What do you think?
Rate this book
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South
A shocking and deeply reported account of the persistent plague of institutional racism and junk forensic science in our criminal justice system, and its devastating effect on innocent lives
After two three-year-old girls were raped and murdered in rural Mississippi, law enforcement pursued and convicted two innocent men: Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. Together they spent a combined thirty years in prison before finally being exonerated in 2008. Meanwhile, the real killer remained free.
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist recounts the story of how the criminal justice system allowed this to happen, and of how two men, Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West, built successful careers on the back of that structure. For nearly two decades, Hayne, a medical examiner, performed the vast majority of Mississippi's autopsies, while his friend Dr. West, a local dentist, pitched himself as a forensic jack-of-all-trades. Together they became the go-to experts for prosecutors and helped put countless Mississippians in prison. But then some of those convictions began to fall apart.
Here, Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington tell the haunting story of how the courts and Mississippi's death investigation system -- a relic of the Jim Crow era -- failed to deliver justice for its citizens. The authors argue that bad forensics, structural racism, and institutional failures are at fault, raising sobering questions about our ability and willingness to address these crucial issues.
After two three-year-old girls were raped and murdered in rural Mississippi, law enforcement pursued and convicted two innocent men: Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. Together they spent a combined thirty years in prison before finally being exonerated in 2008. Meanwhile, the real killer remained free.
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist recounts the story of how the criminal justice system allowed this to happen, and of how two men, Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West, built successful careers on the back of that structure. For nearly two decades, Hayne, a medical examiner, performed the vast majority of Mississippi's autopsies, while his friend Dr. West, a local dentist, pitched himself as a forensic jack-of-all-trades. Together they became the go-to experts for prosecutors and helped put countless Mississippians in prison. But then some of those convictions began to fall apart.
Here, Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington tell the haunting story of how the courts and Mississippi's death investigation system -- a relic of the Jim Crow era -- failed to deliver justice for its citizens. The authors argue that bad forensics, structural racism, and institutional failures are at fault, raising sobering questions about our ability and willingness to address these crucial issues.
Audiobook
First published February 27, 2018
1240 people are currently reading
9793 people want to read
About the author
Radley Balko
8 books140 followersRadley Balko is an opinion blogger at the Washington Post, where he writes the popular blog on civil liberties and the criminal justice system, The Watch., Balko’s work on paramilitary raids and the overuse of SWAT teams was featured in the New York Times, has been praised by outlets ranging from Human Events to the Daily Kos, and was cited by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer in his dissent in the case Hudson v. Michigan.
Balko is also credited with bringing national attention to the case of Cory Maye, a black man who prior to Balko’s work was on death row in Mississippi for shooting and killing a white police officer during a raid on Maye’s home. Balko’s Reason feature on Maye was also cited in an opinion by the Mississippi State Supreme Court. National Journal also profiled Balko’s coverage of the case. Balko’s November 2007 investigative report on Mississippi medical examiner Steven Hayne won second place in the investigative reporting category for the 2007 Los Angeles Press Club awards.
Balko was formerly a policy analyst with the Cato Institute. He has been a columnist for FoxNews.com, a senior editor at Reason, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Time, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, Forbes, ESPN, the National Post, Worth and numerous other publications. Balko has also appeared on the BBC, CNN, CNBC, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and NPR.
Balko is also the author of Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, published in 2013. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in journalism and political science.
Balko is also credited with bringing national attention to the case of Cory Maye, a black man who prior to Balko’s work was on death row in Mississippi for shooting and killing a white police officer during a raid on Maye’s home. Balko’s Reason feature on Maye was also cited in an opinion by the Mississippi State Supreme Court. National Journal also profiled Balko’s coverage of the case. Balko’s November 2007 investigative report on Mississippi medical examiner Steven Hayne won second place in the investigative reporting category for the 2007 Los Angeles Press Club awards.
Balko was formerly a policy analyst with the Cato Institute. He has been a columnist for FoxNews.com, a senior editor at Reason, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Time, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, Forbes, ESPN, the National Post, Worth and numerous other publications. Balko has also appeared on the BBC, CNN, CNBC, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and NPR.
