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Luke Mitchell and the murder of Jodi Jones
- Thread starter Chris_Halkides
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Chris_Halkides
Penultimate Amazing
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Witness cajoling
TomG,
I cannot answer your question direction, having only rarely visited that forum. However, at least one discussion forum I did visit on this case had many commenters that misrepresented at least one aspect this case, namely the real or imagined motivation of the prosecution's eyewitnesses (and for that reason, it might not be a good use of time to discuss the case at that board), a major plank of this case.
If the defense wished to splinter this plank, either the witnesses have to be wrong, or their testimony has to be shown to be non-probative. At the board to which I alluded, the pro-guilt posters said that the defense and its supporters have to argue that these witnesses are lying. This is false. Witnesses can be convinced in various ways to change their testimonies, and this is more likely to happen when the police are themselves prisoners of their own tunnel vision. One possibility is to threaten a witness with criminal charges, but another is to persuaded that they are helping to solve a case. This sort of cajoling is likely to be more effective when the witness believes that the police have good reason to have a given individual in their sights. Examples available upon request.
TomG,
I cannot answer your question direction, having only rarely visited that forum. However, at least one discussion forum I did visit on this case had many commenters that misrepresented at least one aspect this case, namely the real or imagined motivation of the prosecution's eyewitnesses (and for that reason, it might not be a good use of time to discuss the case at that board), a major plank of this case.
If the defense wished to splinter this plank, either the witnesses have to be wrong, or their testimony has to be shown to be non-probative. At the board to which I alluded, the pro-guilt posters said that the defense and its supporters have to argue that these witnesses are lying. This is false. Witnesses can be convinced in various ways to change their testimonies, and this is more likely to happen when the police are themselves prisoners of their own tunnel vision. One possibility is to threaten a witness with criminal charges, but another is to persuaded that they are helping to solve a case. This sort of cajoling is likely to be more effective when the witness believes that the police have good reason to have a given individual in their sights. Examples available upon request.
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TomG
Muse
- Joined
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I had previously discussed the similarities between this and the Kercher case with Rolfe. I still think that the similarities are minimal but it's clear that the main reason for the acquittal of K&S was that there was a complete lack of DNA or other forensic evidence in the victim's room. This case is pretty much the same in that respect since there is absolutely no DNA evidence from Luke on Jodi's body when he should have left multiple traces had he been involved. It started raining a couple of hours after Jodi's body was found as I understand it that might have destroyed vital evidence; however, if there were DNA traces of unidentified individuals found on Jodi's body it would have to be significant since you can't get selective raining any more than you can get a selective clean-up as demonstrated in the Kercher case. In James English's YouTube interview with Corrine Mitchell she claimed that if Donald Findlay QC had pursued this argument the jury could not convict. I'm just wondering if this major pro-innocence point has been lost for good.
Hoots
Hoots
Rolfe
Adult human female
Because we're not members there, don't want to be members there, and don't know anybody there? Because this is where we hang out? On a more serious note, there may be something to be gained from starting at the beginning rather than being swayed by ready-formed opinions of people who have been discussing it for a while.
The similarities thing is a matter of opinion, but there's also the point that the police immediately decided the person (only one of them in this case) who found the body was the culprit, treated him as the only suspect right from the start, and damned him at the court of public opinion (leaks to newspapers) before any forensic results came back. Just as with K&S they seemed to be waiting for the DNA results to prove what they already thought they knew, but when the DNA came back with nothing from their suspect and positive evidence of someone else, they didn't back-track but doubled down on their original theory. Oh, and the Reid technique.
Anyway, as regards "absence of evidence" being held to be "evidence of absence", I think that boat sailed in 2005. The only way it could be brought up again would be at a retrial and I don't see that happening. Although, interestingly, the special defence of incrimination run at the appeal was rejected on the grounds that there was no DNA from either of the men named in that defence on Jodi's body!
I think the Andrina Bryson boat has probably sailed too. All that evidence was available to the court in 2005 and you're not allowed another bite at the cherry. It's a typical quandary. The original case is so full of holes it ought never to have been a conviction in the first place, but without "new evidence" you're stuck with it.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Total empathy about the mind-fry part. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. (Come to think of it, I actually made a t-shirt with my book cover on it. No idea what happened to that.) In the end I stopped stressing about it, realised that somebody had to do this and I was the one who had pulled that duty, and all I could do was my best.
I see Corinne was a "facultative vegetarian"! I think you did put the bit about Corinne on CCTV leaving work and in the paper shop in the book, I remember reading it. So it wasn't just all on Shane, they had to flat-up accuse Corinne of lying in her teeth, since presumably there was no way they could pretend she had been looking at dirty videos at the time.
I haven't got my head round the time-scale of when Luke is supposed to have given her the nonexistent parka yet - presumably he told her everything and she just said OK son, I'll take care of it for you! - but I'll get on to it.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
Interesting information. Certainly prostatic acid phosphatase is held to be essentially prostate-specific when interpreting blood biochemistry results - an elevated plasma concentration is considered to be diagnostic of prostatitis. I don't think the full details of the forensic results are in Sandra's book, but I recall Corinne in her recent interview saying that semen had been found on Jodi's body somewhere, so we need a bit more information.
I don't think it was ever established that the t-shirt Jodi was wearing was actually Janine's. And as Janine didn't actually live in the same household as Steven either, the whole washing-machine thing is difficult to tease out. I'd dearly love to know who first suggested to the investigators that Jodi might have been wearing Janine's t-shirt. Awfully convenient assumption for someone. Or maybe several someones.
