ipl-logo

Case Study Of John's Wrongful Conviction: Flawed Pathology Evidence

1139 Words5 Pages

John (Jack) Salmon was charged with the murder of his common-law wife, Maxine Ditchfield, a 28 year old dog groomer and mother of three who had died due to fatal brain injuries on September 22th, 1970. John, a welder, met Maxine in 1967 and they started dating each other in 1970, and then moved in together. Following the couple’s time at a local hotel drinking beer, and later returning to their friends, Don and Mary Claydon’s residence where they continued to drink before deciding to go back to their house. That night and the following morning, Maxine experienced several falls with the associated bruising and marks on her face and body from hitting the floor and washroom features, resulting in evident changes in her movements. John …show more content…

This represented the power and position of forensic pathology in the criminal justice system, which the Crown and defence rely on, but can end in incarcerations of innocent individuals, as shown in John’s case. In this investigation, rather than having evidence presented by a forensic pathologist, Dr. Dietrich was a clinical pathologist who was trained to determine causes of disease in living patients and not to perform post-mortem examinations to identify the causes of death. John’s trial was proceeded by an unqualified pathologist without training in the area required to provide medical evidence in criminal trials, which lead to misdiagnoses and John’s wrongful conviction. As well, rather than approaching evidence with an open mind “without preconceptions or presumptions about abuse”, Dr. Dietrich had initially believed Maxine’s death was a homicide, therefore demonstrating his bias and lean towards evidence supporting his view instead of the truthful information …show more content…

Eyewitness accounts play a huge role in general in trials and verdicts, but may be unreliable many times, with certain views placed on evidence provided by children. Unreliability may arise from not being able to recount the identity of the accused, the actions and speech occurring during that time, the relationship of individuals towards the person in question, and many

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Barker Vs Wingo

    1220 Words  | 5 Pages

    Case Law Assignment: Barker v. Wingo A) Case Name and Citation: Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972) B) Summary of the Facts: On a murder case of two elderly people in 1958, Willie Barker and Silas Manning were arrested and awaited their trial. The Commonwealth’s tactic was to convict Manning first prior to convicting Barker, due to the lack of evidence against him, assuring a testimony against Barker there after. Manning’s prosecution was not an easy one accounting for six total trials and delaying Barkers.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Mr. Gordon Wood Murder Conviction

    474 Words  | 2 Pages

    This is an analysis of the newspaper article on the appeal of the murder conviction of Mr. Gordon Wood. Mr. Wood was originally charged with the 1995 murder of Ms. Caroline Byrne and the trial was held in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in July 2006. During the court case it was stated that Mr. Wood had “hurled his model girlfriend off The Gap in Sydney in a spear throw that lobbed her so severely into a crevice, that a rescue team had to use force to free her body” (Sydney Morning Herald, 2007). Mr. Wood pleaded not guilty to all charges, however the jury found him guilty of her murder. The murder case was taken to State level due to the seriousness of the crime.

    Read More

  • Seran Burton Case

    1603 Words  | 7 Pages

    SEAN BURTON has been charged with the murder of JAMES STOKER. The prosecution case is that BURTON was jealous of STOKER’s relationship with BURTON’S ex -wife and in order to monitor the activity of the couple, BURTON placed a GPS device under STOKER’s car. The GPS tracker was able to monitor STOKER’s location and this data was being sent directly to BURTON’s computer.

    Read More

  • Wrongful Convictions In 1983 Murder: Article Analysis

    200 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the article “2 Men Awarded $750,000 for Wrongful Convictions in 1983 Murder” was about two half brothers who were wrongly convicted for a crime they didn’t commit. The men have been awarded with $50,000 a year, up to $750,000 for each of the men. Even though it may seem like a lot at first after attorney’s fees, the cost of living, and family members it’s not a lot. After 31 years in prison, their compensation would be more than double that amount, if they had not been in prison. The men had been convicted for the rape and murder of an 11 year old in 1983, even though there was physical evidence that either of them had been involved.

    Read More

  • Ohio V. Clark Case Study

    776 Words  | 4 Pages

    “The child, at three and a half years old, is incompetent to appear in court as a witness… If the child is incompetent to testify in court, why isn’t the child incompetent to testify out—make the same statement out of court?” (Ohio 2). This shows that the child, while he may be telling the truth, is still not seen as someone that is allowed to testify in court as a real witness to the crime. The misuse of the child’s words within the case of Darius Clark is again shown that he was not able to have real testimony presented in front of the court to be seen as real or not.

