Luke Mitchell and the murder of Jodi Jones

Guy Paul Morin and Thomas Sophonow

I previously brought up wrongful convictions in Canada. From what I understand both the commissioner who wrote the report on Guy Morin and the commissioner who wrote the report on Thomas Sophonow made recommendations. Among the seven recommendations concerning alibi defenses is this:

7. It is essential that any further interviews of Crown witnesses following the disclosure of the alibi evidence should as well be videotaped or, if that is impossible, audiotaped. Every portion of the interview should be transcribed. Any statement alleged to have been made by the witness and which does not appear on the tape recording should be deemed to be inadmissible.

I wish that I could hear how FLO Michelle Lindsey interviewed Shane Mitchell because Sandra Lean described this interview in a way that leaves me with grave doubts about Ms. Lindsey's competence and objectivity.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
I previously brought up wrongful convictions in Canada. From what I understand both the commissioner who wrote the report on Guy Morin and the commissioner who wrote the report on Thomas Sophonow made recommendations. Among the seven recommendations concerning alibi defenses is this:

7. It is essential that any further interviews of Crown witnesses following the disclosure of the alibi evidence should as well be videotaped or, if that is impossible, audiotaped. Every portion of the interview should be transcribed. Any statement alleged to have been made by the witness and which does not appear on the tape recording should be deemed to be inadmissible.

I wish that I could hear how FLO Michelle Lindsey interviewed Shane Mitchell because Sandra Lean described this interview in a way that leaves me with grave doubts about Ms. Lindsey's competence and objectivity.
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The interview with the woman that "watched" Mark Lundy flee the scene of his alledged crime comes to mind. I am thinking to find the transcript, because now agreed facts say she could not have seen a man fleeing a crime scene before it had been committed.
 
See it in your mind's eye

Samson said:
The interview with the woman that "watched" Mark Lundy flee the scene of his alledged crime comes to mind. I am thinking to find the transcript, because now agreed facts say she could not have seen a man fleeing a crime scene before it had been committed.
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Thanks for jogging my memory. One wishes that this interview had been recorded in its entirety to see whether or not the police persuaded her to say what she did.

On page 305 of Innocents Betrayed Sandra Lean wrote, "In court Shane tried very hard to explain that it was she [FLO Lindsay] who was the single most influential factor in interfering with his recall--she would not accept any of his answers to her initial questioning, telling him that they were 'not good enough' or that she 'couldn't accept that.'...She then went on to literally plant pictures in Shane's mind--'See it in your mind's eye, Shane, picture this...' right at the beginning of the investigation." I quoted from pages 318-319, which also bears on this topic in a comment some time ago.

Rather than list all of the things that the police did incorrectly in collecting evidence from the witnesses, it would be shorter to list anything that they did correctly.
 
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correcting without contaminating a witness's memory

"A subsequent investigation showed that he [North Carolina exoneree Ronald Cotton] had, in error, instead told the police where he was at that time on the same day during the week before...Dr Yim and Dr Dennis found that participants got things wrong about a third of the time, and further examination of the data revealed that these errors were not random. People were more likely to remember events incorrectly if they were similar in time or space than they were if they were not. Specifically, they chose the right day of the week but the wrong week 19% of the time, and the right hour of the day but the wrong day 8% of the time." The Economist 3 June 2021.*

There are a couple of differences. Shane Mitchell remembered a different day of the week, as opposed to a different week. More significant is that Mr. Mitchell was an alibi witness, but Ronald Cotton was the accused. However, there is a general question that may be posed, namely how should the police respond when a defendant or eyewitness makes an honest mistake. Specifically, can they correct the mistake without contaminating the person's memory?
*EDT The original work was published in the journal Psychological Science. The coauthors are Yim Hyungwook (Nanyang University) and Simon Dennis (University of Melbourne).
 
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Don't try this at home

Elaedith said:
It's interesting that Wixted and colleagues have challenged some long-held views about eyewitness testimony, including disputing the lack of relationship between confidence and accuracy (arguing that a confident identification is highly reliable provided it's the first identification under proper procedures). In this case, obviously the context of identification from a newspaper was not diagnostic regardless of confidence and would contaminate any subsequent identifications. Wixted, Wells and Loftus discuss the importance of only testing once in the article below, although it's focusing on repeated testing within the criminal justice system. Elsewhere it was noted that investigators should also check for prior exposure to the suspect through media or other witnesses.