Chris_Halkides
Penultimate Amazing
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More on PSA and confirmatory tests
In a 2009 review article Virkler and Lednev wrote, "The most popular confirmatory test for semen beyond looking for sperm cells is the test for prostate-specific antigen (PSA). The semen from azoospermic males will still contain this antigen which is present in the seminal plasma; other body fluids contain a very low level of PSA and do not interfere [10]. These low levels require that PSA tests are not too sensitive so that there are no false positives. An important aspect of detecting PSA involves the ability to detect it on contaminated or scarce samples including laundered fabrics and decomposed cadavers [70]."
Suzanna Ryan wrote, "When it was first described in the literature, P30 [prostate specific antigen PSA] was thought to be found only in semen. However, as the sensitivity of the testing methods increased, scientists soon found P30 was present in body fluids other than just semen – including in some female body fluids....Negative AP and P30 results are significant in light of the fact that the AP test can detect semen diluted up to 1:2000 and the P30 test can detect semen in dilutions up to a million-fold (Hochmeister et al) and can retain activity for many years in a dried stain. Therefore the absence of these seminal constituents indicates that the tested area is either not a semen stain, or at the very least the area is not a fresh semen stain that has not gone through the wash."
Apparently hot water is more effective than cold water at removing reactivity in the PSA test, either by removing PSA or by denaturing it. Therefore, my present thinking is that PSA should be classified as confirmatory, but thought should be given to the possibility of a false positive. I would also tentatively conclude that AP is more likely to wash out of a stain than PSA is likely to.
In a 2009 review article Virkler and Lednev wrote, "The most popular confirmatory test for semen beyond looking for sperm cells is the test for prostate-specific antigen (PSA). The semen from azoospermic males will still contain this antigen which is present in the seminal plasma; other body fluids contain a very low level of PSA and do not interfere [10]. These low levels require that PSA tests are not too sensitive so that there are no false positives. An important aspect of detecting PSA involves the ability to detect it on contaminated or scarce samples including laundered fabrics and decomposed cadavers [70]."
Suzanna Ryan wrote, "When it was first described in the literature, P30 [prostate specific antigen PSA] was thought to be found only in semen. However, as the sensitivity of the testing methods increased, scientists soon found P30 was present in body fluids other than just semen – including in some female body fluids....Negative AP and P30 results are significant in light of the fact that the AP test can detect semen diluted up to 1:2000 and the P30 test can detect semen in dilutions up to a million-fold (Hochmeister et al) and can retain activity for many years in a dried stain. Therefore the absence of these seminal constituents indicates that the tested area is either not a semen stain, or at the very least the area is not a fresh semen stain that has not gone through the wash."
Apparently hot water is more effective than cold water at removing reactivity in the PSA test, either by removing PSA or by denaturing it. Therefore, my present thinking is that PSA should be classified as confirmatory, but thought should be given to the possibility of a false positive. I would also tentatively conclude that AP is more likely to wash out of a stain than PSA is likely to.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Aaaand, the biggie.
I've been trying to process this ever since I read it at lunchtime. I'm not often lost for words, but "outrageous" doesn't seem to do it justice. How can this point possibly have been glossed over? It absolutely destroys the relevance of what Mrs Bryson saw, and if that sighting is off the table there's absolutely no evidence that Luke was on the east side of the path at any time that evening, or indeed that Corinne and Shane were lying when they said he was with them at the time the murder was alleged to have happened.
I admit that I was aided on this point by Google Streetview, which wasn't available in 2005, but Easthouses is hardly the back of beyond and anyone living in the Central Belt should be able to drive there in an hour or two. Indeed, the angle of the path to the road at the junction can be seen on the OS map and that in itself might ring an alarm. In fact, how come the people (on the defence side) who actually lived there and must have been familiar with the neighbourhood didn't spot it?
My interest was initially sparked by your comment in the book that the end of the path was at a bend in the road. I wondered how Mrs Bryson could have been uncertain or mistaken about whether she was approaching a left-hand or a right-hand bend when she saw the couple. It then occurred to me that it was even simpler than that. "Mrs Bryson, can you cast your mind back. When you saw these two people, were they on your left or on your right hand side?"
I went to Streetview to get a better idea of the lie of the land. Was it possible Mrs Bryson's memory had been rearranged by the police so that she now believed the couple were on her left when originally they were on her right? Then I realised even that couldn't fly. Even if she had answered "they were on my left" to that question, it was clear that couldn't possibly be true. Here's all you can see of the path as you approach it from the south.
https://goo.gl/maps/cPFFAv1YBEskmSzeA
A car driver would be unable even to clock that there was a path there at all. If there were two people standing at the entrance to the path (between the lamp-post and the close-boarded fence, although I suspect the fence and the houses beyond it are new since 2003) it would be even less evident that there was a path at that point. Even when you're actually passing the end of the path it's barely visible.
https://goo.gl/maps/VQsT1ydbBuvLHpjXA
Bear in mind a car at that spot is approaching a right-hand bend. The driver would have to be looking at right angles in the opposite direction to the bend to see even that much, and if they did that for more than a split second they'd probably crash. And again, a couple of people standing at the entrance to the path would almost certainly hide it completely. And it's not as if the couple were doing anything in particular to draw attention.