Balko is also the author of Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, published in 2013. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in journalism and political science.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 723 reviews
January 22, 2021
It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
- James Baldwin, No name in the Street
This is a very sobering book about how racism, bad forensics, institutionalization and a faulty criminal justice system in Mississippi put hundreds of innocent people behind bars.
Two three-year-old girls were taken from their homes, sexually assaulted and murdered in rural Mississippi. Of course, this was an outrage, but what is also a crime is that law enforcement officials at the time pursued and convicted two innocent men: Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. Together these two men served a combined thirty years in prison. Thirty years that they will not get back. Thirty years that they were robbed of while the real killer went free. Also, two children died horrifically. Where is the justice when the wrong people are convicted and placed in jail?
The Jim Crow south was alive and well in Mississippi. This book chronicles how two men made a living off this corrupt system. Dr. Steven Hayne performed autopsy after autopsy - more than any other coroner. He often bragged that he never took a vacation let alone a day off...but how can one take a day off when you are so busy with "coroner obstruction." How his friend, local dentist, Dr. Michael West became a forensic expert especially when it came to human bite analysis. Their works was rushed, often unprofessional and not keeping with forensic standards. Using evidence form embalmed bodies, citing wrong causes of death, etc. It was appalling to see how unprofessional they were and, yet they were used the most by prosecutors.
It is evident that a tremendous amount of research went into the writing of this book. I was shocked to see the dates of many occurrences of such breeches of not only common decency but professionalism in the criminal justice system. How state senator Robert Crook, one of Mississippi's most powerful lawmakers once said "We just cut her tits off. She wont be coming here trying to tell us what to do anymore." in regards to Faye Spruill, a female medical examiner. Dr. Spruill was the first woman in the country to be named an official state medical examiner. The good ole boys in Mississippi did not like a fiery woman telling them how to do the job.
Racism, ignorance, bad forensics, crooked officials, and inept doctors and lawyers are at fault. How are these issues addressed? How do you fix a system that is so badly broken? How do you give back time that has been stolen from someone's life? How do you explain to a family who lost their child that the real killer got to walk free for so many years without facing justice?
Thank you to Perseus Books, Public Affairs and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
See more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com
- James Baldwin, No name in the Street
This is a very sobering book about how racism, bad forensics, institutionalization and a faulty criminal justice system in Mississippi put hundreds of innocent people behind bars.
Two three-year-old girls were taken from their homes, sexually assaulted and murdered in rural Mississippi. Of course, this was an outrage, but what is also a crime is that law enforcement officials at the time pursued and convicted two innocent men: Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. Together these two men served a combined thirty years in prison. Thirty years that they will not get back. Thirty years that they were robbed of while the real killer went free. Also, two children died horrifically. Where is the justice when the wrong people are convicted and placed in jail?
The Jim Crow south was alive and well in Mississippi. This book chronicles how two men made a living off this corrupt system. Dr. Steven Hayne performed autopsy after autopsy - more than any other coroner. He often bragged that he never took a vacation let alone a day off...but how can one take a day off when you are so busy with "coroner obstruction." How his friend, local dentist, Dr. Michael West became a forensic expert especially when it came to human bite analysis. Their works was rushed, often unprofessional and not keeping with forensic standards. Using evidence form embalmed bodies, citing wrong causes of death, etc. It was appalling to see how unprofessional they were and, yet they were used the most by prosecutors.
It is evident that a tremendous amount of research went into the writing of this book. I was shocked to see the dates of many occurrences of such breeches of not only common decency but professionalism in the criminal justice system. How state senator Robert Crook, one of Mississippi's most powerful lawmakers once said "We just cut her tits off. She wont be coming here trying to tell us what to do anymore." in regards to Faye Spruill, a female medical examiner. Dr. Spruill was the first woman in the country to be named an official state medical examiner. The good ole boys in Mississippi did not like a fiery woman telling them how to do the job.
Racism, ignorance, bad forensics, crooked officials, and inept doctors and lawyers are at fault. How are these issues addressed? How do you fix a system that is so badly broken? How do you give back time that has been stolen from someone's life? How do you explain to a family who lost their child that the real killer got to walk free for so many years without facing justice?