Wixted, J. T., Wells, G. L., Loftus, E. F., & Garrett, B. L. (2021). Test a Witness’s Memory of a Suspect Only Once. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 22(1_suppl), 1S-18S. https://doi.org/10.1177/15291006211026259
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"Recommendation 1 from Wells et al. (2020) is relevant. The recommendation is to conduct, before the lineup, an interview in which the witness is instructed to avoid attempting to identify the culprit on his or her own. If the witness has already done so and has encountered the suspect’s photo (e.g., on social media), thereby contaminating memory before the first official test, it is also important to document that fact."

Thank you for this reference for noting the issue of prior exposure. Based on this passage, I would argue that Ms. Walsh's showing the newspaper to Ms. Fleming goes against the spirit of the instruction to avoid attempting to identify the culprit on one's own.
 
Authorized forms of identification procedures

Andrew Malkinson's story has its own thread in Trials and Errors. Yet a couple of things regarding eyewitness identifications are so pertinent to Luke Mitchell's case that they deserve to be highlighted here.

"Andrew Malkinson’s case is a bitterly poignant reminder of the risks associated with eye witness identification evidence, which courts have long recognised can be unreliable. Safeguards include capture of all first descriptions provided by witnesses, scrutiny of the duration of observation, quality of lighting and view and any factors that may have influenced a witness’s recollection as well as strict adherence to authorised forms of identification procedure. However awful the crime, justice can never be served by a less than rigorous approach to such evidence during investigation and trial."

Firstly, with help from pro bono lawyers from firms Ropes & Gray and Latham & Watkins, APPEAL identified numerous flaws in the way police carried out the identity procedures, rendering this evidence unreliable." From Appeal.org
 
witnesses and a possible witness who saw Jodi

"Yesterday detectives were trying to trace a young woman who is thought to have been walking on the same pavement as Jodi as she headed towards the woodland. The blonde woman, described as in her late teens, slim and petite with her hair tied in a ponytail, had been pushing a pushchair with a child in it. She was wearing a denim mini skirt and sandals. Police believe she may have spotted Jodi and perhaps even her killer. Detective Inspector Tom Martin yesterday said: "This woman may have passed Jodi on the pavement, seen her along the route or even someone else acting suspiciously."" The Free Library

I probably read about this woman previously, but I forgot about it. Along these lines I found this Guardian article, which stated, "Two independent witnesses have now contacted police about seeing a girl who fits Jodi's description on Monday June 30." From a story at the BBC: "Both witnesses saw this man walking behind a girl in Easthouses Road near to the entrance of the Roman Dyke pathway at around 1700 BST."
 
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Family liaison officer and a corroborating officer

"The witness [Detective Inspector Thomas Martin] explained that family liaison officers were trained that, where a person was a suspect, their role differed. Consideration would be given to the experience of the family liaison officer, closer monitoring and the safety and welfare of the family liaison officer. It would also be ensured that there was corroboration at all times by having two officers present." Murderpedia

In her book Innocents Betrayed Sandra Lean discussed why another officer should have been present when FLO Lindsay interviewed Luke Mitchell. Given that Shane and Corinne Mitchell were charged with perverting the course of justice, it occurs to me that (depending on when they became suspects in fact), the same rule about having a second officer present should have applied to them.
 
knife too small

The Scottish Sun implied that the blade of the knife from the pouch was four inches in length.

On page 194 of Innocents Betrayed Sandra Lean wrote, “A pouch, taken from Luke’s home, was said to belong to the ‘missing’ knife. But it is worth noting that the size of the blade used to inflict the wounds found on Jodi would have to have been considerably larger than the knife which fitted to the pouch. Indeed, when the professor was asked about the wound inflicted on Jodi’s tonsil (by the blade being plunged into her mouth), he demonstrated what should have been the ridiculous suggestion that the knife produced in court could have been the one which inflicted this injury—the professor showed the court that only by holding the knife at the very edge of the handle, with the tips of his fingers, could that knife have inflicted the injury without causing, for example, damage to the teeth and corresponding damage to the hand of the attacker (which was not found on Luke’s hands)."
EDT
I found an article from EdinburghLive that I had previously cited, and the Scottish Sun also reported on it. "Tom Halliday, 63, told how he made the sinister discovery just days after the tragic 14-year-old was stabbed to death in 2003 and he then called the cops...But he is speaking out now after recently finding out the blade was not even submitted as evidence during the trial of Luke Mitchell, who was convicted of killing his girlfriend." Obviously, I am not claiming that this was the murder weapon, but I wonder what tests were performed on it.
 
