Radley Balko has published on Huffington a huge project on Mississippi’s infamous pathologist Stephen Hayne and his erstwhile sidekick, dentist Michael West.
This timeline, outlining case after case (including some of Hayne’s civil testimony) is devastating and damning. Â The timeline is a side bar to this account of the solving of the murder of Kathy Mabry, a murder that was solved literally in spite of the opinions of Hayne and West. Â He notes:
In the Mabry case, West used bite-mark analysis to nab an innocent man for Mabry’s murder. That man spent nearly a year in jail. But the Mabry story also shows that the victims in this scandal include not just the wrongly accused, but the families of the victims, the future victims of the actual perpetrators, public officials like Roseman, and even entire towns.
There are lots of details about Hayne’s adventures over the years:
According to a complaint filed by the Mississippi Innocence Project, one case Hayne included in his report the weight of a man’s spleen, and made comments about its appearance. The problem: The man’s spleen had been removed four years before he died. In an autopsy on a drowned infant, Hayne noted the weight of each of the child’s kidneys, even though one of them had previously been removed. In another murder case, Hayne noted in his report that he had removed and examined the decedent’s ovaries and uterus. The victim was a man.
It’s shameful that these men aren’t in jail.
It’s even more shameful that Jim Hood is on their side.
… Also, unless Balko has a new nickname, I think you have a typo in the title.
Radley Rocks!
I seem to recall that one of the high points of Scott Turow’s “Presumed Innocent” was the devastating cross-examination of the coroner by the defense attorney (Raul Julia in the film). The coroner had linked the main character’s DNA to semen found amid the spermicidal jelly found in the victim’s body, but he had completely failed to notice that the victim had had her tubes tied years earlier and thus had no need for a spermicide. Everyone marveled at how the coroner could have made such a “colossal blunder,” and the defense attorney speculated that the coroner would likely never testify again.
How trivial that error seems compared to the parade of incompetence that the Mississippi court system accepts from Hayne and West.
This is a cloud over the entire Mississippi judicial system. The only solution is for a new trial to be granted to each and every person who was convicted based on this wretched man’s testimony. And I don’t mean any judicial “review.” I mean if he testified the conviction is overturned.
I am disappointed in Jim Hood on this, but I am disappointed in our Supreme Court as well. As a body they have essentially said, hey, we know the man was prone to lie through his teeth, but no new trials unless you can absolutely prove the lie. In other words, guilty until proven innocent.
I do wonder if it is possible to have some sort of amicus brief and/or petition to the Supreme Court that might have literally hundreds of signatures of Mississippi lawyers who care about justice. I hate crime and sometimes hate criminals, but it does not follow that our hatred of criminals should cause us to punish the innocent.
I am disappointed in Jim Hood on this, but I am disappointed in our Supreme Court as well.
Word. We just had an election for 3 justices. Anyone remember a single question’s being asked of them about Hayne?
CRS: I am disappointed in Jim Hood on this, but I am disappointed in our Supreme Court as well. I share your disappointment in our AG and the high court. But I’m not surprised.
I’m most disappointed in the Mississippi Bar. Where is the bar in all this? Has the bar so much as “appointed a committee to look into the situation”? … its usual gutless response to big issues.
Where is the bar? Where is bar leadership? Who in the bar is standing up to demand justice justice justice? Why is the bar not saying “Our justice system has been stained. People are rotting away in Parchman who may be unjustly convicted. We can identify who they are and we shall review in most exacting detail the evidence and the witnesses who put them there. And if they appear unjustly convicted, then we shall demand such remediation as American justice requires.” Or something like that.
Where is the Mississippi Bar … other than leaning on the bar in the cocktail lounge at the bar convention? What does it take to get the bar off bottom-dead-center? Can the bar get off BDC? Can the bar do anything? Why do we have the bar?
Anderson,
Most people view this whole issue of wanting to give these people fair and proper trails as one of being soft on crime. Let’s look at the facts we know.
1. Most of these people are guilty.
2. Without the perjured testimony many of these guilty people will go free.
That’s enough for a lot of people. They don’t want guilty people getting out of jail.
3. Without overturning these convictions and granting new trials, it is almost a certainty that we have a few innocent people in jail.
