Wrongful Conviction

Josh Dubin discusses Fingerprint Evidence with Mary Moriarty, Chief Public Defender of Hennepin County in Minnesota

Contrary to what pop culture has ingrained in the American conscience, matching known fingerprints of a suspect to prints left at the scene of a crime is not an exact science. It’s entirely subjective.

So how did fingerprints become so widely accepted and thought of as the gold standard, as fool proof evidence?

Learn more and get involved.
http://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com

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 May 2nd, 1992, Marilyn Mulero was out with a friend and someone whom they had just met, Jackie Montanez, mourning the death of another friend at the hands of the Latin Kings, when they happened to meet 2 members of that very same gang. Montanez’s murderous gang life ambitions put her friends’ lives and freedom in jeopardy when they all collided with 2 of Chicago’s most corrupt detectives.

Learn more and get involved at:

https://californiainnocenceproject.org/

https://www.uis.edu/illinoisinnocenceproject/

https://www.exonerationproject.org/

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom

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.

Josh Dubin speaks with Bill Osinski, journalist and author of “Guilty By Popular Demand.”

Even when done correctly, impression analysis of evidence, like shoe prints and tire tracks, is purely subjective. Many experts recognize its limitations. But one so-called “expert” in particular pushed the limits of this forensic discipline to produce horrific outcomes.

Learn more and get involved.

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.

In the spring of 1985, a rapist with a very specific M.O. was on the loose along a stretch of Roswell Road between the city of Atlanta and Fulton County. Somehow it did not matter to the less than scrupulous district attorney when the attacks continued after a composite sketch nabbed the wrong man.

Learn more and get involved at:

https://nacdl.org/

https://www.georgiainnocenceproject.org/

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom

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.

Josh Dubin speaks with Vanessa Antoun, Senior Resource Counsel at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) to learn about Hair Microscopy Evidence.

Even when examined under a microscope, the similarities that can be observed between two hairs are open to wide interpretation, there are no definitive traits that can prove with any scientific certainty that a suspect’s hair matches a hair found at a crime scene. Yet hair comparison analysis was still being used to falsely identify and convict innocent people up until the year 2000 and people are still incarcerated who were convicted based on this false evidence.

So how did this evidence get admitted into courts in the first place?

Learn more and get involved.

https://www.nacdl.org/

innocenceproject.org/exoneree-fund-2020

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.

In the early morning hours of June 30th, 1995, 21 year old mother Kristine Bunch awoke in a carbon monoxide haze to the decimation of her entire world - only for junk science and the false testimony of an actual scientist to make matters worse.

Learn more and get involved at:

https://www.justis4justus.org/

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/podcast/s11e16-wrongful-conviction-junk-science-arson-evidence

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom

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.

At the tail end of the 1980’s, Randal Padgett was living an idyllic rural life of farm and family, when admittedly he made his biggest mistake that began with a skinny dipping joke.

Learn more and get involved at:

https://www.questforjusticethebook.com/

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom

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.

Josh Dubin sits down with Barry Scheck, Co-Founder of the Innocence Project to discuss Arson Evidence.

Built on a foundation of conjecture and best guesses that were never adequately tested and confirmed according to any valid scientific principles, what Arson Evidence experts and prosecutors 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?

Learn more and get involved.

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 January 24th, 2004, a party at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple devolved into violence, resulting in one man’s death. Before the violence erupted, an overserved young man left the party into the care of his new girlfriend - only to become the murder suspect on the word of his jilted ex.

Learn more and get involved at:

https://www.change.org/p/brooklyn-district-attorney-eric-gonzalez-free-james-davis?redirect=false

https://youtu.be/weiNinFs6qM

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom

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.

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

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?

Learn more and get involved.

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.