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doing the experiment

"The mother of Luke Mitchell, was claimed to have helped her son dispose of evidence which would have linked him to the scene of the crime. A log burner was removed from the family home, to undergo forensic testing. No trace of evidence was found, and Corrine Mitchell continues to fight her son’s murder conviction." Herald

The Herald quoted Corinne: “I did an experiment. We built an exact replica of my log burner that I built in my garden and got an exact replica of Luke’s parka that I was supposed to have burnt - which he never owned anyway at the time. I bought him it after and the cops have the receipt for that. It (the parka) wouldn’t burn and there was tons of black smoke. There were zips, buckles - you name it.”

This sort of experiment is what the police should have done, as opposed to making airy conjectures. They could have compared the debris that they collected to the debris from the experiment. There are any number of techniques which could have provided the identities of inorganic ions, such as ICPAES for example.
 
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Better evidence than was presented

Eyewitness testimony might be unreliable even when collected with scrupulous attention to good practice. In this case the police took paper copies of the written guidelines and stomped on them with muddy boots. Here are a few examples of evidence that would have been stronger.

One, instead of Andrina Bryson's synthesized (but sincere) testimony, the police could possibly have found where Luke was using cell phone triangulation. My attempts to estimate how accurate this technique would have been have not been particularly successful, but I am not aware of any evidence that the police even tried. Two, instead of hypothesizing that a parka was incinerated in a log burner on the basis of funny smells, the lab could have placed an identical parka into a log burner and see what sort of debris were left over. These could have been compared with the contents of the actual log burner. Three, instead of claiming that people at school saw Luke with a parka prior to the murder, they might have searched credit card receipts to see whether or not one was purchased or produced a dated photo of Luke wearing it.

There were of course other shortcomings, such as poor crime scene management (that went beyond putting Jodi's clothes together and not covering the body) and failure to collect the clothing of the other members of the search party. One can only speculate about the reasons for the lack of good evidence collection in this case.
 
lack of blood, semen, and sperm

From the Herald: “Even if he was gothic, it doesn’t make him a murderer”, Corrine [Mitchell] says frankly, before continuing. "Luke’s case was the longest of a single accused in Scottish history. It could have been the shortest, if Donald Findlay (the QC representing Mitchell) had gone in and said, ‘your honour, members of the jury, we have blood, semen, sperm, saliva, hair and they are not my client’s. I rest my case’."

One wishes that juries would give less weight to faulty eyewitness testimony than they do, but until that time, one can expect wrongful convictions.
 
Malkinson and Mitchell

Private Eye wrote, "ANY investigation into the justice system's handling of the case of Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in jail for a rape he did not commit, should be extended to other troubling convictions...After the documentary was screened, Forbes applied for access to exhibits and material gathered in the case in order to carry out new forensic tests, only to learn the police were in the process of destroying it. The destruction was halted by the Lord Advocate's office.

"All that remains are 300 scrapings and swabs, including ten taken from Jodi's body containing semen deposits, which incredibly were never tested for DNA at the time."
 
lack of transfer of acid phosphatase and p30

Noel S et al., Forensic Science International: Genetics 23 (2016) 240–247. link
"For each of the seven bed sheet experiments, a 1 cm2 cutting from the front of one randomly selected pair of underwear was tested for the presence of seminal fluid using the Brentamine Fast Blue B salt test (AP, Sigma-Aldrich) and the ABAcard1 p30 (PSA, Abacus)."

"AP and PSA testing in underwear washed with two, six or ten ejaculates were all negative. These serological tests were also negative in control children’s underwear, even when a cutting produced a partial genetic profile within the sperm fraction. Positive presumptive testing with an associated male profile in the sperm fraction can thus generally be interpreted as an indication that semen was deposited directly onto the fabric rather than transferred during the wash."