I honestly thought from your Twitter reply on this point that somehow a contrived route had been dreamed up that had Mrs Bryson driving south at 4.50-4.55 even though the house she was looking for was to the north of her starting point, although I couldn't for the life of me think what that could have been. But it seems this wasn't the case at all. The prosecution simply got her to agree she'd driven north up Easthouses Road on the way from the supermarket to the house viewing and transferred her sighting to that time. My God, they built a replica of the wall in the court-room, but nobody could be bothered taking a run over to Easthouses Road to see what the sightlines looked like?
Conversely of course, a driver travelling south gets a fairly good look at the end of the path and even a few yards into it. Depending on where they were standing, a couple of people might not obscure the existence of the path from a passing south-bound driver, and it might even be possible to notice someone who had walked about ten yards along the path.
https://goo.gl/maps/pqV5pLQN6HdAbVYt9
The two aspects are so different that not only could there be no confusion in anyone's mind about which way they were driving when they saw the couple "at the end of the path", anyone who tried to maintain that they had seen all that while driving north would be revealed as a liar. (I still think the amount of detail Mrs Bryson attested to is more than slightly improbable given the short time the couple would have been in her sightline even driving south - again bear in mind they were on her right and she was approaching a left-hand bend - but the general assertion that she saw two people there and realised they were at the end of the footpath is credible enough.)
It ought to have been possible to destroy the Andrina Bryson sighting in court. It seems that Donald Findlay doesn't just sing nasty sectarian songs at football matches, he's also an incompetent who lets an innocent child go to jail for life because he can't grasp simple spacial geometry.
I know what you mean, and Tony Gauci in the Lockerbie case is a prime example. (Same prosecutor too.) Over the course of about 22 statements he gradually changed almost everything about his evidence to match what the police wanted him to say. Yes, he had his eye on the $4 million reward money, but he also thought the police knew that Megrahi was guilty and if he didn't say the right thing the bad man would get away.
However in this particular example I have to say I have grave doubts about the honesty and integrity of everyone involved. The police do seem to have gone to extraordinary lengths to try to change the time of the sighting of these two people, and to represent them as being Jodi and Luke despite there being very marked differences between Mrs Bryson's description (particularly of the man) and what the 14-year-olds actually looked like, and I can't see that being honest. But I also have a lot of trouble believing Mrs Bryson, who actually drove the road and saw the two people, didn't realise that since her car was pointing south when she saw them she must have been on her way home. As this seems to have been what she said in her original statement, the back-flips involved in getting her to agree that it happened on her way to the house viewing can only be imagined.
I've been trying to process this ever since I read it at lunchtime. I'm not often lost for words, but "outrageous" doesn't seem to do it justice. How can this point possibly have been glossed over? It absolutely destroys the relevance of what Mrs Bryson saw, and if that sighting is off the table there's absolutely no evidence that Luke was on the east side of the path at any time that evening, or indeed that Corinne and Shane were lying when they said he was with them at the time the murder was alleged to have happened.
I admit that I was aided on this point by Google Streetview, which wasn't available in 2005, but Easthouses is hardly the back of beyond and anyone living in the Central Belt should be able to drive there in an hour or two. Indeed, the angle of the path to the road at the junction can be seen on the OS map and that in itself might ring an alarm. In fact, how come the people (on the defence side) who actually lived there and must have been familiar with the neighbourhood didn't spot it?
My interest was initially sparked by your comment in the book that the end of the path was at a bend in the road. I wondered how Mrs Bryson could have been uncertain or mistaken about whether she was approaching a left-hand or a right-hand bend when she saw the couple. It then occurred to me that it was even simpler than that. "Mrs Bryson, can you cast your mind back. When you saw these two people, were they on your left or on your right hand side?"
I went to Streetview to get a better idea of the lie of the land. Was it possible Mrs Bryson's memory had been rearranged by the police so that she now believed the couple were on her left when originally they were on her right? Then I realised even that couldn't fly. Even if she had answered "they were on my left" to that question, it was clear that couldn't possibly be true. Here's all you can see of the path as you approach it from the south.
https://goo.gl/maps/cPFFAv1YBEskmSzeA
A car driver would be unable even to clock that there was a path there at all. If there were two people standing at the entrance to the path (between the lamp-post and the close-boarded fence, although I suspect the fence and the houses beyond it are new since 2003) it would be even less evident that there was a path at that point. Even when you're actually passing the end of the path it's barely visible.
https://goo.gl/maps/VQsT1ydbBuvLHpjXA
Bear in mind a car at that spot is approaching a right-hand bend. The driver would have to be looking at right angles in the opposite direction to the bend to see even that much, and if they did that for more than a split second they'd probably crash. And again, a couple of people standing at the entrance to the path would almost certainly hide it completely. And it's not as if the couple were doing anything in particular to draw attention.
I honestly thought from your Twitter reply on this point that somehow a contrived route had been dreamed up that had Mrs Bryson driving south at 4.50-4.55 even though the house she was looking for was to the north of her starting point, although I couldn't for the life of me think what that could have been. But it seems this wasn't the case at all. The prosecution simply got her to agree she'd driven north up Easthouses Road on the way from the supermarket to the house viewing and transferred her sighting to that time. My God, they built a replica of the wall in the court-room, but nobody could be bothered taking a run over to Easthouses Road to see what the sightlines looked like?
