NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana man had been on death row for almost 30 years before his sentence was overturned by a district judge. The judge did this after looking at forensic evidence that the man’s lawyers said was based on “junk science.”
In 1998, Jimmie Duncan was first found guilty of first-degree murder after authorities said he raped and drowned his girlfriend’s toddler in the bathtub.
Prosecutors relied on bite mark analysis and an autopsy done by two experts who were later linked to wrong cases. Duncan’s lawyers called them “charlatans” with no credibility. Duncan has always said that he is innocent.
Duncan’s first-degree murder sentence was thrown out by Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Alvin Sharp last week. This was first reported by Verite News. The judge heard from experts that the bite mark analysis was “not scientifically defensible” and that the death looked like it was caused by “accidental drowning.”
The judge also saw proof that a jailhouse source had changed his story and that Duncan’s lawyer wasn’t doing a good job during his trial.
Robert Tew, the district attorney for Ouachita Parish, can either appeal the decision and ask for a new trial with new proof and witnesses, or he can accept it and let Duncan go. Tew wouldn’t say anything, and a representative from his office said that prosecutors are “looking at all of their options in this case.”
Duncan’s lawyers wouldn’t say anything, but in court papers they said, “This case has all the hallmarks of wrongful conviction.”
Why is studying bite marks thought to be “junk science”?
The Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to clear people of wrongdoing convictions, says that dozens of people have been wrongly convicted, arrested, or charged because of bad bite mark evidence.
Forensic dentist Michael West and pathologist Steven Hayne from Mississippi looked at the body of Haley Oliveaux, Duncan’s girlfriend’s daughter.
In court papers, Duncan’s lawyers said that the two’s research has been linked to at least 10 wrong convictions in the past, calling it “unreliable.”
A court document from Duncan’s lawyers said that West was found guilty of child abuse because a video tape of the exam showed him “forcibly pushing a mold of Mr. Duncan’s teeth into the child’s body — creating the bite marks.” During the trial, a state-appointed expert who didn’t know about this method said that the bite marks on the body matched Duncan’s.
Expert forensic dentist Dr. Adam Freeman was called by Duncan’s lawyers to speak at a hearing last September. He said that the assumptions that bite mark analysis is based on are “no longer valid” and are the result of “junk science.”
During the murder hearing, Hayne told the jury that Duncan raped Oliveaux between the legs and drowned her against her will. But experts called by Duncan’s lawyers said that new discoveries in forensic science show that Oliveaux’s rashes and bruises were not caused by abuse. They said that a kit used to test for sexual attack also came back negative and no blood was found.
At the meeting in September, expert witnesses also said that Hayne’s analysis was “sloppy” and “inadequate.” In the past, Hayne did most of the autopsies in Mississippi. However, his work has been regularly criticized in court as flawed and not based on science.
ProPublica said that Hayne died in 2020. West didn’t answer calls to lines that were linked to him. He had said before that DNA testing had made bite mark analysis useless, but he stood by his evidence in other cases that led to murder convictions being overturned.
The Louisiana Legislature is talking about limiting post-conviction compensation.
Louisiana lawmakers are currently thinking about a plan that would change the state’s post-conviction relief process. Duncan used this process to bring new evidence to a judge after all of his appeals had been exhausted.
The suggested bill would cut down on the time prisoners have to ask for relief after being convicted. The bill says that they have to make a petition within a year of the “judgment of conviction and sentence having become final.”
Attorney General Liz Murrill wouldn’t say anything about Duncan’s case. We heard from her last week at a committee meeting that the current system has too many delays, which means that families of victims may have to wait decades for justice to be done.
Murrill said that the process for appealing after a conviction has made it possible for “endless and repetitive” pleas to be made, especially in cases involving the death penalty: “We are still working to get justice for the victims and their families.”
People who are against the bill are worried that it will make it more likely for innocent people to have to serve their terms or be put to death for crimes they didn’t commit. The National Exoneration Registry is a database that keeps track of people who were wrongfully convicted. Since 1989, at least 11 people who were put to death in Louisiana have been found not guilty.
Samantha Kennedy, head of the campaign group Promise of Justice Initiative, said, “The state of Louisiana is careless with people’s lives.” “The state’s record for putting people to death keeps getting worse, showing how incompetent, indifferent, and even malicious it is.”
In Louisiana, 55 people are on death row. Louisiana’s first execution happened in March, after a 15-year break.