The fast blue B salt test works as follows: Semen contains an enzyme called acid phosphatase (AP). When it hydrolyzes an artificial substrate a nucleophilic compound is released that attacks the diazonium group (the electrophile) of fast blue B. This creates a compound that is colored, a positive result. The ABAcard p30 test uses antibodies to bind to a protein of 30,000 in molecular weight. This test is a type of lateral diffusion immunoassay.

Suzanna Ryan wrote, "The possibility of transfer of sperm cells should be carefully considered, especially if the area where the sperm cell(s) are collected is: 1. AP negative (AP is an enzyme that loses its reactivity when exposed to water. If an item has been washed, sperm cells may still be present, but it is unlikely that the AP test would yield a positive result.)"

It is important to distinguish DNA profiling from the body fluid testing. With respect to the Mitchell case, key point is that neither test in the 2016 article cited above gave an indication that seminal fluid could be transferred from a sheet onto underwear. This is in contrast to sperm heads, which have been shown to be transferrable. With respect to the Mitchell case, the police offered a hypothesis about the transfer of sperm cells that involved laundry transfer. Based on the discussion above, their hypothesis is looking even shakier than it did before.
 
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Hopefully The Malkinson case and Private Eye's publicity, will spur the SCCRC to act.
 
acid phosphatase test

Brayley-Morris H et al., Forensic Science International: Genetics, Volume 19, November 2015, Pages 165-171
The study referenced above only covers DNA transfer. The authors wrote,"With respect to AP testing, previous research has consistently shown that semen-stained items of clothing laundered with detergent does not give a positive AP reaction [6], [7], [8], [9], so AP testing would not be appropriate when examining clothing washed after the deposition of semen." AP is an abbreviation for the enzyme acid phosphatase. This is a presumptive test for semen.

Here is an early reference regarding sperm transfer: "The Retention and Transfer of Spermatozoa in Clothing by Machine Washing" Kafarowski E et al., Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal 1996 29(1):7-11. A portion of the abstract stated, "Although there was no visible staining or acid phosphatase activity, significant numbers of spermatozoa were retained in the original stain areas." Again, the problem for a hypothesis of transfer during laundering is how to explain semen stains, not how to explain DNA profiles. I plan to continue reading this literature over the next few weeks.
 
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witness certainty as a proxy for reliability

Dan Simon “The limited diagnosticity of criminal trials” Vanderbilt Law Review 64(1):143-223. Dan Simon teaches criminal law at the University of Southern California. The article covers several areas that are of interest in the Mitchell case. I want to focus on one question, namely how the claimed certainty of a witness affects the jury.

"One study found that eyewitness confidence was a stronger predictor of jurors' decisions than the actual accuracy of the identifications.48...Witness confidence has also been found to wipe out jurors' sensitivity to witnessing factors.52. The reliance on witness confidence as a proxy for accuracy would be helpful if it were a good marker of accuracy. The experimental findings cast some doubt over this proposition. Studies show that the statistical relationship between identification accuracy and witness confidence is about 0.4.53 While positive, this correlation by itself is not strongly diagnostic. To illustrate, where the base rate of accuracy is fifty percent, a coefficient of 0.4 means that only seventy percent of witnesses who claim to be absolutely confident are in fact correct.54 (p. 158; edited to remove one paragraph break)

Professor Simon continued, "Confidence has also been found to be inflated by communication with co-witnesses,64 exposure to identifications by co-witnesses,65 and by exposure to other inculpatory evidence against the suspect.66 By the time witnesses testify in court, they are generally less accurate and more confident than warranted, thus making the identifications appear more reliable than they really are." (p. 160)
 
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unreliability of dock identifications

Professor Simon also wrote, "Finally, jurors' ability to decipher identification testimony is hampered also by the practice of in-court identifications. As discussed elsewhere, identifications performed in open court provide no meaningful test of witnesses' memory, and all but guarantee the identification of the person sitting in the defendant's seat. As such, these procedures are uninformative at best and highly prejudicial at worst.67".

This paragraph is pertinent to the dock identifications by Lorraine Fleming and Rosemary Walsh.
 