Conversely of course, a driver travelling south gets a fairly good look at the end of the path and even a few yards into it. Depending on where they were standing, a couple of people might not obscure the existence of the path from a passing south-bound driver, and it might even be possible to notice someone who had walked about ten yards along the path.
https://goo.gl/maps/pqV5pLQN6HdAbVYt9
The two aspects are so different that not only could there be no confusion in anyone's mind about which way they were driving when they saw the couple "at the end of the path", anyone who tried to maintain that they had seen all that while driving north would be revealed as a liar. (I still think the amount of detail Mrs Bryson attested to is more than slightly improbable given the short time the couple would have been in her sightline even driving south - again bear in mind they were on her right and she was approaching a left-hand bend - but the general assertion that she saw two people there and realised they were at the end of the footpath is credible enough.)
It ought to have been possible to destroy the Andrina Bryson sighting in court. It seems that Donald Findlay doesn't just sing nasty sectarian songs at football matches, he's also an incompetent who lets an innocent child go to jail for life because he can't grasp simple spacial geometry.
I know what you mean, and Tony Gauci in the Lockerbie case is a prime example. (Same prosecutor too.) Over the course of about 22 statements he gradually changed almost everything about his evidence to match what the police wanted him to say. Yes, he had his eye on the $4 million reward money, but he also thought the police knew that Megrahi was guilty and if he didn't say the right thing the bad man would get away.
However in this particular example I have to say I have grave doubts about the honesty and integrity of everyone involved. The police do seem to have gone to extraordinary lengths to try to change the time of the sighting of these two people, and to represent them as being Jodi and Luke despite there being very marked differences between Mrs Bryson's description (particularly of the man) and what the 14-year-olds actually looked like, and I can't see that being honest. But I also have a lot of trouble believing Mrs Bryson, who actually drove the road and saw the two people, didn't realise that since her car was pointing south when she saw them she must have been on her way home. As this seems to have been what she said in her original statement, the back-flips involved in getting her to agree that it happened on her way to the house viewing can only be imagined.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
Chris, remember when I first got interested in the Knox and Sollecito case? Someone happened to mention that the victim had eaten nothing all day and then had a meal of pizza followed by apple crumble at about seven o'clock. They then said all of that meal was still in her stomach at post mortem, and her small intestine was completely empty apart from a small amount of ingesta in the terminal ileum. And that the prosecution was alleging a time of death of eleven or eleven-thirty or thereabouts. That is absolutely flat impossible in a healthy 20-year-old woman. She absolutely must have been killed very shortly after she was last seen alive just before nine.
That to me was absolutely conclusive. It convinced me on the spot that anyone with an alibi for nine to nine-thirty was provably innocent. And yet as far as I can see none of the serial court examinations of the evidence ever got this point straight.
The evidence of the baggage handler John Bedford in the Lockerbie case was a similar point. Nobody ever seemed to have explained why the suitcase he saw at 4.45 that afternoon wasn't the bomb. (And of course, it was.)
The directionality of the Andrina Bryson sighting in this case is for me the same sort of point. Wipe that off the table and there's no case at all. It seems to me this is a lot simpler than the stomach-emptying thing, which is susceptible to obfuscation from people quoting general papers pointing out that intestinal transit is a poor predictor of time of death without applying the principles to the specific circumstances under discussion. And yet the court again doesn't seem to have got its head round it.
Mrs Bryson, you say you observed the male walk about ten yards down the path. (Leaving aside for the moment the obvious fact that she couldn't have had him in view for long enough to see him do that.) How do you explain that, if you were travelling in a northerly direction? From that direction it's only possible to see into the path if you swivel your head round like an owl or something out of a zombie movie, in the opposite direction to the bend in the road your car was approaching at that moment.
M'lud, I rest my case.
That to me was absolutely conclusive. It convinced me on the spot that anyone with an alibi for nine to nine-thirty was provably innocent. And yet as far as I can see none of the serial court examinations of the evidence ever got this point straight.
The evidence of the baggage handler John Bedford in the Lockerbie case was a similar point. Nobody ever seemed to have explained why the suitcase he saw at 4.45 that afternoon wasn't the bomb. (And of course, it was.)
The directionality of the Andrina Bryson sighting in this case is for me the same sort of point. Wipe that off the table and there's no case at all. It seems to me this is a lot simpler than the stomach-emptying thing, which is susceptible to obfuscation from people quoting general papers pointing out that intestinal transit is a poor predictor of time of death without applying the principles to the specific circumstances under discussion. And yet the court again doesn't seem to have got its head round it.
Mrs Bryson, you say you observed the male walk about ten yards down the path. (Leaving aside for the moment the obvious fact that she couldn't have had him in view for long enough to see him do that.) How do you explain that, if you were travelling in a northerly direction? From that direction it's only possible to see into the path if you swivel your head round like an owl or something out of a zombie movie, in the opposite direction to the bend in the road your car was approaching at that moment.
M'lud, I rest my case.
Chris_Halkides
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2009
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- 12,966
clarification
What I should have said is more like this: If an eyewitness gives testimony that is false, it is not necessarily the case that this witness is consciously trying to deceive. That eyewitnesses sometimes lie is difficult to deny, but it is the way that they are interrogated that can just as easily produce false testimony. For two examples see page 213 and page 238 of Brandon Garrett's invaluable book Convicting the Innocent.
In the Mitchell case at least one witness did have a good reason to lie, even if he were innocent, Janine's boyfriend Steven.
What I should have said is more like this: If an eyewitness gives testimony that is false, it is not necessarily the case that this witness is consciously trying to deceive. That eyewitnesses sometimes lie is difficult to deny, but it is the way that they are interrogated that can just as easily produce false testimony. For two examples see page 213 and page 238 of Brandon Garrett's invaluable book Convicting the Innocent.
