From Griesbach's remarks:
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Not photographing the condition of the fire pit before removing the bone fragments, on the other hand, was a major mistake unless there was a legitimate reason I’m not aware of. Evidence at a crime scene is ordinarily not disturbed until it’s photographed and carefully processed looking for clues. In retrospect, anthropological 'gridding' of the burn pit to show precisely where each bone fragment was positioned would have been a good idea too, but I think it’s too much to expect for them to have anticipated the evidence planting defense.
Griesbach is correct that in any normal above board and honest investigation a forensic analysis of the fire pit would have been made. Instead, the police in charge of this investigation expressly denied access to the alleged crime scene to the County Coroner to make any kind of forensic documentation. There is no innocent reason for the police to forbid the coroner from carrying out her duties.
As for the absurd statement that police could not anticipate the appearance of planting evidence, that is simply in complete conflict with the facts. In Sheriff Pagel's testimony he lays out why Manitowoc police were not supposed to be involved:
"
So as to not look like there was any type of tampering, we felt it was important that we do the investigation properly from the beginning (Nov 5)... Because of the litigation, it was felt that,
let's insure that there's no thing in the future that's going to be construed as being a cover up, or anything like that."
How Griesbach can be unaware of this is difficult to parse.
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...this is not the Scotland Yard.
No, not by a long shot. It's not even proper police work for Mayberry, RFD.
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The defense made much of the deviation from protocol by Sherry Culhane in reporting the results of the DNA testing of the biological material on the bullet found in Avery’s garage. I don’t blame them one bit. Not to challenge it aggressively would be terrible lawyering. Conspiracy theorists will never buy Culhane’s explanation that only the control was contaminated and it did not affect the accuracy of the results, but I think she was convincing and I don’t recall a defense expert claiming otherwise. She’s a qualified professional chemist whose integrity has not otherwise been challenged during her long career. Like many officials in this case who were accused of wrongdoing, she had no skin in the game.
Culhane cannot 'explain' that the evidence was not contaminated. She cannot even explain how the control sample came to be contaminated. This has nothing to do with being a 'conspiracy theorist' - it has to do with common sense.
Another bit of misinformation from Griesbach. Culahane
does have 'skin in the game' as work from her contamination prone lab helped put Steven away for a rape committed by another man, whose MO was a better match for the crime. Yes, Culhane was one of the people involved in the wrongful conviction which lead to the multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Mantiowoc police.
She's also unlikely to admit her sloppy labwork has compromised the case of the century. If Culhane can contaminate a control sample, she can contaminate the evidence.
Based on a number of disciplinary letters, it would appear Culhane's lab was rife with problems - including drunkenness on the job:
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* An analyst in 2002 falsely claimed to have done a fingerprint match, then submitted falsified documentation to support it. The person drew a written reprimand.
* An analyst in an unnamed portion of the lab was fired in 2004 after supervisors documented "an extremely high error rate (and) a pattern in inattentiveness" over three years.
* A DNA analyst was suspended for two days for being drunk on the job in 2006. The misconduct occurred around the same time and in the same laboratory where evidence in the Avery case was analyzed, Buting said.
* An analyst received a two-day suspension in 2004 for incorrectly eliminating a suspect in a fingerprint match. The same analyst had "false positive" fingerprint matches in two previous instances.
* In another instance in 2004, an analyst received a letter of reprimand for erroneously identifying a fingerprint for a background check.
* A fingerprint technician was suspended for three days in 2005 for a series of incidents, including taking fingerprint cards home and making two erroneous identifications on background checks.
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/pro...6c0cce9e3.html
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My experience with crime lab analysts is that they are careful to avoid bias in favor of the state. They are there to do science and to testify as to what they observed, and they make that very clear to the prosecutor handling the case.
While Griesbach may have convinced himself with such anecdotal evidence, it's pretty clear to objective observers that these state run labs are going to be unavoidably biased - especially if their pay depends on securing convictions. According to this article, Wisconsin crime labs collect fees from defendants upon conviction:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3837471.html
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Q: People have characterized the jury as tainted (by the famous Ken Kratz press conference), as stacked against Avery (inclusion of a volunteer MTSO member and father of a deputy), and as being bullied in the deliberations room (Richard Mahler, the excused juror, claims the original count was in favor of acquittal). The voir dire would indicate this jury to well-represent Manitowoc County, and all to have believed in the presumption of innocence. Do you see any issues with the Avery jury that leaves the verdict vulnerable after the fact?
Like most prosecutors in the state, I think Kratz’ press conference was over the top. He’s not the first public figure to thrive on media attention, but prosecutors in particular need to be careful to not let that happen because it can prejudice a potential jury. Who knows if Kratz’ account of Dassey’s confession played a role subconsciously in the juror’s deliberations, they probably don’t know themselves. But my impression is they took their oaths very seriously and decided the case without taking it into account. Remember, they were out three days before returning a verdict.
Curiously, the best evidence the state had was for mutilation of a corpse, and that is the charge the jury found Steven to be not guilty of.
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Q: When a prosecutor with a ton of evidence in a case is met with a defense of 'it's all planted', without any evidence of such, beyond suspicious circumstance and innuendo, does this put a burden on the prosecution to 'disprove a negative', or is the burden on the defense to construct a rational narrative of the planting with details of who/what/when and at least some evidence it happened?
It should be the latter, but given what I and many consider to be the egregious misconduct of the former sheriff and the DA in Avery’s 1985 wrongful conviction, accusations of a frame-up without actual evidence to back it up is all it took for the defense to raise serious doubt.
There is serious doubt about the hypothesis that Steven killed Teresa, and there is serious doubt about the 'evidence' presented by the prosecution. I agree with Griesbach that the 'egregious misconduct' of the police against Steven is a factor in the considerations of many critics of this trial.
The coercion of Steven's alibi witness is another example of malfeasance.
Broadcasting those involuntary and unsubstantiated statements to potential jurors and their families was another example of creating bias against the accused.
All in all, Griesbach's defense of the prosecution is weak and riddled with errors.
Last edited by proudfootz; 09-07-2016 at 06:20 PM.