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contaminating factors and synthesized testimony

Professor Simon wrote, "Second, jurors are presented not with the raw evidence, as initially observed by the witness, but with the synthesized testimony as it evolved through the investigative and pretrial phases. Witnesses' memories of the perpetrator decay with the passage of time and are readily contaminated by exposure to composite drawings,58 mug shots,59 misleading questions,60 and misleading descriptions.61 Moreover, synthesized testimony is also more likely to be reported with higher levels of confidence, which further weakens the accuracy-confidence relationship. A large body of research shows that confidence is a malleable construct that is sensitive to error, distortion, and manipulation." (italics in original)

Now that I have read this and the following passage from Professor Simon's article, I note a possible comparison with forensic evidence, where a major problem is task-irrelevant information. Some of what I have quoted is also relevant to the Malkinson case, which has its own thread.
 
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what if evidence is not independent?

LE Kasel and SM Kassin "On the Presumption of Evidentiary Independence Can Confessions Corrupt Eyewitness Identifications?" Psychological Science 2009.

"In one case, Illinois defendant Michael Evans was convicted of rape and murder on the basis of a lone eyewitness identification until DNA testing established his innocence. Afterward, the witness revealed that she had har- bored doubts about her identification. ‘‘But then I was told there was a confession,’’ she said. ‘‘And that’s how they convinced me that there was more to it than just me’’ (Michael Evans v. City of Chicago, et al., 2006, p. 274)."

Dan Simon wrote, "When the evidence items are not truly independent of one another, they create a false sense of corroboration. In other words, a full-bodied set of inculpatory evidence can be a misleading artifact of the investigative process. Indeed, in a number of known wrongful convictions, the case presented to the jury consisted of strongly corroborating evidence, all of which turned out to have been false.160"

160For illustration, a capital prosecution of an innocent Maryland man included identifications by five eyewitnesses, a shoe impression, and a putatively incriminating statement made by the defendant, all leading the prosecutor to describe the evidence as being "extremely strong." SCHECK ET AL., supra note 116, at 222. For more on this investigation and trial of Kirk Bloodsworth, see TIM JUNKIN, BLOODSWORTH 39, 85-86, 136-37 (2004).

Of course there was no confession in the Luke Mitchell case, nor in the Bloodsworth case. My general point is that if evidence in any case seems to be independent but is not, then the case looks stronger than it actually is. With respect to the Mitchell case, the 2008 denial of appeal claimed that the accounts of Ms. Bryson and Ms. Fleming/Ms. Walsh corroborated each other, a claim that Sandra Lean rebutted.

Dan Simon wrote, "Factfinders would gain much by being able to compare witnesses' courtroom testimony with the exact statements they initially gave the police." There were times that Donald Findlay attempted to point this out, but the jury in the Mitchell case was apparently unpersuaded.
 
merged memories

Jed Rakoff and Elizabeth Loftus wrote wrote, "A person who picked a photo out of a photo array a few hours after witnessing the crime will often tend, when later called to testify, to merge the crime scene and photo array memories, so that what the witness thinks are facial features she observed at the scene of the crime are actually features she had the opportunity to study, much more carefully, when viewing the photo array." This is pertinent to the fact that witnesses saw Mr. Mitchell's photo in the paper wearing a parka.
 
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a witness's certainty over time

Jed Rakoff and Elizabeth Loftus wrote, "Moreover, in court, an eyewitness is usually asked not how confident she was when she first picked the defendant out of a lineup, but how confident she is now; and many studies have shown that, once an eyewitness has identified a particular suspect as the perpetrator, the level of her confidence will often increase over time. It is thus common for an eyewitness who said at the time of the lineup that she was “somewhat confident” in her identification of the perpetrator to later testify at trial that she is “absolutely sure” the defendant was the person she saw commit the crime." This is an important general point, but I am not yet sure how to apply it to this case. There is ample evidence that several witnesses changed their accounts over time, but there is less information on how certain they claimed to be initially.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
Jed Rakoff and Elizabeth Loftus wrote, "Moreover, in court, an eyewitness is usually asked not how confident she was when she first picked the defendant out of a lineup, but how confident she is now; and many studies have shown that, once an eyewitness has identified a particular suspect as the perpetrator, the level of her confidence will often increase over time. It is thus common for an eyewitness who said at the time of the lineup that she was “somewhat confident” in her identification of the perpetrator to later testify at trial that she is “absolutely sure” the defendant was the person she saw commit the crime." This is an important general point, but I am not yet sure how to apply it to this case. There is ample evidence that several witnesses changed their accounts over time, but there is less information on how certain they claimed to be initially.
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There is a big debate underway currently about the relationship between eyewitness confidence and accuracy.