Thank you to Perseus Books, Public Affairs and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
See more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com
July 11, 2018
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington is a 2018 Public Affairs publication.
“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it”- Flannery O’Connor
This book is shocking me, yet, it doesn’t shock me. I know our system has its flaws, that each state has their own peculiar laws and that corruption reigns supreme everywhere. I’ve been reading about the wrongfully convicted since the early eighties when I picked up a book entitled “A Death in Canaan”, which chronicles the incredible story of Peter Reilly who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his mother. Since that time, I’ve followed other cases, such as Timothy Masters, who was convicted based on a fantasy drawing he sketched as a teenager, and the notorious case of the West Memphis Three. Now, Netflix’s “Making a Murderer” has catapulted wrongful convictions in the national spotlight turning such stories into a craze.
“Just as a cockroach scurrying across a kitchen floor at night invariably proves the presence of thousands unseen, these cases leave little room for doubt that innocent men, at unknown and terrible moments in our history, have gone unexonerated and been sent baselessly to their deaths”
Unfortunately, these situations are entirely too common- almost reaching epidemic proportions and often do not get the press like the aforementioned cases garnered. This book highlights a shocking amount in wrongful convictions in the state of Mississippi. While we generally hear the details once a long overdue exoneration occurs, such as when DNA evidence coming to light, we rarely get the full picture, and if you aren’t a resident of Mississippi, or a fan of true crime programming where this case might pop up on your radar, you probably never even heard of these cases, much less the incredible circumstances that sent two innocent men to prison for decades.
I strongly urge you to read this eye opening, incredulous saga which exposed Steven Hayne, a prolific performer of autopsies- the amount of which is mind-boggling, and his partner in crime-Michael West- a dentist who claimed to be an expert in bite mark forensics. However, the question really is- How did these two men manage to get away with their treachery for so long?
The criminal justice system in Mississippi will leave you slack jawed. What’s worse, it that no one with the ability to expose the cracks, or plug the holes, seems to care. It's like they prefer it this way. It’s appalling!
The book focuses primarily on the cases of Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, who were each wrongfully convicted of murdering three- year old girls, in separate cases. Both Hayne and West helped put the men behind bars, tag teaming at the trial by testifying about the discovery of a bite mark found after the body was submerged in water for over twenty-four hours, in one case. !!! Really? Yep. The judge allowed it and jury believed it.
Readers are also given a lesson on what is viable DNA and forensic evidence. This was a real eye-opener for me- and I even felt a little abashed after reading the margin of error in ‘pattern matching’ forensics.
A judge, remember, allowed this evidence in at trial, and while there some insinuation that the jurors should have balked at the testimony of West and Hayne, I’m afraid most of us would have believed the ‘expert witnesses’, especially after having been exposed to this type of information on numerous crime shows and in plenty of crime fiction, which is passed off as fact, with zero margin for errors, when in truth they are subjective. Most people naively believe in the justice system, and as such, gave these men the benefit of the doubt- especially since they probably didn’t know how much they were being paid for their testimony.
“Recent investigations, exonerations, and studies have also revealed scientific shortcomings in ballistics comparison, tire tread analysis, shoe print analysis, handwriting analysis, and even fingerprint matching. Shaken Baby Syndrome has come under scrutiny. Drug field test kits have been shown to have scandalously high rates of false positives, as have drug-sniffing dogs and dogs used to identify suspects based on scents taken from clothes or from the air.”
This book is quite informative, but if you suffer from high blood pressure, you may want to digest it in small doses because it is absolutely infuriating. It is also a good idea to read it in increments due to the subject matter, and the volume of information one must digest. I found my eyes crossing on a few occasions, as the book did grow tedious in spots and wasn't always he most exciting material,since it was very fact driven, and not written in the 'true crime novel", format, so it could be pretty dry reading. I don't know if there was a way to jazz up the presentation, really, but it did seem to drag on at times. I read other books in between, and found it very easy to pick up where I left off, but it did take a while to get through it.
