by Even now, as a free man, Keith Harward finds it hard to explain what it was like to sit in a courtroom, on trial for rape and murder he knew he didn’t commit, watching someone who is considered an expert testifying to confirm that he had a bite. the victim’s leg was marked with his teeth.
“I still wonder to this day what the hell happened,” he told NBC News at his home in North Carolina. “Sometimes I break down and collect, because I can’t explain to you or anyone else, other than people who have been in my situation.”
Harward had no evidence to do with the horrific 1982 crime, but he happened to be among a group of sailors from a Navy ship in dry dock in Newport News, Virginia, who were required to give dental impressions, since the attack was wearing Navy uniform. . Two forensic dentists told two separate juries that Harward’s teeth “matched with scientific certainty” a bite mark on the rape victim’s skin. Harward spent 33 years in prison until he was freed in 2016 by DNA evidence that pointed to another sailor as his killer.
The Innocence Project says Harward is among at least 36 people exonerated after being wrongfully convicted based on now-discontinued bite mark comparisons. One of them, Eddie Lee Howard, was on death row in Mississippi when he was released in 2021 after matching crime scene DNA with another person.
Four separate government bodies have concluded that sticker-marking analysis has no basis in science. That includes the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which said in 2016 that “the available scientific evidence strongly suggests that examiners not only cannot identify the source of the bite mark with reasonable accuracy, they cannot agree that consistent even if injury is a sign of a human bite. .” The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the gold standard of measurement science, said in 2022 that bite mark forensics “lacks an adequate scientific basis” because “human dental patterns have not been shown to be unique at the individual level.”
One 2016 study found that self-reported experts could not differentiate between human and animal bite marks. Others have documented how marks in human skin change over time through healing or decay.
“The board certified people disagreed about bite marks,” said Adam Freeman, a forensic dentist who once drank the “Kool-Aid” of bite mark analysis but is now one of its biggest critics. in the profession. “If science is not science, and if it is not reproducible, and if it is not reliable, courts of law should not allow it within that period.”
However, bite mark analysis has been used in thousands of cases. And while defense lawyers are increasingly challenging it, no court has ruled it inadmissible.
“There are still a lot of people – and we don’t even know how many – who are still in prison because of evidence of graft,” Freeman said. “It is appalling that this is still allowed to be used in courts of law, when these are matters of life and liberty.”
Chris Fabricant, a lawyer with the Innocence Project and author of “Junk Science and America’s Criminal Justice System,” said his team has consistently blocked the introduction of bite mark evidence in courts around the country, even as they sought the release of the defendants who are in prison. based on the discipline discredited. But he said that none of the forensic dentists who gave evidence based on the methods that are now discredited are accountable.
“My sense of shame is what gets me out of bed every day,” he said.
Freeman said, “I can tell you that thousands of human years have been spent in prison” based on flawed evidence.
There are no data showing how often bite marks were used in prosecutions. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the number has greatly decreased, but prosecutors still sometimes try to introduce bite marks into the trial.
Professional associations of forensic odontologists responded to the NIST report by saying that while they agree with “many details” in the report and “are aware of the issues surrounding bitemarks and acknowledge concerns in the past,” there is a rejection NIST with evidence of bite marks too wide.
“Critics continue to note the progress that has been made … by forensic ontology in addressing these concerns. It is important to reiterate that the cases where odontologists misidentified bite perpetrators occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Today’s odontologists do not adhere to the standards that were in place during that era, yet we are still judging them.”
‘It’s a bad place’
Charles McCrory is spending his 38th year behind bars, convicted of killing his wife. The bite mark expert testified in his case, saying he now knows he can’t say whether a bite mark on the victim matched McCrory’s teeth. But the Alabama courts refused to free McCrory.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruled earlier this year that the jury could decide on its own whether the bite marks matched, a finding that ignores the science that suggests such visual matches cannot be be valid. The court also cited other evidence in the case, including a witness who said he saw McCrory’s truck at the house during the time of the murder. There is no physical or forensic evidence linked to the crime.
Three years ago, after the bite mark evidence failed in his case, McCrory was offered a deal: Plead guilty and walk free. He refused.
“I refused to take it because I didn’t kill her,” McCrory told NBC News from his prison facility. “I didn’t kill my wife.”
The Innocence Project is now pursuing appeals through the federal courts.
“Prison is hard — a lot of the stories you see on the news about prisons, especially Alabama prisons, are true,” McCrory said. “It’s a bad place, and it’s not a place I’d wish on anyone.”
“I don’t give up hope,” he said. “And sure there are disappointing days and days when you’re down and out … but I believe there’s a truth somewhere that will come out, and you can’t give up. That is not an option.”
Harward, released in 2016, is living proof that a second act is possible after spending many years unjustly locked up. Awarded $1 million in restitution by Virginia, the 67-year-old lives quietly in rural North Carolina, taking occasional RV trips with his girlfriend and delving into smartphones and media social.
But he continues to speak out about evidence of graft marking, which robbed him of half his life and kept him from attending his parents’ funeral.
“It’s garbage. It’s crap. It doesn’t mean anything,” he said.
A few years ago, he traveled to a conference of forensic dentists in New Orleans to confront them about bite marks. There were many sympathizers, he said, but there is an old guard that clings to the past.
“How many times do you have to be told you’re wrong before you get over it?” he said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