In the Mitchell case at least one witness did have a good reason to lie, even if he were innocent, Janine's boyfriend Steven.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
I've had this problem in other discussions. One particular episode in relation to Lockerbie drove me absolutely up the wall. There is a man called John Parkes who has a bizarre theory about there having been another bomb on the plane in a different location, and his evidence for this is something to do with the body of a little girl which he happened to see during the recovery operation. He has constructed a whole fantasy scenario around this and has pestered Prof Busuttil (who was also in charge of the Lockerbie post mortems) until the man literally runs away if he hears the name. I got into a debate about this with a journalist (whom it seems isn't very bright) and he kept saying, so you're saying John Parkes is lying, what reason would he have to lie? Of course he's not lying, he absolutely believes what he's saying, it's just that he didn't see what he thought he saw and he has embroidered a whole theory on nothing.
I have no reason to believe Andrina Bryson is lying. For one thing, if she were lying she'd have done a better job getting the descriptions to match Luke and Jodi's actual appearance. It seems fairly clear that she did see two people standing at the end of the path around 5.40 when she was driving back home, and thought this might be of use to the inquiry. Since then she has confabulated a bit more detail than she actually saw, particularly as regards the male walking ten yards down the path, and (much more surprisingly) has gone along with the preposterous suggestion that she saw these people three quarters of an hour earlier when she was driving in the opposite direction.
However, even if Mrs Bryson is entirely honest (and there may be some doubt about that in the light of the absolute impossibility of her having seen the couple when she was driving in the opposite direction, and the witch-hunt that developed to get Luke convicted which I think there is reason to believe she participated in), the same can't be said for the police, or the prosecutors.
The defence in these cases is labouring under a severe disadvantage. The public (including the jury of course) believe that the police and the prosecution are truly disinterested, examining the evidence dispassionately and coming to a rational and well-supported conclusion about who committed the crime. They believe that exculpatory evidence will be given due weight and that if something emerges which shows pretty conclusively that they're on the wrong track they will back off and reassess, no matter how promising their initial line of thinking appeared to be.
Conversely, everyone (including the jury) assumes (probably quite rightly) that the defence is as biassed as hell. That their absolute objective is to get their client off, and that they will engage all the tricks in the book to do that.
Both of these positions seem to me to be wildly wrong. The police, as we've seen time and time again and as Sandra so clearly illustrates in her first book, No Smoke, latch on to someone who appears to them to be a plausible fall-guy, and then proceed to construct a case around him (or occasionally her) regardless of the amount of exculpatory evidence they uncover and regardless of the amount of incriminating evidence they find against someone else. This is compounded by the legal profession (COPFS in Scotland and something similar in England). Nessie, who is a former policeman, once rationalised that the police see the fiscal as their quality control mechanism. Lawyers, so he reasoned, are better educated and better at reasoning than police officers, and if the police have made a mistake then the case won't get past the PF. I'm sure this does happen occasionally, and indeed Sandra's book suggests the PF had serious reservations about bringing charges in this case but came round eventually. But it doesn't always happen and I think the higher profile the case, the less likely the PF is to tell the cops to bugger off and do a better job. Once charges are brought, the entire might of the system aligns itself towards the goal of getting that person convicted, come hell or high water. The cosy idea of Sutherland's Law where the benevolent PF always gets to the bottom of the truth and justice is done is a complete myth.
On the other hand, defence advocates seem to me to be failing their clients time and time again. So many open goals were missed in the Lockerbie trial I really do suspect the defence there may have been playing to lose. I don't imagine Findlay was playing to lose in this case but I think he just didn't care. He gets paid whether or not his client is acquitted. It takes a lot of time and effort to get a secure grasp of the facts in a complicated case like this, and you only have to read The Secret Barrister to realise the difficulties even when the defence advocate is actually trying. The cosy idea of Rumpole cogitating about the cases over breakfast and suddenly realising the extra bit of evidence that will prove his client innocent and going out and getting it is a complete myth.
There have been encouraging exceptions. The whole shebang of a system went out after the wrong people in the Damilola Taylor murder, up to and including the Sun screaming for their blood. But not only did the jury see through this and acquitted the defendants, the police actually re-examined the evidence and found the right culprits rather than falling back on the usual lazy "we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this incident" schtick.
The police did the whole "we got the guy!" thing in the Joanna Yates murder, up to and including taking Chris Jefferies into custody and telling the press that they had their man, but when evidence against someone else emerged very shortly after that - akin to the finding of Rudy Guede's DNA on Meredith Kercher's body - they released him with apologies, backtracked, and again found the right guy.
But it doesn't happen often enough. I think things are getting better - this case was in 2003 after all - but mindsets are hard to change and when the police decide to home in on some random bystander, heaven help them even now. Because the jury probably won't.
I have no reason to believe Andrina Bryson is lying. For one thing, if she were lying she'd have done a better job getting the descriptions to match Luke and Jodi's actual appearance. It seems fairly clear that she did see two people standing at the end of the path around 5.40 when she was driving back home, and thought this might be of use to the inquiry. Since then she has confabulated a bit more detail than she actually saw, particularly as regards the male walking ten yards down the path, and (much more surprisingly) has gone along with the preposterous suggestion that she saw these people three quarters of an hour earlier when she was driving in the opposite direction.
However, even if Mrs Bryson is entirely honest (and there may be some doubt about that in the light of the absolute impossibility of her having seen the couple when she was driving in the opposite direction, and the witch-hunt that developed to get Luke convicted which I think there is reason to believe she participated in), the same can't be said for the police, or the prosecutors.