Some researchers criticised earlier lab studies for underestimating the relationship between confidence and accuracy, due to the fact that they tend to involve mock witnesses all viewing a 'crime' under identical conditions. This leaves less room for variation in confidence as a results of factors that might legitimately affect accuracy, such as viewing time or conditions. Consequently more variation in confidence is explained by irrelevant factors such as personality characteristics of the study participants.

In real scenarios witness confidence will be influenced by factors that are related to accuracy which may mean the confidence-accuracy relationship is stronger than in lab studies. However, we also know that confidence will be influenced by factors such as feedback confirming that the person identified was the suspect. Not only that, but studies have shown that people can distort their memories of the conditions under which they witnessed a suspect after receiving feedback that they identified a suspect from a lineup (e.g. they will report that they had better view of the suspect after being told they got the identification 'correct', compare to people who had the same view but were told they got it wrong).

Researchers such as Wixted have argued that confidence is a good indicator of accuracy if it was the first identification and was obtained under properly controlled conditions (i.e. without prior memory contamination). However, this has been challenged too such as in this paper by Berkowitz et al. (2022). Loftus is a co-author in this also. I haven't had time to look through all of this argument in depth yet.

It's difficult to apply to cases like the current one since as you point out there often is prior contamination of witness memory, and we don't usually have information about their initial as opposed to current confidence.
 
a portion of SM's testimony

Jenna Macfarlane reported, "He [Shane Mitchell] was then asked by defence QC Donald Findlay if there was any point in the evening where he could say he knew for a fact that Luke was not in the house. Shane responded: 'I can't say that.'"

Based on this passage, I conclude that Shane failed to corroborate Luke's alibi, not that he contradicted it. As my previous comments explain in more detail, the way that the police questioned him is at least part of the reason for Shane's lack of recall.
 
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a study on tunnel vision and confirmation bias

In the abstract to a journal article Eitan Elaad wrote, "The purpose was to examine the combined effects of these biases on Israeli police investigators and laypeople in hypothetical criminal investigation situations. Results indicated that police investigators were more strongly affected than laypersons by tunnel vision. Police investigators were more confident about the suspect’s guilt than were laypeople in the presence of incriminating and exonerating information, alike."

In the discussion he continued, "The number of identified wrongful convictions and false confessions is mounting, and in almost every wrongful conviction, the problem of tunnel vision is present (Findley, 2012; Findley & Scott, 2006; Martin, 2002). According to Martin (2002), tunnel vision distortion is particularly damaging in the investigative process. Investigator’s misconduct becomes prevalent in note and record-keeping, witness interviews, the interrogation of suspects, and the conduct of searches. The consequences are often the presence of incomplete or even entirely inaccurate evidence in the trial, which increases the risk of miscarriages of justice. Martin (2002) further emphasized that tunnel vision amplifies the risk of using the informer’s evidence."

Regarding the present case, the tunnel vision started within days. The apparent failure to follow up with witnesses who saw someone following JJ on the afternoon of her murder is one of many instances.
 
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synthesized testimony in the Sam Hallam case

"The case against Sam Hallam depended on the visual identification evidence of two witnesses, neither of whom said anything in his or her initial statements to the police to indicate that they recognised him (whom they knew), or anyone like him at the scene of the crime. Phoebe Henville’s identification of the Appellant was prompted by her friend. Khelfa’s identification of the Appellant was prompted by Phoebe Henville. Neither was a particularly satisfactory witness. Their various accounts contained numerous internal inconsistences and contradictions and were contradicted by other evidence. Khelfa’s identification evidence provided little, if any, independent support for Pheobe Henville’s evidence....Although the [cell phone] evidence could not establish a positive alibi, it raised the distinct possibility that both Appellant and his alibi witness were mistaken as to the date they were together. That also indicated that the alibi was not a concoction with an intention to deceive the police."

