Court vacates 1997 murder conviction secured with bite-mark evidence

[TomSea]

This is sort of interesting, even if one is an armchair law and order fan on up in experience with our justice system.  I admit, a lot of these stories I post are not the usual here of politics, international events and so on.

So summing up, this fellow gets off now because an expert witness recanted their testimony that this was a bite mark on the arm of the deceased. The expert is a Dentist.

Court vacates 1997 murder conviction secured with bite-mark evidence

A bite-mark that sent a California man to prison for 23 years for killing his wife has resulted in his conviction being tossed.

Testimony about the bite-mark convinced a jury to convict William Richards of murder in the death of 40-year-old Pamela Richards in 1993.

But on Thursday California’s Supreme Court vacated the guilty verdict, citing a new state law inspired by the case.

The law says expert opinion that the same expert later repudiates is “false evidence.”

The dentist who provided the crucial testimony in Richards’ case later recanted.

He told the jury Richard’s teeth caused a mark that was found on his wife's hand after she was killed.

He later said the injury might not even be a bite-mark.

California lawmakers changed the law after the Supreme Court upheld Richard’s conviction in 2012, rejecting the argument that an expert’s change in testimony was grounds for a reversal.

Read More At: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/28/court-vacates-1997-murder-conviction-secured-with-bite-mark-evidence.html

Picture of the man accused at the link. It makes one wonder.

[Fishrrman]

At least the creep sat in jail for just shy of twenty years.

[TomSea]

At least the creep sat in jail for just shy of twenty years.

It does make one wonder what the other evidence is; was their any of her blood on him? Things like that. Fingernails, etc.

But looking at the story, I kind of thought he may well be guilty but it's got to be proven, not just a gut feeling. I could also be way wrong.