Over the past few years, the term “Expert” has lost its cachet, and for most of us on the political right, it is a term we now use with mockery and derision. While there is little to celebrate about the politicization of once-reputable institutions, or how various “experts” were able to whip up a freedom-suffocating mass hysteria over Covid, a much welcome side-effect has been the erosion of credibility of “experts.”
They never deserved the credibility that they squandered. The word “expert” was widely overused and abused in recent decades. Declaring a person with some level of subject matter knowledge an “expert,” and empowering him to determine how others may live their lives, plants the seed for him to become an authoritarian demon even if he was a kind and gentle person before being given that authority. An “expert” whose pronouncements are God-like and who may not be challenged is an extremely dangerous person…one who often can’t exercise restraint with the power given to him.
29 years ago, a story in Texas taught me to never believe the pronouncements from any one “expert” who has a talent for divining scientific truths that can affect others’ lives. In 1994, the Bexar County (San Antonio) forensic serologist, Fred Zain, was found to have repeatedly lied under oath and provided falsified evidence needed for prosecutors to obtain criminal convictions. Previously he had done the same for the West Virginia State Police. (I’ll go into a little more detail about Mr. Zain’s false testimony later in this piece.)
Ever since then, I’ve said that I would never convict a person solely based on DNA evidence, nor solely based on any one person’s “expert testimony.” Beyond that, I have never assumed that any expert in any field is reliable if there is incentive (fame, money, power, etc.) for providing a desired “expert analysis.” [Hello, climate scientists.]
Coincidentally, the O.J. Simpson trial occurred about a year later. I have no interest in re-litigating the O.J. trial, and I have little doubt that he was the murderer, but I felt like a lone voice at the time stating that I would not consider the DNA evidence if I were a juror. If O.J. could be convicted based on the gloves, shoes, his personal movement, etc., that is fine, but I did not trust the “one in 21 billion” expert DNA analysis.
It looks like my skepticism might have been warranted…
Forensic scientist Henry Lee, known for his expert testimony in high-profile criminal cases including the O.J. Simpson murder trial and the JonBenet Ramsey case, has been found liable for fabricating evidence that led to a wrongful murder conviction.
A Connecticut federal judge ruled Lee liable on Friday for his role in the wrongful conviction after tests proved that the stains identified as blood on a towel were not blood, reported the Hartford Courant.
Judge Victor Bolden wrote that Lee failed to provide evidence to support his testimony about forensic tests he said showed the stains were blood.
“Dr. Lee’s own experts concluded that there is no ‘written documentation or photographic’ evidence” that Lee performed a particular scientific blood test on a towel, Bolden said. “And there is evidence in this record that the tests actually conducted did not indicate the presence of blood,” the judge added.
Understandably, Dr. Lee is defending his credibility and protesting the Connecticut judge’s ruling. While I don’t know the truth, I rate the possibility that Dr. Lee may have fudged some evidence to be better than one in 21 billion.
If you’re interested in the Fred Zain case, below are some excerpts from an old Los Angeles Times story dating back to 1994.
Fred Zain, a police chemist whose expert testimony and lab tests helped put scores of rapists and murderers behind bars in two states over 13 years, now finds himself in the dock.
Zain is charged with lying in court and tampering with evidence in his laboratories, compelling judges in West Virginia and Texas to release men sent to prison on the strength of blood and semen samples Zain verified.
“I really have no idea why he did what he did,” said Jack Buckalew, a former superintendent of the West Virginia State Police. “The only possible reason I can speculate on is to enhance his status with prosecutors by saying what he thought they wanted him to say.”
Zain worked as a serologist for the West Virginia State Police from 1980 to 1989. He resigned to become chief of physical evidence for the medical examiner in Bexar County, Tex.
Texas has freed two men convicted on now-disproven blood tests done by Zain: Gilbert Alejandro, who served four years of a 12-year sentence, and Jack W. Davis, convicted of murder in 1990.
Zain’s work or testimony figures in hundreds of other Texas cases, and authorities say they will review each one.
A panel appointed by the state Supreme Court found that Zain, at numerous trials, fabricated or altered evidence and lied about academic qualifications under oath. The panel’s report said Zain was routinely “overstating the strength of results, overstating the frequency of genetic matches . . . reporting inconclusive results as conclusive, repeatedly altering laboratory records . . . implying a match with a suspect when testing supported only a match with the victim, and reporting scientifically impossible or improbable results.”
Even after Zain had moved to San Antonio, West Virginia prosecutors continued to seek him out to analyze evidence because his results were more favorable than those obtained by his successors, according to George Castelle, a Charleston public defender.
“After Zain left, the lab sometimes couldn’t make any determinations, or the defendant would come within 40% of the population, whereas Zain always gave better probabilities because he faked evidence,” Castelle said.
Lives were ruined, justice was denied, and freedoms were lost due to the fraudulent “expertise” of Fred Zain. “Covid experts” and “climate experts” are little different from Mr. Zain.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]