Police Professional stated: "Recollection of an incident can also be influenced by others if, for example, a witness discusses the event with someone else afterwards, particularly other witnesses. One witness in the Hallam case initially told police they had seen a “black man brandishing a baseball bat” a scene. Despite this, they later picked out Mr Hallam (who is white) from an identification parade. In cross-examination during the trial, the witness admitted they had selected Mr Hallam – who was known to the witness – after hearing a rumour that he was involved."

I am bringing the Sam Hallam case up in the present thread because it illustrates what Professor Simon called synthesized testimony. It also illustrates that when a suspect provides an alibi that turns out not to be correct, this does not demonstrate that the suspect is lying (the Ronald Cotton case also falls into this category).
 
the effect of gruesome photos

Professor Simon wrote, “The effects of anger were found also in studies that simulated legal decision making. One study found that presenting simulated jurors with gruesome photographs of a stabbed murder victim led to an arousal of negative emotions-including feeling anxious, anguished, disturbed, and shocked-which resulted in a doubling of the conviction rate.214 Similar findings were made in studies that contained presentations of severe brutality and mutilation.215 Importantly, in these studies, the issue in question was the identity of the perpetrator, which means that the heinousness of the act was entirely irrelevant and nondiagnostic to deciding the verdict.216”

Gruesome photos were shown to at least two witnesses in this case.
 
examination of victims and suspects

From The Scotsman: Dr Kranti Hiremath, 49, said it was part of her duties as a forensic medical examiner to attend police stations and examine the victims of crime and suspects. She said she had been called to Dalkeith police station in the early hours of 1 July, 2003, and had examined [Luke] Mitchell.

He co-operated fully. She checked for any injuries, and saw an abrasion on each of Mitchell’s shins. The more recent was between 24 and 48 hours old. Mr Findlay asked: "There were no injuries that had the appearance of being received in the previous 12 hours?"

Dr Hiremath said: "No."

I have also heard it said that Mr. Mitchell's hair was not recently washed. It is sometimes said that Mr. Mitchell was forensically examined from head to toe, but this is an exaggeration. It would be more accurate to say that he was examined from head to shins. This article also includes a snippet of testimony from Ms O'Sullivan, who saw a youth, not Mitchell, at a driveway on Newbattle Road.
 
transcripts from Steven Kelly's testimony

Portions of trial testimony have begun to appear on line, including Steven Kelly's. Pro-guilt commenters sometimes deny the assertion that members of the search party changed what they said in their early police statements versus their testimony. The cross-examination by Donald Findlay indicates that Mr. Kelly's statement on 30 July was that Luke's dog Mia stood on her hind legs with her front paws on the wall.
 
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denying versus failing to remember

I re-read some of Mr. Kelly's testimony, and there were things seem a little different to me now. There were times when he claimed not to remember, and such claims may or may not have been truthful. However, he did not disavow his earlier statements in the way that Janine disavowed hers.
 
I think, when faced with the need to convict, from the police, to witnesses, lawyers and jury members, like to form a narrative that fits and they are OK with ignoring evidence that does not fit with that narrative. That is how, despite all the evidence that pointed away from Mitchell, he was convicted.
 
Have a read at the testimonies of Alice Walker, Janine Jones and Stephen Kelly.

Throughout, all three have memory issues, especially Kelly who is not well, needs a break, or at times appears to be nodding off.
Very strange all three have these memory lapses apart from when Findlay suggests that Luke and Mia went past the "V"part of the wall a short distance before returning back to the "V".
My opinion is that the cops had schooled all three that Luke Mitchell or the dog never stepped one inch past that V thus Luke went STRAIGHT to the body.
 
during Steven Kelly's testimony

Gordon McIlwraith wrote, "A YOUNG barman fled court as he was shown pictures of teenager Jodi Jones's mutilated corpse - shortly before the trial was halted. Barman Steven Kelly, 21, hadalready been tearful and complained of feeling ill before he rushed out...But then judge Lord Nimmo Smith was forced to adjourn the trial for the day after hearing that murder accused Luke Mitchell had been 'physically ill' during the break."

Any claim that Luke was impassive during his whole trial would clearly be incorrect.
 
CCTV at Luke's school?