    Read More

  • The Case Of Gerard Baden-Clay

    1142 Words  | 5 Pages

    The public has reacted with incredulity that the court’s definition of behaviour showing “innocence of murder” could include the extended deception and dishonest conduct of this man, who has continued, day after day, month after month, year after year to conceal the truth about his wife’s death (Couriermail 2016). The success of Baden-Clay’s appeal in turn, influences others in similar situations of spouse homicide and not only allows but encourages this deceptive behaviour. This would surely be detrimental to all of Queensland society and create an unsafe culture by opening this type of opportunity for future homicides and killings if all it takes to win a spouse homicide case was to dispose of the body so that there is no recognisable signs of trauma and enough evidence to be convicted of

    Read More

  • R V Green Youth Court Case Essay

    1926 Words  | 8 Pages

    Children have been found to experience much higher levels of communication difficulty in the criminal justice system and this diminishes their ability to give evidence with the coherence desired by the court to facilitate prosecution of crime. In the case of R-v- Green youth court, the court held that There was no absolute right for a defendant to be allowed to face his accusers. Special measures to protect a vulnerable or intimidated witness from the accused would not normally be applicable to a defendant witness, but other means were available to a court to assist a defendant in ensuring that where he had communication difficulties, his case was put across properly. The court had an obligation to achieve fairness in each particular case, and that requirement was met by the system. This application was dismissed but the ruling gave critical understanding that a child under 17 years qualifies to be a vulnerable witness if they have communication difficulty and vulnerability was more circumstantial than mere age

    Read More

  • Harold Shipman Research Paper

    1579 Words  | 7 Pages

    A simple post-mortem blood examination by a coroner would have shown morphine evidence in the victim’s blood, as morphine stays in the body for many years after death (2003). Even before this, had the General Medical Council removed Shipman’s certification for forging prescriptions and being a drug addict instead of giving him a warning letter and a small fine, Shipman would not have been able to commit the crimes he committed. Therefore, had the deceased’s blood been checked as a standard practice, there would have been enough physical evidence to convict

    Read More

  • Wrongful Convictions Research Paper

    301 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many factors that contribute to a wrongful conviction. Eyewitness misidentification is the greatest cause. The mind is not a tape recorder; it does not record events exactly as it’s seen. Sometimes the witness or victim would choose the wrong person at photo arrays and lineups. The memory of a witness in a crime scene is like any other evidence it must be preserved carefully.

    Read More

  • Eyewitness Identification In The Criminal Justice System

    80 Words  | 1 Pages

    The criminal justice system depends majorly on eyewitness identification for investigating and prosecuting crimes. Psychologists have been the only ones who have warned the justice system of problems with eyewitness identification evidence. Recent DNA exoneration cases have corrupted the warnings of eyewitness identification researchers by showing that mistaken eyewitness identification was the largest factor contributing to the conviction of many innocent people eyewitness testimonies are not reliable therefor you would assume they would be taken out of court, but instead

    Read More

  • Dr. Harold Shipman Case Study

    634 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Incident In 1998, Dr. Linda Reynolds of the Brooke Surgery in Hyde reached to John Pollard, who was the coroner for the South Manchester District, about Dr. Harold Shipman’s high rate of deaths of all of his patients. This was brought to the police attention and the police did not pay so much attention to it, assigning some of the newer police officers, which of course had little experience in being a police officer. These assigned police officers were unable to find enough evidence to charge Dr. Harold Shipman. Shipman’s investigation was then dropped and that same year Shipman killed 3 more people, with last victim being Kathleen Grundy, whose death certificate was recorded by Shipman stating that the cause of death was “old age.”

    Read More

  • Suggestibility In Eyewitness Testimonials

    70 Words  | 1 Pages

    Even though I did not choose the same concept as you I do agree Suggestibility plays a role in eyewitness testimoney because an investigator could tell the eyewitness false statements to try to trick the eyewitness into an wrong answer. Also I believe eyewitness testimonials are not the most precise way of convicting criminals because Distinguishing proof mistakes happen,and these blunders can prompt people being dishonestly blamed and even

    Read More

  • 12 Angry Men Stereotypes

    1072 Words  | 5 Pages

    The 1957 film 12 Angry Men is a classic courtroom drama that continues to captivate audiences today. The film's plot revolves around twelve jurors tasked with deciding the fate of a young man accused of murder. As the deliberations unfold, the jurors' personal biases and prejudices come to light, leading to intense debates. The film also highlights the dangers of relying solely on eyewitness testimony, as memories can be faulty and subject to encoding, storage, and retrieval errors. We get a taste of some of the juror’s biases right off the bat.

    Read More

  • How Does Tom Robinson Show Innocence In To Kill A Mockingbird

    732 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee the term mockingbird symbolizes innocence in a person. In the novel it focuses on the fact that innocence, represented by the mockingbird, can be wrongfully harmed. There are two characters: Tom Robinson and Arthur “Boo” Radley that are supposed to represent the mockingbird. In the novel, Tom Robinson is the best example of a mockingbird because he is prosecuted for a crime he did not commit. Also, he was judged unfairly based on the color of his skin in his trial.

    Read More

  • Eyewitnesses: The Case Against Charles Manson

    952 Words  | 4 Pages

    A case where eyewitnesses was very important and helped the criminal prosecution was the trial against Charles Manson. To make the story short, Charles Manson was a man who got other people to murder for him. Charles Manson was a leader of a group called the Manson family, and the group contained young men and women who where lost in life and looked up to Mr. Manson as their leader and like a God. Charles Manson had pointed out several members of his family to brutally murder Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Jason Sebring, Leno LaBianca and Rosemary LaBianca. The police officers working the Charles Manson case had evidence such as fingerprints and similar on the family members of the Manson family, but not much evidence proving

    Read More

More about Case Study Of John's Wrongful Conviction: Flawed Pathology Evidence

Open Document