I hope Connecticut’s Innocence Project takes on the case of Alfred Swinton. I am persuaded that the man was convicted of murder based on bogus science. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences confirms my opinion. This report is must reading for anyone concerned about the reliability of evidence presented in our courts.
Alfred Swinton was convicted of murdering Carla Terry. The key piece of evidence against him was bite mark evidence. Photographs of the decedent’s breasts were digitally transposed into an electronic image. Mr. Swinton’s dental impressions where taken and then transposed onto an acetate overlay. The two images were then laid one on top of another and compared. A forensic odontologist then compared the images and pronounced them a match. The match was far from persuasive looking – ill-defined bruises corresponded to locations of teeth. They looked like bite marks, all right. But whose?