That being said, I can not even begin to imagine spending eighteen years of my life in prison for a crime I did not commit- or being sent to death row!! My stomach was in knots thinking about the flaws in forensics, the corruption, outright lies, bribes, and of course the enormous role poverty and race plays in getting a proper defense. Thank goodness for The Innocence Project and for books like this one that will perhaps educate the public so that we will exercise our critical thinking skills more often, especially if you ever find yourself serving on a jury. This book will certainly give readers a great deal to think about, and maybe even send a few shivers down your spine. The very idea that there are more people out there like Hayne and West should give you more than a few restless nights.
4 stars
“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it”- Flannery O’Connor
This book is shocking me, yet, it doesn’t shock me. I know our system has its flaws, that each state has their own peculiar laws and that corruption reigns supreme everywhere. I’ve been reading about the wrongfully convicted since the early eighties when I picked up a book entitled “A Death in Canaan”, which chronicles the incredible story of Peter Reilly who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his mother. Since that time, I’ve followed other cases, such as Timothy Masters, who was convicted based on a fantasy drawing he sketched as a teenager, and the notorious case of the West Memphis Three. Now, Netflix’s “Making a Murderer” has catapulted wrongful convictions in the national spotlight turning such stories into a craze.
“Just as a cockroach scurrying across a kitchen floor at night invariably proves the presence of thousands unseen, these cases leave little room for doubt that innocent men, at unknown and terrible moments in our history, have gone unexonerated and been sent baselessly to their deaths”
Unfortunately, these situations are entirely too common- almost reaching epidemic proportions and often do not get the press like the aforementioned cases garnered. This book highlights a shocking amount in wrongful convictions in the state of Mississippi. While we generally hear the details once a long overdue exoneration occurs, such as when DNA evidence coming to light, we rarely get the full picture, and if you aren’t a resident of Mississippi, or a fan of true crime programming where this case might pop up on your radar, you probably never even heard of these cases, much less the incredible circumstances that sent two innocent men to prison for decades.
I strongly urge you to read this eye opening, incredulous saga which exposed Steven Hayne, a prolific performer of autopsies- the amount of which is mind-boggling, and his partner in crime-Michael West- a dentist who claimed to be an expert in bite mark forensics. However, the question really is- How did these two men manage to get away with their treachery for so long?
The criminal justice system in Mississippi will leave you slack jawed. What’s worse, it that no one with the ability to expose the cracks, or plug the holes, seems to care. It's like they prefer it this way. It’s appalling!
The book focuses primarily on the cases of Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, who were each wrongfully convicted of murdering three- year old girls, in separate cases. Both Hayne and West helped put the men behind bars, tag teaming at the trial by testifying about the discovery of a bite mark found after the body was submerged in water for over twenty-four hours, in one case. !!! Really? Yep. The judge allowed it and jury believed it.
Readers are also given a lesson on what is viable DNA and forensic evidence. This was a real eye-opener for me- and I even felt a little abashed after reading the margin of error in ‘pattern matching’ forensics.
A judge, remember, allowed this evidence in at trial, and while there some insinuation that the jurors should have balked at the testimony of West and Hayne, I’m afraid most of us would have believed the ‘expert witnesses’, especially after having been exposed to this type of information on numerous crime shows and in plenty of crime fiction, which is passed off as fact, with zero margin for errors, when in truth they are subjective. Most people naively believe in the justice system, and as such, gave these men the benefit of the doubt- especially since they probably didn’t know how much they were being paid for their testimony.
“Recent investigations, exonerations, and studies have also revealed scientific shortcomings in ballistics comparison, tire tread analysis, shoe print analysis, handwriting analysis, and even fingerprint matching. Shaken Baby Syndrome has come under scrutiny. Drug field test kits have been shown to have scandalously high rates of false positives, as have drug-sniffing dogs and dogs used to identify suspects based on scents taken from clothes or from the air.”
This book is quite informative, but if you suffer from high blood pressure, you may want to digest it in small doses because it is absolutely infuriating. It is also a good idea to read it in increments due to the subject matter, and the volume of information one must digest. I found my eyes crossing on a few occasions, as the book did grow tedious in spots and wasn't always he most exciting material,since it was very fact driven, and not written in the 'true crime novel", format, so it could be pretty dry reading. I don't know if there was a way to jazz up the presentation, really, but it did seem to drag on at times. I read other books in between, and found it very easy to pick up where I left off, but it did take a while to get through it.
