Radley Balko of Reason magazing blogs another horror story about Steve Hayne. There’s a man in Parchman for life, convicted of murdering his wife. He is less than a paragon, but this case does not sound like murder.
The original autopsy concluded that the wife died of acetaminophen poisoning, which was exacerbated by alcoholism. The wife’s family got Dr. Hayne to reautopsy, and Hayne concluded that the death was from necrosis of her intestines caused by blunt trauma to her bowels. There were problems, though: Hayne noted no bruising, took no photographs that document what he found, and failed to notice that the wife had had recent hip surgery (!!) among other failings.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals has affirmed this conviction, in an appeal where the defense counsel only raised issues that relate to whether the state proved its case at all, and whether the defendant’s prior bad acts (a history of abusing his wife) were admissible. The sorts of issues that should have been raised are painfully evident from a reading of Balko’s story and the appeals court opinion.
h/t OleMissTrialLawyer
There I was, plinking away at this, and speedy you slap it up first. Good, cuz I like your version better.
Read Balko, everybody’s who’s interested — it’s another over-the-moon tale of incredible outcomes in Hayneana. The mind boggles again.
Well, I can say that reading that gave me a headache, and I thought my typing was bad. (not u NMC but the appeal)
Wish I’d known that, Stormy, and I’d have directed you to this much better copy:
http://www.mssc.state.ms.us/Images/OPINIONS/CO21328.PDF
Okay, I switched links to the good one so nobody else goes crosseyed over it.
well, isn’t this perfect. Bristow was the attorney for Brett Jones. His appeal was so lame and narrow, I was lucky to get any attorney to even consider taking his case for PCR. It’s laughable, isn’t it?
I wonder who the prosecutors were? Hmmmmm…. Here we have Gardner, Britow and Hayne, the same 3 involved in the Jones case, now all we need is Geddie and Daniels to complete the whole picture.
I realize that the appeal and PCR are two completely different actions one being about the trial and the other being a new cause of action about the civil violations, but even so I was discouraged from any attempt to help this child due to his lame appeal. I was told there was nothing there. But I knew that this child was not depraved and that murder was completely out of the realm of possibilities, that’s why I pursued it. I believe justice will prevail. When I clicked the link and saw Bristow, my stomach did a back flip. It sure hit home. How they turned self defense into capital murder is still beyond me, but I believe it involves corruption.