March 11, 2025 · View in browser

In ProPublica’s reporting on criminal justice, a common theme is the influence of junk science — “expert” analysis with virtually no supporting evidence, or oversimplifications of real but complex science — during the prosecution of serious crimes, including murder.

• Pamela Colloff told the story of Joe Bryan, who spent three decades in prison for a crime he claims he didn’t commit: the murder of his wife. Bryan’s conviction rested largely on bloodstain-pattern analysis, a technique still in use throughout the criminal justice system, despite concerns about its reliability. 
• Brett Murphy investigated a training program that purports to be able to determine when 911 callers are guilty of the crimes they are reporting and how it has spread across the country and burrowed deep into the justice system, largely without notice.
• Colloff has also reported on the rise of parents charged with inflicting abusive head trauma, a newer name for shaken baby syndrome, as mounting exonerations and new science raise questions about the diagnosis.

In today’s story, Local Reporting Network partner Richard A. Webster of Verité News examines the role of bite mark analysis, which claims to be able to match bite marks on a victim with the teeth of the suspected biter, in the conviction of a man named Jimmie Chris Duncan.

Nine prisoners who were convicted in part on inaccurate evidence presented by a dentist using bite mark analysis techniques and his pathologist partner have since been exonerated. The sole remaining case connected to the pair is Duncan, who was sentenced to death row for killing his girlfriend’s toddler, after allegedly manufactured bite mark evidence connected him to the crime. The dentist did not respond to multiple requests from ProPublica, including questions about Duncan’s case that were hand-delivered to his home. The pathologist died several years ago.

Duncan’s case takes on new urgency as Louisiana plans to resume executions this month after a 15-year pause.

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