That being said, I can not even begin to imagine spending eighteen years of my life in prison for a crime I did not commit- or being sent to death row!! My stomach was in knots thinking about the flaws in forensics, the corruption, outright lies, bribes, and of course the enormous role poverty and race plays in getting a proper defense. Thank goodness for The Innocence Project and for books like this one that will perhaps educate the public so that we will exercise our critical thinking skills more often, especially if you ever find yourself serving on a jury. This book will certainly give readers a great deal to think about, and maybe even send a few shivers down your spine. The very idea that there are more people out there like Hayne and West should give you more than a few restless nights.
4 stars
February 25, 2018
One of the key necessities in determining the facts of a crime is in making the story fit the evidence, not the evidence fit the story. This book shows how a complex system of corrupt or stupid attorneys, judges, policemen, a coroner and a dentist managed to convict a number of innocent people In Mississippi over several decades. It boggles the mind that this was allowed to go on for so long.
Mississippi has consistently ranked near the bottom of the country when it comes to education and government. So, it should come as no surprise that instead of a psychologist they had a former children’s entertainer, known as Uncle Bunky, conducting police interviews with children.
That said, the book can be dry in parts and confusing in others. Keeping track of all the names was difficult. The authors tend to go off on tangents. For example, do we really need to know the history of how coroners came into being after the Crusades? I can understand the desire to give us a lot of background. It’s just not always told in a concise or easy to follow manner.
That's not to say there aren’t lots of interesting facts here. Coroners’ juries were an earlier version of a grand jury. Their declining to identify the party at fault would stop an investigation by Sheriffs or police. This was consistently used to allow lynchings to go unpunished.
The big surprise here is that Haynes and West weren’t operating in the 1930s or 1950s. They started out in the 1980s and their heyday was the 1990s through the mid 2000s before DNA began to expose their speculations and theories as blatant falsehoods. The stories of how they went about their “business” would be laughable if innocent lives hadn’t been at stake. It makes one realize how gullible folks are when presented with scientific sounding theories. And how willing prosecutors are to go out on a limb to secure a conviction.
One thing to point out to other readers. This book is much more about the Mississippi medico-legal system (as the authors call it) than about Haynes and West specifically. While it’s a persuasive thesis against Mississippi, it makes for a dry narrative.
My thanks to netgalley and Perseus Books for an advance copy of this book.
February 6, 2019
3.5 "Our society has a high degree of confidence in it's criminal trials, in no small part because of the Constitution offers unparalleled protections against convictions of the innocent."
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
If one can believe this after watching the news, or reading the newspapers, seeing those freed from death row or imprisoned, often for twenty years or more, you won't after reading this book. And if you do I have some land in Florida I can sell to you for a good price.
Seriously though this book is no laughing matter. Inside you will find a systemic imprisonment of black men, using pseudo science and a justice system that was anything but just. Two men, Haynes and West held the fate of men in their hands, Haynes doing the autopsied, West using supposed bite analysis to convict many men, over very many years. Prosecutors, judges, so many looked the other way, just incredible lack of anything that makes one human, just to imprison and condemn black men, whether guilty or not. It took a while system, and many others who looked the other way.
This happens in Mississippi but the author makes clear that this happens n many places, and is still happening now. It definitely opens one eyes. Thank goodness for the Innocence projects thst are ongoing. .
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
If one can believe this after watching the news, or reading the newspapers, seeing those freed from death row or imprisoned, often for twenty years or more, you won't after reading this book. And if you do I have some land in Florida I can sell to you for a good price.
Seriously though this book is no laughing matter. Inside you will find a systemic imprisonment of black men, using pseudo science and a justice system that was anything but just. Two men, Haynes and West held the fate of men in their hands, Haynes doing the autopsied, West using supposed bite analysis to convict many men, over very many years. Prosecutors, judges, so many looked the other way, just incredible lack of anything that makes one human, just to imprison and condemn black men, whether guilty or not. It took a while system, and many others who looked the other way.
This happens in Mississippi but the author makes clear that this happens n many places, and is still happening now. It definitely opens one eyes. Thank goodness for the Innocence projects thst are ongoing. .
