NYT on Kennedy Brewer

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Kennedy Brewer, the Mississippi man sentenced to death for raping and killing his girlfriend's daughter. The state's case against Brewer was based largely on the testimony of Dr. Michael West, a megalomaniacal "bite mark expert" who has since been suspended by several forensic professional organizations, and was forced to resign from another. Jurors believed West's assertion that bite marks on the little girl's chest matched Brewer's "upper plate," despite testimony from another expert who said the marks weren't bite marks at all.

Brewer's conviction was later thrown out when advanced DNA testing revealed that neither of two semen specimens in the rape kit taken from the little girl was his.

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a good piece on the case. The Times points out that this is the first time DNA experts can ever recall prosecutors insisting on retrying a case even after DNA testing showed samples left at the crime scene didn't match the defendant. District Attorney Forrest Allgood initially maintained that Brewer acted alone. When the DNA testing showed the presence of two other men, he merely changed his theory so he could retry Brewer as an accessory. But the only evidence linking Brewer to the murdered body of the little girl is the testimony of the clownish Dr. West and, apparently, a jailhouse informer who says Brewer admitted to him in 2005 that assailants forced him to bite the girl at gunpoint (a strange tale that doesn't conform with any theory to date abut how the crime actually happened).

What's absolutely unforgivable is that despite the fact that two men who weren't Kennedy Brewer obviously raped this little girl, prosecutors and local law enforcement have made no effort whatsoever to identify or find them. They've been too busy trying to protect their conviction.

Allgood has since been ordered off the case, and a new prosecutor has taken over. He will still retry the case and still plans to use Dr. West, but he has at least dropped the death penalty. That means Brewer is out on bond while awaiting his next trial.

I'll have an article in the November issue of reason looking deeper into the problems with forensic analysis in Mississippi, including another case involving Mr. Allgood.