I think a majority of run-of-the-mill voters is willing to accept the fact that a few innocent people may have to languish in jail based on perjured testimony as the price that has to be paid for keeping criminals off the street. So I don’t blame judges for not running on a platform of turning out the jails. But I do blame them, and Hood,for being willing to keep people in jail when they know their convictions may be based on a sack of lies. At this point it should not be up to the convicted defendant to come forward and “prove” anything other than the fact that Hayne or West testified at their trails.
Ben: indeed. Abolish the Mississippi Bar. Let the MSSC police legal practice as part of its inherent power over the judicial branch.
There’s no need whatsoever for this useless organization, dedicated to the proposition of mulcting dues and providing nothing in return.
… Colonel, I think you’re right re: “the people,” but one reason for representative gov’t, a republic not direct democracy, is to have wiser heads making the decisions.
Of course, to put it like that is to recognize the failure that is Hood. But I see no reason to believe the GOP would be any more just on this matter.
– With one exception. HALEY BARBOUR FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL!
Anderson – if anybody had asked any of the candidates for SC Justice, they would have universally received the standard (and proper) answer that they could not comment on it because it might well come before them if/when they were on the bench. That’s (one of) the problem with electing judges.
James: the standard (and proper) answer that they could not comment on it because it might well come before them if/when they were on the bench.
I can’t accept that non-answer. The proper answer should be, in my opinion: “I will engage the Supreme Court’s supervisory authority over the Mississippi judiciary to determine whether correctable miscarriages of justice are depriving people of their constitutional freedoms, and to make corrections as may be necessary under law.” Or something like that.
Those guys can’t just stand on the sidelines with their arms crossed and continue their disinterest in major injustices.
I’m not going Godwinian here, but the attitude and posture of our AG and our judicial officers reminds me of the film footage I’ve seen of Heinrich Himmler’s visiting a prison compound while holding a hankie to his nose to avoid the stench … the stench he created.
The administration of justice is based on the county as the basic political unit. The county lobby are the Supervisors, Sheriffs, Clerks, Judges,Coroners, and the lawyer professional associations. It IS the power of the legislature. Political organization is spawned in the county courthouse where it has been since colonial times. We need modern political units combining jurisdictions with the financial and managerial benefits going to the electorate instead of the quasi-professional county officials. In short we need a modern constitution and a rationalized government.
In short we need a modern constitution and a rationalized government.
And a pony. Sigh.
Anderson, if we’re adding gift unlikely wishes on top of unlikely wishes, I want some more contemporary mode of transportation than a pony.
Like, for instance, a six series BMW.
(yes, I got the pony reference).
A pony is probably more reliable than a Beamer.
I’m curious whether defensive wound posturing is based on “scientific methods and procedures”? If so, what would qualify Dr. Hayne as an expert in that field? Is it part of his CV? It’s rather curious to me that Dr. Hayne can tell from looking at a body who attacked who and that his theory exactly fits with what the prosecution said happened. Oh wait, not so curious.
Not to be offensive, but it appears that “Mississippi” has chosen to re-route the gawkers to the Natchez Trace instead of cleaning up the wreckage and carnage of the 25 year pile up on the Interstate. I mean really now…
“Defensive posturing” sounds like what Hayne does, for sure.
Ben, I agree with your take on the bar, and the strange lack of a thirst to restore justice in these matters.
But isn’t that the same thing we see in the handling of ‘war on terror’ detainees? Very little concern about whether injustice is taking place. Look at the people who, based on the evidence we have, appear to be completely innocent and caught up in the maw of military “justice.”
Reminds me of Isaiah’s lament:
No one enters suit justly;
no one goes to law honestly;
they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies,
they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.
…
Their feet run to evil,
and they are swift to shed innocent blood;
their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
desolation and destruction are in their highways.
The way of peace they do not know,
and there is no justice in their paths;
they have made their roads crooked;
no one who treads on them knows peace.
Therefore justice is far from us,
and righteousness does not overtake us;
we hope for light, and behold, darkness,
and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
…
we hope for justice, but there is none;
for salvation, but it is far from us.
For our transgressions are multiplied before you,
and our sins testify against us;
for our transgressions are with us,
and we know our iniquities:
transgressing, and denying the Lord,
and turning back from following our God,
speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.
Justice is turned back,
and righteousness stands far away;
for truth has stumbled in the public squares,
and uprightness cannot enter.