Chris_Halkides said:
Three, instead of claiming that people at school saw Luke with a parka prior to the murder, they might have searched credit card receipts to see whether or not one was purchased or produced a dated photo of Luke wearing it.
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To demonstrate that Luke had a parka prior to the murder, the prosecution should have produced CCTV images from Luke's school of Luke's wearing it. If they did not look for such video, the police were incompetent...
 
the press on the finding of Jodi's body

"He has never publicly shed a tear and did not wince when pictures of her mutilated body were shown on wall-mounted screens in the High Court in Edinburgh...In his closing speech, Alan Turnbull QC narrowed the prosecution case down to three key pieces of evidence. Mr Turnbull suggested the evidence of the accused's brother, Jodi's family members and a passer-by were sufficient grounds on which to convict Mitchell. He told the court Mitchell's account of the moment Jodi's body was found conflicted with those of family members. For while he claimed his dog alerted him to the break in the wall where Jodi's body was found, the family said he found it himself. "If the family members are right, it means that he was the killer," Mr Turnbull told the jury. The advocate depute also highlighted the significance of the evidence of Luke's 23-year-old brother. He told the court Shane Mitchell's testimony demonstrated that Luke was not at home when he said he was on the day Jodi died." Daily Mail, on 21 January 2005

There is not one sentence in the passages above that cannot be vigorously disputed, and at least one statement is provably false. When a witness was shown photos of the crime scene, Luke Mitchell became so ill that the trial had to be stopped. I will focus on the finding of Jodi's body in subsequent comments.
 
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Having taken an interest in this case, the 'International Skeptics' forum archives, circa 2010, have been invaluable, as they contain a number of insightful postings from Corinne Mitchell, Luke's mother.

I have been directly involved in recent furore, regarding the realisation that trial transcripts were available and significant new evidential material is continually being highlighted on the Facebook group 'Luke Mitchell Research Discussions'.

I do have a related 'skeptical' background, going back a while.

Recently came across the long forgotten, letter from Philip Klass!:

March 31, 1998

Dear James Easton:

Jim Oberg was kind enough to send me a copy of your most interesting White Paper on Rendlesham, and I've only had time for a very-fast scan. I'm very impressed with your research effort and am delighted that you have devoted effort to investigating and "debunking" this case.
(End)
 
Witness coaxing in another case

Early in his career Clive Stafford Smith worked on a murder case in Miami, Florida. "Hendon, says Stafford Smith, was inexperienced and idle; he and bits of useful evidence had “passed as ships in the night.” The prosecution, by contrast, had been canny and diligent — and corrupt. Key witnesses had been coaxed, details altered, testimony cleaned up, evidence suppressed or distorted. A first trial judge was charged with bribery in another case and stood down. A second proved indifferent and lazy." For additional information see this article from The Independent.

The comments about coaxing* witnesses and cleaning up testimony sound much like what happened in the Mitchell case, and probably many others. *Earlier in this thread I used the phrase witness cajoling.
 
Risk assessment

The Scottish Sun wrote, "But she [Sandra Lean] has already accepted the release plea will be knocked back by law chiefs after a psychiatric report ruled the 35-year-old is a “sexual risk” to women...It is understood cops also contributed to the report which was based on jail officials’ two dossiers following his move from a maximum-security prison to Greenock nick." The Daily Mail wrote, "A psychiatric report branded Mitchell a ‘sexual risk’ to women. Police Scotland is also understood to have had an input."

Here is my speculation: The police investigated reports of Mr. Mitchell prior to his incarceration, and I use the word "investigated" in its loosest possible meaning.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
The Scottish Sun wrote, "But she [Sandra Lean] has already accepted the release plea will be knocked back by law chiefs after a psychiatric report ruled the 35-year-old is a “sexual risk” to women...It is understood cops also contributed to the report which was based on jail officials’ two dossiers following his move from a maximum-security prison to Greenock nick." The Daily Mail wrote, "A psychiatric report branded Mitchell a ‘sexual risk’ to women. Police Scotland is also understood to have had an input."

Here is my speculation: The police investigated reports of Mr. Mitchell prior to his incarceration, and I use the word "investigated" in its loosest possible meaning.
Click to expand...

I'm not clear why the police should have any input into a psychiatric risk assessment for somebody who has been in prison for 20 years.
 
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