The defence in these cases is labouring under a severe disadvantage. The public (including the jury of course) believe that the police and the prosecution are truly disinterested, examining the evidence dispassionately and coming to a rational and well-supported conclusion about who committed the crime. They believe that exculpatory evidence will be given due weight and that if something emerges which shows pretty conclusively that they're on the wrong track they will back off and reassess, no matter how promising their initial line of thinking appeared to be.
Conversely, everyone (including the jury) assumes (probably quite rightly) that the defence is as biassed as hell. That their absolute objective is to get their client off, and that they will engage all the tricks in the book to do that.
Both of these positions seem to me to be wildly wrong. The police, as we've seen time and time again and as Sandra so clearly illustrates in her first book, No Smoke, latch on to someone who appears to them to be a plausible fall-guy, and then proceed to construct a case around him (or occasionally her) regardless of the amount of exculpatory evidence they uncover and regardless of the amount of incriminating evidence they find against someone else. This is compounded by the legal profession (COPFS in Scotland and something similar in England). Nessie, who is a former policeman, once rationalised that the police see the fiscal as their quality control mechanism. Lawyers, so he reasoned, are better educated and better at reasoning than police officers, and if the police have made a mistake then the case won't get past the PF. I'm sure this does happen occasionally, and indeed Sandra's book suggests the PF had serious reservations about bringing charges in this case but came round eventually. But it doesn't always happen and I think the higher profile the case, the less likely the PF is to tell the cops to bugger off and do a better job. Once charges are brought, the entire might of the system aligns itself towards the goal of getting that person convicted, come hell or high water. The cosy idea of Sutherland's Law where the benevolent PF always gets to the bottom of the truth and justice is done is a complete myth.
On the other hand, defence advocates seem to me to be failing their clients time and time again. So many open goals were missed in the Lockerbie trial I really do suspect the defence there may have been playing to lose. I don't imagine Findlay was playing to lose in this case but I think he just didn't care. He gets paid whether or not his client is acquitted. It takes a lot of time and effort to get a secure grasp of the facts in a complicated case like this, and you only have to read The Secret Barrister to realise the difficulties even when the defence advocate is actually trying. The cosy idea of Rumpole cogitating about the cases over breakfast and suddenly realising the extra bit of evidence that will prove his client innocent and going out and getting it is a complete myth.
There have been encouraging exceptions. The whole shebang of a system went out after the wrong people in the Damilola Taylor murder, up to and including the Sun screaming for their blood. But not only did the jury see through this and acquitted the defendants, the police actually re-examined the evidence and found the right culprits rather than falling back on the usual lazy "we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this incident" schtick.
The police did the whole "we got the guy!" thing in the Joanna Yates murder, up to and including taking Chris Jefferies into custody and telling the press that they had their man, but when evidence against someone else emerged very shortly after that - akin to the finding of Rudy Guede's DNA on Meredith Kercher's body - they released him with apologies, backtracked, and again found the right guy.
But it doesn't happen often enough. I think things are getting better - this case was in 2003 after all - but mindsets are hard to change and when the police decide to home in on some random bystander, heaven help them even now. Because the jury probably won't.
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Chris_Halkides
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Eyewitnesses: no resemblance
From the book Witness for the Defense by Dr. Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham:
"In a classic text on the subject, Convicting the Innocent, legal scholar Edwin M. Borchard presents sixty-five cases of "erroneous criminal convictions of innocent people." In twenty-nine of these cases, or approximately 45 percent, mistaken eyewitness identification was responsible for the conviction. Borchard concludes: "These cases illustrate the fact that the emotional balance of the victim or eyewitness is so disturbed by his extraordinary experience that his powers of perception become distorted and his identification is frequently most untrustworthy" (p. 367).
"Misidentifications are often blamed on the fact that the real criminal bears a close resemblance to the wrongly identified person. But in the twenty-nine cases in which mistaken eyewitness identification was responsible for the wrongful conviction, Borchard reports these facts:"...in eight of these cases the wrongfully accused person and the really guilty criminal bore not the slightest resemblance to each other, whereas in twelve other cases, the resemblance, while fair, was still not at all close. In only two cases can the resemblance be called striking." (p. 367)."
This passage prompts the question, "Why does the real criminal not resemble the wrongfully convicted person?" Part of the answer may lie in badly constructed identification procedures, for example a photo line-up which is suggestive. Even worse is not using a photo line-up at all.
From the book Witness for the Defense by Dr. Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham:
"In a classic text on the subject, Convicting the Innocent, legal scholar Edwin M. Borchard presents sixty-five cases of "erroneous criminal convictions of innocent people." In twenty-nine of these cases, or approximately 45 percent, mistaken eyewitness identification was responsible for the conviction. Borchard concludes: "These cases illustrate the fact that the emotional balance of the victim or eyewitness is so disturbed by his extraordinary experience that his powers of perception become distorted and his identification is frequently most untrustworthy" (p. 367).
"Misidentifications are often blamed on the fact that the real criminal bears a close resemblance to the wrongly identified person. But in the twenty-nine cases in which mistaken eyewitness identification was responsible for the wrongful conviction, Borchard reports these facts:"...in eight of these cases the wrongfully accused person and the really guilty criminal bore not the slightest resemblance to each other, whereas in twelve other cases, the resemblance, while fair, was still not at all close. In only two cases can the resemblance be called striking." (p. 367)."