August 3, 2018
"Indeed and without doubt" this book IS exceptional. Recently quite a few books have been published on injustice done to people wrongfully accused of committing crimes. Here we are given some explanation how such tragedies may happen.
August 23, 2024
Centering around the wrongful conviction cases of two men, Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, The Cadaver King and Country Dentist examines the horrifying, modern-day injustices put forth by the courts and death investigation units within the state of Mississippi.
Stemming back to two men, Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West, who used faulty science and misleading proclamations in order to gain convictions, this book shines a glaring light on systemic issues within the criminal justice system.
Although the impetus for the narrative is the Brooks/Brewer cases, the book then goes back and provides a history of the coroner system and the use of forensic science in death investigations.
From there we get accounts of the careers of both Hayne and West, the details of which left me cringing. The horrifying and vastly unchecked issues with their work lead to so many botched investigations and trials. It is disgraceful to think anyone they helped to convict, wrongful or not, could still be held in prison.
Brooks and Brewer spent a combined 30-years in prison, wrongfully convicted, on the shakiest of claims put forth by these two 'doctors'.
If this book doesn't put fear into your heart, you are made of stronger stuff than I.
I felt the format of this book helped to keep it engaging throughout. Further, it provided enough background information on the coroner system, and forensic science in general, to make an impact on any reader. By showing specific cases, it then helped to bring these issues to life.
These are real people who have suffered, and continue to suffer, due to a system, that even after an obvious mistake has been made, values protocol, and politics, more than human life.
I applaud the authors for taking on this topic and bringing this story to light. Well done.
Original:
I bought this for my 75-year old Dad for Christmas. He's a BIG reader too!
All nonfiction and he has great taste. We just got off the phone and he was telling me all about this. He is really loving it.
We live in different states, so although I can't be with him right now, I am going to read this during this upcoming week so we can talk about it more.
Stemming back to two men, Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West, who used faulty science and misleading proclamations in order to gain convictions, this book shines a glaring light on systemic issues within the criminal justice system.
Although the impetus for the narrative is the Brooks/Brewer cases, the book then goes back and provides a history of the coroner system and the use of forensic science in death investigations.
From there we get accounts of the careers of both Hayne and West, the details of which left me cringing. The horrifying and vastly unchecked issues with their work lead to so many botched investigations and trials. It is disgraceful to think anyone they helped to convict, wrongful or not, could still be held in prison.
Brooks and Brewer spent a combined 30-years in prison, wrongfully convicted, on the shakiest of claims put forth by these two 'doctors'.
If this book doesn't put fear into your heart, you are made of stronger stuff than I.
I felt the format of this book helped to keep it engaging throughout. Further, it provided enough background information on the coroner system, and forensic science in general, to make an impact on any reader. By showing specific cases, it then helped to bring these issues to life.
These are real people who have suffered, and continue to suffer, due to a system, that even after an obvious mistake has been made, values protocol, and politics, more than human life.
I applaud the authors for taking on this topic and bringing this story to light. Well done.
Original:
I bought this for my 75-year old Dad for Christmas. He's a BIG reader too!
All nonfiction and he has great taste. We just got off the phone and he was telling me all about this. He is really loving it.
We live in different states, so although I can't be with him right now, I am going to read this during this upcoming week so we can talk about it more.
February 27, 2018
This was a sad and tragic retelling of the story about a pair of so-called doctors in Mississippi who got involved in the court system as professional testifiers. The first one is the prolific Dr. Steven Hayne. He had lined himself up to be in a position to be doing an incredible 80% of the state's autopsies when he already had 2 full-time jobs to do. Plus lab work, testifying, private autopsies, and other duties. Not to mention that when the recommended number of per year is 350 to keep from overdoing and making errors, Hayne was doing 1200 to 1800 a year, mostly at night, so he can keep pace with his other jobs and obligations during the day. Needless to say, he can't be doing all of it well or correctly. There are often reports of cases where he claimed to have removed and weighed organs from bodies, which when exhumed years later turned out to be fully intact. Or in other cases, one or more organs had been surgically removed years before the autopsy. Troubling indeed.
