Forensic Pathology News
Dr. Young will post links to news articles that interest him about
forensic pathology, medical examiners, coroners and death
investigation in this section.
Pathology in the News
- 'This is all subjective': Forensic evidence picked apart again in Rodney Reed hearing
- All the experts' estimates Tuesday were primarily based on the state of rigor mortis of Stites' body, viewed in crime scene video. Dana acknowledged that the assessments are, ultimately, a matter of expert opinion. "This is all subjective. What he is seeing is different from what I'm seeing," she said, when asked why a forensic pathologist came to a different conclusion.
- Pathologist speaks for the dead, tells jury in Rowland trial how USC student died
- But until Beaver, no witness so far in the six-day trial at the Richland County Courthouse has been a forensic pathologist, specialized doctors who perform autopsies, interpret the fatal wounds and whose unofficial credo is that they speak for the dead.
- Woman Will Be Tried Again for Shaken Baby Case From 1984
- Goldsmith's documentary, The Syndrome, examines the disturbing willingness of courts and the public to believe a previously unheard-of crime—baby shaking—was suddenly pervasive. She likens it to the panic over Satanism. In fact, her film traces how some of the very same experts who had promoted the idea that day care centers were filled with child-raping Satanists went on to promote the idea that homes were filled with baby-shaking parents.
- Boy With Autism Whose Body Was Found By Hikers In Nevada Died By Strangulation, Coroner Confirms
- At a hearing on June 30, Clark County Deputy District Attorney John Giordani told the court that Rodriguez had confessed to killing Liam, removing his clothing, and leaving him naked in the desert. “This is an egregious case of filicide. She essentially said that she became frustrated with the child and strangled him,” Giordani said.
- LIVE UPDATES: Forensic pathologist disagrees with defense experts in Rodney Reed case
- Dr. Dana told the court that she disagreed with several of the assertions made by these doctors. In her analysis, she said she didn’t find anything inconsistent with the 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. time of death range, based on the timeline of a phenomenon called rigor mortis — or the stiffening of the body after death.
- Florida babysitter charged with murder 37 years after infant shaken so violently he never developed mentally
- McKirchy allegedly told his parents that their son had fallen off a couch, but the baby was blue in the face, his breathing shallow, his hands clenched and his eyes no longer responsive. His parents rushed him to the hospital, where doctors determined he suffered from shaken infant syndrome.
Pathology Links
- ACCPE means Affirming the Consequent for Complex Past Events. It is The Sherlock Effect.
- Whenever an expert states the past events that occurred on the basis of looking only at the physical evidence without reference to eyewitness statements, he or she is Affirming the Consequent for Complex Past Events. This is not only logically invalid and unsound, it never works in practice, Sherlock Holmes, CSI and Bones notwithstanding. Whenever ACCPE is listed in my comments to a news article, recognize one more tragic example of how this fallacy can destroy lives. ACCPE can also be understood as "backward reasoning,""effect-to-cause reasoning," or "abductive inference."
- American Academy of Forensic Sciences
- ForensicScienceDegree.org
- For further information on forensic science.
- National Association of Medical Examiners