This passage prompts the question, "Why does the real criminal not resemble the wrongfully convicted person?" Part of the answer may lie in badly constructed identification procedures, for example a photo line-up which is suggestive. Even worse is not using a photo line-up at all.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
In other cases though, like this one, the problem is different. Someone sees someone else under perfectly unremarkable circumstances with no particular reason to believe there might be any significance to attach to this, and only later does it emerge that this unmemorable incident may require to be remembered. How well does their recollection then match the reality of what they saw?
At least Tony Gauci interacted with his customer in his shop for maybe half an hour, and during that time he looked at him with some care as regards what size and build he was and what clothes would fit him. (Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have remembered his face very well.) The problem there was that nine or ten months elapsed before he had any reason to consider the encounter to be important and even then it was a miracle he remembered it at all. Then he was shown a lot of mugshot pictures which probably muddied his vague recollection of the man's face even more. Then by the time he was shown the mug-shot he allegedly picked out, it was well over two years after the actual event, and it's highly likely the police gave him some indication as to which picture they wanted him to pick (even if they didn't, again that picture stood out as being different from the others in the photospread). By the time of the live identity parade it was almost eleven years since he saw the customer in the shop, and the accused's picture had been so widely disseminated that anyone who had been following the case could have picked him out even if they'd never set eyes on him before. (And then we have the added complication of Tony's first words, "NOT the man I saw in my shop..." being interpreted as a positive identification.)
In this case Andrina Bryson came forward within 24 hours of the sighting and gave a description of what she remembered, but she only saw the two people for a few seconds and didn't see the faces. The male in particular she described as looking quite different to Luke Mitchell's appearance. However she seems later to have become caught up in the witch-hunt mentality so that when she was shown a photospread including a mug-shot of Luke (again standing out as being different from the other pictures) she was prepared to pick him out as being the person whose face she didn't actually see.
Witness cajoling, indeed.
At least Tony Gauci interacted with his customer in his shop for maybe half an hour, and during that time he looked at him with some care as regards what size and build he was and what clothes would fit him. (Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have remembered his face very well.) The problem there was that nine or ten months elapsed before he had any reason to consider the encounter to be important and even then it was a miracle he remembered it at all. Then he was shown a lot of mugshot pictures which probably muddied his vague recollection of the man's face even more. Then by the time he was shown the mug-shot he allegedly picked out, it was well over two years after the actual event, and it's highly likely the police gave him some indication as to which picture they wanted him to pick (even if they didn't, again that picture stood out as being different from the others in the photospread). By the time of the live identity parade it was almost eleven years since he saw the customer in the shop, and the accused's picture had been so widely disseminated that anyone who had been following the case could have picked him out even if they'd never set eyes on him before. (And then we have the added complication of Tony's first words, "NOT the man I saw in my shop..." being interpreted as a positive identification.)
In this case Andrina Bryson came forward within 24 hours of the sighting and gave a description of what she remembered, but she only saw the two people for a few seconds and didn't see the faces. The male in particular she described as looking quite different to Luke Mitchell's appearance. However she seems later to have become caught up in the witch-hunt mentality so that when she was shown a photospread including a mug-shot of Luke (again standing out as being different from the other pictures) she was prepared to pick him out as being the person whose face she didn't actually see.
Witness cajoling, indeed.
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Chris_Halkides
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Jamie Snow and Carlos Luna
"Carlos has now recanted his ID saying he is not sure if Jamie Snow was the person he saw from over 200 feet away, and that he only identified Snow because “as a 14-year-old, he believed that the police had caught the right person.” Why did he believe he was the “right” person? There were six people in the lineup." Link.
There are some differences between the eyewitnesses in the Snow case versus the Mitchell case, but I infer that the police somehow convinced Carlos Luna that Mr. Snow was the killer, or at least encouraged him in some way to identify Mr. Snow. There are other, even more serious, problems with the eyewitness testimony in the Snow case.
"Carlos has now recanted his ID saying he is not sure if Jamie Snow was the person he saw from over 200 feet away, and that he only identified Snow because “as a 14-year-old, he believed that the police had caught the right person.” Why did he believe he was the “right” person? There were six people in the lineup." Link.
There are some differences between the eyewitnesses in the Snow case versus the Mitchell case, but I infer that the police somehow convinced Carlos Luna that Mr. Snow was the killer, or at least encouraged him in some way to identify Mr. Snow. There are other, even more serious, problems with the eyewitness testimony in the Snow case.
Sandra Lean
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The problem with the Forensic results is the number of labs involved and the different labeling protocols used by each. Samples believed to be semen were found on the T-shirt, bra, underpants, trousers, shoe, face, right hand and abdomen. While many of those samples returned "no reportable results," three, labelled "semen," returned mixtures with Jodi and "unknown male(s)" - these were on the t-shirt and the bra.
The t-shirt had been cut through the neckhole, ripped down the centre back, torn vertically across to the left and along both side seams. According to the Forensic Report "several areas" close to the cuts and tears were swabbed, the swabs being sent to a different lab, along with two saliva stains and a sperm head that was labelled "semen." Results for all of these are not in the main table of results. I'll look out the other reports and come back to this.
Until trial, it was never established that the t-shirt belonged to Janine. Since the questions asked of witnesses aren't recorded in statements, we don't know, for sure, where the borrowed t-shirt suggestion came from, however, although the lab report mentions possible rainwater diffusion, there is no mention, anywhere, of DNA from Janine suggesting the t-shirt may have been worn by her, so I think it's unlikely the suggestion came from there.