For help with such a huge workload, he often brings in his helper, Dr. Michael West, a country dentist who also has an interest in forensics and bite marks in particular and has styled himself as a specialist in the field and advertises himself as a hired gun to prosecutors. Together they package themselves and promote their various "skills" to various police agencies and area prosecutors as being available to help with difficult cases to make them more solvable. The problems lie in how they accomplished this.
Then comes a couple of murder cases, Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, two black men both convicted in different cases of brutally raping and killing young girls. Dr. Hayne's autopsy information and Dr. West's bite mark testimony was involved in convicting both of these young men... wrongfully convicting them. By the time they were able to get help from The Innocence Project, they had long been in prison many years. but were finally able to be exonerated. It was finally proven that another man had killed the girls. But still, Dr. Hayne was used as a coroner for a long time. It took some time but Dr. West fell out of favor. It seemed Dr. Hayne never might but he finally did too. I was provided a copy by NetGalley, Radley Balko, and Perseus Books for my honest review.
For help with such a huge workload, he often brings in his helper, Dr. Michael West, a country dentist who also has an interest in forensics and bite marks in particular and has styled himself as a specialist in the field and advertises himself as a hired gun to prosecutors. Together they package themselves and promote their various "skills" to various police agencies and area prosecutors as being available to help with difficult cases to make them more solvable. The problems lie in how they accomplished this.
Then comes a couple of murder cases, Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, two black men both convicted in different cases of brutally raping and killing young girls. Dr. Hayne's autopsy information and Dr. West's bite mark testimony was involved in convicting both of these young men... wrongfully convicting them. By the time they were able to get help from The Innocence Project, they had long been in prison many years. but were finally able to be exonerated. It was finally proven that another man had killed the girls. But still, Dr. Hayne was used as a coroner for a long time. It took some time but Dr. West fell out of favor. It seemed Dr. Hayne never might but he finally did too. I was provided a copy by NetGalley, Radley Balko, and Perseus Books for my honest review.
March 13, 2018
“The Cadaver King and The Country Dentist” is a very well researched look inside the world of forensic pathology and bite mark analysis within the criminal justice system of Mississippi. The book focuses on forensic pathologist Steven Hayne and bite mark examiner Michael West who provided highly suspect testimony for years that led to the conviction of multiple innocent people in Mississippi. The authors’ focus is on two cases in which the two experts’ testimony led to the conviction of 2 innocent men who spent years in prison on what was obviously junk science. The book also tears apart all of the so-called safeguards such as the prosecutors,judges, and the entire appellate process for letting these two perform forensic analysis and testifying unabated for many years without ever being seriously questioned.
The book is great when it focuses on the cases in which these experts stretched their testimony to tailor it to the needs of the prosecutors in order to help them obtain convictions — sometimes against innocent people. The book fails when the authors try to indict the entire criminal justice system and most of the forensic fields for being unreliable instead of keeping the focus on the politics involved in Mississippi which allowed Hayne and West to become rich men on the back of innocent defendants. Overall, I strongly recommend this book as it gives the reader great insight into how politics and money prevented Mississippi from joining the modern forensic age and allowed con-men to thrive legally within their criminal justice system.
The book is great when it focuses on the cases in which these experts stretched their testimony to tailor it to the needs of the prosecutors in order to help them obtain convictions — sometimes against innocent people. The book fails when the authors try to indict the entire criminal justice system and most of the forensic fields for being unreliable instead of keeping the focus on the politics involved in Mississippi which allowed Hayne and West to become rich men on the back of innocent defendants. Overall, I strongly recommend this book as it gives the reader great insight into how politics and money prevented Mississippi from joining the modern forensic age and allowed con-men to thrive legally within their criminal justice system.
March 25, 2023
Book Blog | Bookstagram
Well, shit.
This book is sobering AF.
It’s robust, in-depth and densely investigated from every angle, with the authors conducting over 200 interviews and reviewing thousands of pages of court documents to deftly present to readers all the ins and outs of a corrupt system.
I’m wholly impressed with this nonfiction account of Mississippi’s completely fucking horrific justice system and two men in particular who should be punched in the throat every time they step outside.
Like, top to bottom, what the actual fuck are we doing as a society that anything in this book was allowed to happen?
