Innocence Project Seeks Review of Mississippi Bite-Mark Murder Cases
A co-director of the Innocence Project, which uses DNA testing to free the wrongly convicted, plans to ask the state of Mississippi to review the cases of more than 20 defendants sent to prison based partly on the testimony of a controversial bite-mark expert.
On Friday, a Mississippi judge dismissed murder charges against Kennedy Brewer and released Levon Brooks on bond after another man confessed to killing the children they had been convicted of murdering in separate incidents, the Clarion Ledger reports.
Dr. Michael West had testified in the trials of Brewer and Brooks that bite marks on the children’s bodies showed the defendants had bitten the victims. But experts hired by the Innocence Project concluded the marks on the children’s bodies weren’t from human bites.
“These two guys were both convicted of capital murder because of the testimony of Dr. West, and both of them are completely innocent,” said Peter Neufeld, co-director of the project.