Kelly said, in one of his statements relating to this that he'd "been asked about a black t-shirt of Janine's," going on to say she had two identical t-shirts, one of which Jodi was "probably" wearing that night. Jodi was naked when she was found and none of the three who went over the wall mentioned seeing any clothing. Kelly had not seen Jodi at all that evening before she was found, so the only people who knew, for sure, what clothes were found at the scene were the police.
Chris_Halkides
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How strong is this case?
Solely for the sake of argument, how strong a case would this be if we took some of the prosecution's points at face value. Let's start by assuming that Ms. Bryson saw Jodi and Luke. Let's also as take as true that the dog did not signal at the wall.
Here are my problems: One, finding a body when one is out looking is not impossible; why wouldn't you check on the other side of the wall? Two, seeing Luke and Jodi together would prove that Luke lied, but I am not sure how much more it proves. We are still left with a motive that is almost pure speculation, no murder weapon, no eyewitness to the crime, no confession, little or no forensic evidence against Luke versus some forensic evidence against others, no time of death from body temperature (unless I missed this). The timeline for Luke to have committed this crime and to have cleaned up is very tight.
BTW this is another crime that according to the various authorities was perpetrated by an inexperienced criminal who nevertheless managed to clean himself up perfectly and to leave little or nothing forensically incriminating behind.
Solely for the sake of argument, how strong a case would this be if we took some of the prosecution's points at face value. Let's start by assuming that Ms. Bryson saw Jodi and Luke. Let's also as take as true that the dog did not signal at the wall.
Here are my problems: One, finding a body when one is out looking is not impossible; why wouldn't you check on the other side of the wall? Two, seeing Luke and Jodi together would prove that Luke lied, but I am not sure how much more it proves. We are still left with a motive that is almost pure speculation, no murder weapon, no eyewitness to the crime, no confession, little or no forensic evidence against Luke versus some forensic evidence against others, no time of death from body temperature (unless I missed this). The timeline for Luke to have committed this crime and to have cleaned up is very tight.
BTW this is another crime that according to the various authorities was perpetrated by an inexperienced criminal who nevertheless managed to clean himself up perfectly and to leave little or nothing forensically incriminating behind.
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This is my 'local murder' - in fact I was very close by when it happened. I used to live on Newbattle Abbey Crescent (the same street as the Mitchell family), my parents still did at the time of the killing, and I was visiting them that week. In fact as I recall I arrived from London that very day - my dad picked me up from Edinburgh and we must have been driving in to Newbattle Abbey Crescent from the Dalkeith direction within an hour or two of the actual event, if not actually at the exact time. The next morning I was taking the dog for a walk and passed the Newbattle end of the footpath and saw police standing there - they gave me a look as I looked at them, but didn't actually stop me and I didn't ask them anything... but I hadn't seen anything the day before so there's no missed evidence there, before anyone pounces on that line of inquiry.
Of course just being close by doesn't grant me any special knowledge - other than to confirm that the court of public opinion was swift, and the story about the mother incinerating clothes was certainly spread widely.
However, if there are any specific questions about the local geography I might be able to help as I spent many years in the area - although generally not on the footpath that led to the murder scene itself, as it happens (I must have taken various dogs on hundreds of circuits of the woods around Newbattle Abbey Crescent, but never really had occasion to go to Easthouses).
Of course just being close by doesn't grant me any special knowledge - other than to confirm that the court of public opinion was swift, and the story about the mother incinerating clothes was certainly spread widely.
However, if there are any specific questions about the local geography I might be able to help as I spent many years in the area - although generally not on the footpath that led to the murder scene itself, as it happens (I must have taken various dogs on hundreds of circuits of the woods around Newbattle Abbey Crescent, but never really had occasion to go to Easthouses).
Chris_Halkides
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the wall itself
Big-E,
Welcome to the forum. I see that you have not often been on the foot path; however, I do have two questions about it. How tall is the wall along the path, and is it uniform in height? Thank you.
Big-E,
Welcome to the forum. I see that you have not often been on the foot path; however, I do have two questions about it. How tall is the wall along the path, and is it uniform in height? Thank you.
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Chris_Halkides
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the other woman hypothesis
It is my understanding that one motive for this crime that has been advanced is that Luke had a second girlfriend, that Jodi found out, and that in their quarrel he killed her. I am not sure whether or not the prosecution put this forward at the trial.
Offhand, this looks unlikely. From the reading I have done, it sounds as if she lived an hour away by car; therefore, I do not understand how Luke could have traveled this distance regularly, being too young to drive. It is not clear to me that there was an ongoing relationship, nor have I seen evidence that Jodi knew even of the existence of this young woman.
But in the spirit of an earlier comment of mine, let us suppose that there was a relationship and that Jodi found out. How likely is it that a quarrel would end in murder versus tears, angry words, or perhaps a slapped face?
It is my understanding that one motive for this crime that has been advanced is that Luke had a second girlfriend, that Jodi found out, and that in their quarrel he killed her. I am not sure whether or not the prosecution put this forward at the trial.
Offhand, this looks unlikely. From the reading I have done, it sounds as if she lived an hour away by car; therefore, I do not understand how Luke could have traveled this distance regularly, being too young to drive. It is not clear to me that there was an ongoing relationship, nor have I seen evidence that Jodi knew even of the existence of this young woman.
But in the spirit of an earlier comment of mine, let us suppose that there was a relationship and that Jodi found out. How likely is it that a quarrel would end in murder versus tears, angry words, or perhaps a slapped face?