Truth is lacking,
and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.
The Lord saw it, and it displeased him
that there was no justice.
(Isaiah 59)
John Pittman Hey
Ben, sorry but your ‘proper answer’ is nothing but stating the responsibility and duties of any appeals court justice. At least, that is exactly what I would expect a justice to do everyday, in every matter before them.
If given as an anser to the ‘non-posed question’ suggested by Anderson it would have been non-responsive. Individual voters could take it to mean whatever they wanted to, depending on whether they supported or opposed the particular candidate. But if anyone truly wanted to know the stand of the judicial candidate they would not be any more advanced than before the hypothetical question had been asked.
So far we have a ideas for abolishing the Mississippi Bar Association (perhaps the Magnolia Bar too), retrials for hundreds of state cases, tasking the state supreme court with regulating all lawyers, opening an investigation of the Attorney General, Holy Scriptures relative to a failed state, and a constitutional convention. We do have a federal prosecutor in place in the state capital now. Choose your pony.
Oh it’s a lot worse than that, Charles Ali: Webster County lost a courthouse this week.
Galvez had all sorts of insane opinions too. Didn’t he say, among other things, he could tell the sex of the assailant from looking at knife wounds? And I worked on a case where McGarry opined during the autopsy that the deceased died from a combination of drugs, alcohol and rough sex. As might be expected, that morphed into premeditated murder at trial.
Ben, the MS Bar Association long ago punted on independently investigating anything. Even when evidence is before the public, the bar wants a formal complaint filed. In one scenario, there are two lawyers who were accused of fraud. They agreed to a civil fine which was quite large. the bar did nothing.
I’m giving the Mississippi Bar and the state supreme court one last opportunity to redeem themselves. If they don’t impose immediate heavy sanctions on the estate of Lennay Keanu … well, I’ll disavow ever knowing them. We just can’t ignore the tragic deaths of people who never lived and the impact such could have on our football players. Nip it … nip it in the bud.
It seems that the Mississippi Bar Association (not sure about the Magnolia Bar Association) is similar to a police union in that it protects its bad apples from being held accountable for their actions. Sigh. What does a lawyer who doesn’t want to be part of such mendacity do?
The contrast between, say, Scruggs, vs. the lawyer who puts his client’s settlement in his own checking account for a month before forwarding the total due to the client, is certainly striking.
Note too that commingling is the kind of thing that’s a problem for solo practitioners, whereas the sins committed by big firms seem to be more forgivable. What was that deal a while ago where the att’y slept with his client’s wife? Regardless of whether that was legal malpractice, it’s the kind of thing you would think a Bar ass’n would sanction.
The attorney sleeping with his client’s wife case was an interesting one. The client sued for alienation, etc., and got a jury award of $1.5 million which was upheld by the state supreme court. I haven’t been able to discover whether the judgment was ever paid.
The MS Bar, on the other hand, issued a mere private reprimand in that case.
Thanks for looking that up, JPH.
My understanding is that the client’s wife was also a client of the attorney in question and that she was a second or third year law student. The attorney was representing the couple and their child in a damage suit. My understanding, and others may correct me, is that the husband decided to return to the left coast and left the wife and disabled child alone and the attorney became too involved with her, to put it mildly. They eventually married. I think the marriage lasted six or seven years and ended in divorce last year.
The husband, who is quite wealthy, intentionally sued for only alienation of affection rather than malpractice so that the attorney’s insurance policy would not pay and thus he would get a large judgment that would hang over the attorney. To the best of my knowledge much of that judgment is unpaid.
The attorney is a friend of mine. He has suffered enough and I think a private reprimand is plenty.
These esquires insure the King’s peace and have the power to make some changes in our administration of justice:
L.P. Cossar
I. Richard Gershon
Robert Jackson, Sr.
Wesla S. Leech
Michael J. Malouf
William T. May
Edward Robinson McGraw
Floyd M. Melton III
Robin A. Midcalf
Jessie Mitchell III
Deanne M. Mosley
George J. Nassar, Jr.
Richard G. Noble
Allie S. Povall, Jr.
Joseph E. Roberts, Jr.
Brian W. Sanderson
Lester F. Smith
Karl R. Steinberger
Aleita M. Sullivan
William C. Trotter III
Joseph E. Varner III
Thomas E. Vaughn
Jamie White