpoint by two perpetrators outside a convenience store in New Orleans, LA. The couple fought back, which resulted in one of the robbers – Eric Batiste – being accidentally shot and killed by his partner. An officer assumed that since Batiste and 17-year-old George Toca were best friends, that George was the other robber. The couple’s description of Batiste’s partner was nothing like George, but they still selected him from a photo lineup and he was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. 

To learn more and get involved, please visit:

https://ip-no.org/

https://everydropnola.com/gibusinesses

https://www.mightycause.com/story/Ow485g 

Wrongful Conviction  is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

​​We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloodstain pattern experts falsely claim that they can identify the culprit of violent crimes by examining the shape and distribution of bloodstains from a crime scene. But, bloodstain pattern evidence has no grounding in any verifiable science. So how did this kind of junk science become admissible?

Josh Dubin, civil rights and criminal defense attorney, explores bloodstain pattern evidence with Pamela Colloff, senior reporter at ProPublica and staff writer at The New York Times Magazine.

Kate Judson, Executive Director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, updates Josh Dubin's Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science. 

To learn more and get involved, please visit:

https://cifsjustice.org/donate/

Pamela Coloff’s two part story on the Joe Bryan case Blood Will Tell - ProPublica

Part 1 https://features.propublica.org/blood-spatter/mickey-bryan-murder-blood-spatter-forensic-evidence/

Part 2 https://features.propublica.org/blood-spatter/joe-bryan-conviction-blood-spatter-forensic-evidence/

National Academy of Sciences: Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/228091.pdf

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/junk-science

Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science  is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

​​We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

18-year-old Jessica Currin’s burned and decomposing body was discovered on August 1, 2000 behind Mayfield Middle School in Mayfield, KY. Jessica had lacerations on the back of her head, nose and chin, and stab wounds. The medical examiner also believed she had been strangled but there was no evidence to support this theory. The case went cold for a few years, until a couple of supposed eyewitnesses came forward, motivated by promises of reward money, and told inconsistent stories that they and multiple others had kidnapped, killed, and raped Jessica. They said Quincy Cross was one of the people involved, and that he was the person who hit and strangled Jessica. Based on this unreliable testimony, as well as a jailhouse snitch, and despite a lack of physical evidence connecting him to this crime, Quincy was convicted of the kidnapping, rape and murder of Jessica Currin and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Maggie Freleng talks to Quincy Cross and Miranda Hellman, Quincy's attorney. 

To learn more and get involved, please visit: 

https://www.change.org/p/free-quincy-cross

www.kentuckyinnocenceproject.org

Wrongful Conviction  is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

​​We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One July night in 1995, Deputy Sheriff William G. Hardy was shot behind the Crown Sterling Suites hotel in Birmingham, Alabama. At the same time as the murder, at least ten people saw Toforest Johnson four miles away, at a popular nightclub called Tee's Place. But detectives zeroed in on him as a main suspect in Deputy Hardy’s murder anyway, ultimately resulting in Toforest being tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. For over a quarter century, Toforest has been confined to a 5’ by 8’ cell on Alabama’s death row.

In 2019, investigative journalist Beth Shelburne began covering the case, going down a disturbing rabbit hole revealing many unsettling facts that cast grave doubts about Toforest’s guilt. The facts she found tear at the very foundation of the American criminal justice system: No eyewitnesses or physical evidence tied Toforest to the murder; the state tried to convict a different man for the same crime; and perhaps most disturbing of all, Toforest’s conviction relied on an ‘earwitness’ – a woman who claimed to have eavesdropped on an incriminating phone call, a woman whom prosecutors paid for her testimony, in secret. That payment was not disclosed to the jury, Toforest, or his lawyers until after he had been on death row for 17 years.

From the team behind the award-winning hit podcast Bone Valley, Lava for Good’s Earwitness is an 8-episode docuseries that asks the question, “How did an innocent man end up on death row — and why is the state still trying to execute him over the objection of the prosecutor who put him there?” Shelburne’s unprecedented access to key players—the lead detective, lead prosecutor, witnesses, jurors, and the earwitness herself— illuminate a story filled with disturbing twists, frustrating ambiguities, and shocking admissions. The story of Toforest Johnson and the state's enthusiasm for the death penalty in the face of such troubling evidentiary flaws brings to light the failings of a criminal justice system run amok.

https://link.chtbl.com/uvmXtbob

Earwitness will be available every Tuesday beginning September 19 wherever you get your podcasts. To hear episodes 1 week early and ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good+ on Apple Podcasts.

Earwitness is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Like other forms of junk science used in criminal trials, bite mark evidence does not benefit crime victims or their loved ones. So why is it treated like credible science. It turns out that the charade of bite mark evidence is actually older than the United States.

Kate Judson, Executive Director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, updates Josh Dubin's Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science.

To learn more and get involved, please visit:

https://cifsjustice.org/donate/
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/junk-science

Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science  is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

​​We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On June 28, 1997, 25-year-old member of the Lil Watts gang, Antonio Alarcon, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Hawthorne, California, by a rival gang, Lawndale 13. In exchange for release on unrelated charges, Santo “Payaso” Alvarez deflected attention for the Alarcon shooting toward fellow Lawndale 13 members Eduardo Dumbrique and John Klene, when he knew who the actual shooter was. Witness Daniel Curiel testified that after he was not able to make an identification in a photo lineup, Sergeant Doral Riggs pointed to the photos of Eduardo and John, convincing him to make the ID. However, Eduardo and John's alibis were corroborated by many friends and neighbors. Additionally, the actual shooter reached out to Eduardo’s family to confess to the murder. Regardless of the alibis, the confession, and the lack of physical or forensic evidence, Eduardo and John were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In this updated episode, Jason Flom checks in with Eduardo and John at the 2023 Innocence Network Conference to hear what they've been up to since their episode aired.   

To learn more and get involved, please visit:

https://www.pjlawcenter.org/page/2364325-home

http://www.innocencematters.org/ 

https://www.instagram.com/johnklene_free/ 

Wrongful Conviction  is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

​​We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early morning hours of June 30th, 1995 in Greensburg, IN, 21 year old mother Kristine Bunch awoke in a carbon monoxide haze to the decimation of her entire world. Junk science and false testimony made matters much, much worse.

In this updated episode, Jason Flom catches up with Kristine at the 2023 Innocence Network Conference to discuss the impactful advocacy work she continues doing to support others who have been wrongfully convicted. 

To learn more and get involved, please visit: 

https://interrogatingjustice.org/

https://www.justis4justus.org/

https://innocenceproject.org/

https://www.uis.edu/illinoisinnocenceproject

Wrongful Conviction  is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

​​We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Lorain, OH, a notorious informant father and son duo traded false information for $2k, wrongfully ensnaring 4 young men in the criminal legal system - one of whom was budding hip hop star, artist, and author, Al Cleveland.

In this updated episode, Jason Flom catches up with Al to discuss the great non-profit work he is doing today to support individuals who are just coming home from prison, in addition to his continued work as an artist. 

To learn more and get involved, visit: 

https://www.clevecostudios.com/

https://www.lovehandle.com/

https://www.instagram.com/alfredcleveland3/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/alfred.cleveland.73

Center For Employment Opportunities: https://www.ceoworks.org/

Wrongful Conviction  is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

​​We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.