The Ethics of Fred Zain Fred Zain was a forensic lab technician that worked for both the states of West Virginia and Texas. A man who did a job he was severely under qualified for, for ten years, and who was thought to be a start asset in his line of work.Fred Zain had testified in countless cases, presenting himself well and appeared to know his trade so well that no one in the courtroom questioned the lab results obtained by Zain. It is very well known that his actions in court are viewed as unethical by today’s standards. In his time of employment, Fred Zain acquired a lengthy rap sheet of tampering and falsifying evidence, false convictions. Fred Zain was a man who would do anything and everything to convict anyone he saw as guilty. A man who did so until his lies and deceit finally caught up with him. Fred Zain was a master of deception. So good, that he managed to get a job in a forensic lab …show more content…
They did not like the fact that he did not work in accordance to the rules. Because the dislike of colleagues did not match the respect of prosecutors, the instance was dropped. Such a serious crime of scientific fraud ignored and dismissed, for something as childish as coworkers not getting along. This was only the beginning of the the allowance of Fred Zain to do whatever his wanted. It was not only West Virginia that made the mistake of hiring such an inadequate person for the job. The state of Texas also provided work for the unethical man. He was put under investigation in Texas as well, however, in his work it Texas, the statue of limitation allowed him to walk. This was in 1997, in 1995, Fred Zain was acquitted in West Virginia. Time and time again this man managed to portray a man of innocence. In his mind, he truly believed he was innocent. That he was merely doing his
Even when Michael’s new defense team, through the innocence project, found a crime that was eerily similar to the method of murder and subsequent events to the one that Michael was convicted of, the new prosecutor in Williamson County fought hard to keep DNA testing from taking place, even stating that they objected to the testing now because the defense hadn’t requested it before (Morton, 2014). There was further evidence of ineffectiveness in that the coroner who’d changed his estimated time of death between the autopsy and trial, had come under scrutiny for his findings in this case, as well as several others, with claims of gross errors “including one case where he came to the conclusion that a man who’d been stabbed in the back had committed suicide” (Morton, 2014). This was only one of the many injustices that were committed against Michael Morton throughout his trial. In August of 2006, the defense was finally granted permission to perform DNA testing on the items that had been taken from his wife’s body (Morton, 2014). Although this testing did not reveal any information about the guilty party, it did at least give Michael the knowledge that Chris was not sexually violated before or after her death (Morton,
Where is the proof? These accusations have been ongoing for nearly twenty plus years and not one time has he been found guilty. Do you remember when he was under indictment with Al Lipscomb for the similar accusations and then they both were acquitted of all charges. And the judge moves the trial away from Dallas because of local influences in the matter! North of Oak Cliff west of down town Dallas as always is why Judge Kendall made the statement “My gut feeling is that, from everything that was going on in that case, including the lawyers beginning to try it in the newspapers, as well as the prominence of Al Lipscomb, and John Wiley Price there is no way the duo and the government could have gotten a fair trial in Dallas, Texas," he said.
Leonard Peltier’s Innocence Leonard Peltier was a Native American man arrested for supposedly killing two FBI agents on Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota. There have been many debates about the integrity of the court cases and the lawfulness of Peltier’s arrest. Many FBI supporters would claim that there were eyewitness accounts and various other pieces of material evidence that show that Peltier was the culprit. However, Peltier supporters would rebut the evidence, saying that the eyewitness accounts aren’t legitimate and the court decision was politically influenced. I will consider both sides of the argument, and show that Peltier’s innocence is evident because the evidence provided against Peltier was falsified and the FBI used disingenuous methods in charging Peltier for murder.
I have given this investigation careful consideration due to Officer Noname’s length of service within the Spring Falls Police Department. Through the facts given and statements made by Officer Noname, I am requesting immediate termination of employment. By lying to investigating officials in his involvement with the misuse of department resources, Officer Noname has become untrustworthy and his credibility as an officer of the law has been brought into question. It is from this incident that if Officer Noname were to give testimony in a hearing, his credibility would be called upon due to his dishonesty during this investigation. In Brady v. Marland (1963) and Giglio v. United States (1972), the Supreme Court has imposed rulings that all exculpatory evidence must be disclosed and that the defendant has a right to learn of any incriminating and/or discrediting information pertaining to the witnesses against them and may result in impeachment of witness testimony.
The fiber evidence presented in this case was so overwhelming and simply was the driving force leading to Wayne Williams conviction. I do not believe the prosecution would have been able to obtain the same results without it. The credibility of the FBI forensics investigators and their reputable crime lab made for excellent testimony concerning the fiber evidence at trail, which the defense was simply ill prepared to counter attack its merits (The Atlanta, n.d.). Other evidence was presented in this case, and much of this evidence while certainly impactful on the case and to members of the jury, this evidence alone without the fiber evidence would surely not have held up to the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.
One of the reasons that Ed Gein is fascinating is because he inspired the creation of several film characters like Norman Bates from Psycho, Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs and Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Another reason that is fascinating about Ed Gein - During the January 6th hearing, when Gein was accused of murders, remained calm and composed, chewing gum and when he was asked whether he ate any human remains he replied “No! No! In any case, they smelled too bad. “ After his mother’s death, Gein had decided he wanted to be a woman, so he began to create a “woman suit” with the crude parts he stole from the local
The testimonies themselves took 55 days, and 165 different witnesses were heard. Then on September 20, 1989, Ramirez was convicted of all charges,
Questions While reading this article, various questions arose in my mind. For one, if it was known that the FBI standards for hair evidence was not as accurate for roughly a few decades, why blame and admit someone into prison based on alleged evidence from one single hair? I wonder how many more cases like Phillip’s are out there in which people were wrongfully accused due to inaccurate testing of physical evidence?
As he works on a case he invests his time and effort into finding what a justifiable and truthful. But, with working in his field come risks especially when it meant defending someone who others think the death penalty is a justifiable way of
Richardson alleges they hid evidence of Zains Faked crime lab tests and false trial testimony four years before others uncovered the lie (Messina, Lawrence). This helps back up the information on Richardson’s case.
The devastating part of his case is that he believed what he wanted to believe and when given proof and evidence of innocence he pushed it to the side which made him biased to his own
He figured if he did that well that surely everyone else did worse. After all he was
The Azaria Chamberlain case is a reminder that the criminal justice system does get it wrong, with each error bearing its own human cost. Lindy Chamberlain’s conviction was based largely on the use of unreliable or improper forensic science during the
Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong In Brandon L. Garrett 's book, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong, he makes it very clear how wrongful convictions occur and how these people have spent many years in prison for crimes they never committed. Garrett presents 250 cases of innocent people who were convicted wrongfully because the prosecutors opposed testing the DNA of those convicted. Garrett provided simple statistics such as graphs, percentages, and charts to help the reader understand just how great of an impact this was.
He was found guilty when he pretty much in his own words confessed to the murders.