I took some time after reading this before writing my review because I needed to collect my thoughts and emotions – namely rage. Now that I’m sitting here writing this, I’m realizing I’ve actually not gathered myself at all and I’m back to confusion, rage and endless judgment.
Broadly, this book looks at bad forensics, institutionalized racism in the justice system and shitty white men finding loopholes galore because of laws written by other shitty white men and other other shitty white men willing to cover asses to “get the job done,” so that in the end, all the shitty white men are richer and more powerful at the expense of truth, justice and people’s freedom.
It’s fucking disgusting, honestly. But not surprising either.
In 1990s Mississippi, two 3-year-old girls are taken from their homes, sexually assaulted and murdered within close succession of each other. One seriously disturbed man is guilty, but two other (Black) men – Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks – are arrested and subsequently convicted, collectively spending thirty years behind bars based on bad forensics and bad police work, only later exonerated by DNA evidence.
Two men, in particular, are responsible for this injustice. They exploited and thrived in this corrupt system like pigs in shit.
The absolute assholery that is Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West is chronicled in this nonfiction book, exploring how they amassed power and prestige by peddling junk pseudoscience.
"The primary antagonists in this story are Steven Hayne, the state’s former de facto medical examiner, and Michael West, a prolific forensic dentist. A third is the state of Mississippi itself—not its people, but its institutions. In a larger sense, blame rests on the courts—both state and federal—media, and professional organizations that not only failed to prevent this catastrophe but did little to nothing even after it was clear that something was terribly wrong. What you’re about to read didn’t happen by accident."
While Brooks and Brewer are mainly highlighted in this book, the authors also identify a stunning array of other wrongful convictions that were unquestionably sealed by Hayne’s and West’s testimonies on their “forensic findings.” And that aspect really showcased how gullible people can be when presented with theories that are actually just fancy lies told with confidence, and how willing prosecutors are to convict people without any thought as to someone’s guilt or innocence. It’s all about closing the case, no matter what mistakes you made and what lives you destroy.
Hayne was shockingly reprehensible and a ridiculous liar. When the authors plainly lay out the math of just how many autopsies Hayne was doing, I was like…
Hayne, at the height of his bullshit, was responsible for 80% of the autopsies in Mississippi. That’s roughly 1700 a year, which is physically impossible even if, as Hayne tries to explain it away, he never took days off. For reference, the National Association of Medical Examiners states that performing more than 325 autopsies a year is essentially malpractice. And here Hayne is doing 1700. His mistakes and lies and half-assing it are on full display when his autopsies make no fucking sense, like in one case where he notes that he removed the uterus and ovaries from a male body.
WHY DID ANYONE BELIEVE THIS MAN?
"West is either a master bullshit artist or an autodidact for the ages."
Hayne’s partner in (literal) crime is Michael West, a dentist. Just a dentist. Sometime in the ’80s, he attended a conference on forensic dentistry and when he got home he started knocking volunteers out with anesthesia and having other volunteers bite them really hard to test his new theories, leading him to eventually claim and tout in court that he can identity bite marks months after the bite was made. It’s an ultraviolet method that he calls, without a hint of irony, the “West Phenomenon," because no one can see it but him. Seriously.
You can tell by the events in the book that West became addicted to the acclaim and power that came from being an “expert” in his field – a field he has no training for, lest we forget – so he ups the ante, eventually giving “expert” testimony on things like wound pattern analysis, gunshot reconstruction, fingernail scratch analysis, trace metal analysis, video enhancement, pour pattern analysis, tool-mark analysis, arson investigation and shaken-baby syndrome.
The man literally has NO CREDENTIALS for any of this shit and yet he claims to have investigated over 5800 deaths in Mississippi.
West is quoted in the book as saying his error rate was, “something less than my saviour, Jesus Christ.”
I can’t even. WTF.
My jaw was on the floor (and that happened a lot with this book) when the fucking FBI said that they couldn’t make any clear conclusions from security footage of a suspect because it was too grainy and outside their reconstruction skills, but then in comes West saying he cleared up the video and could see everything about the suspects clearly, but he couldn’t show the video in court. And somehow that was allowed and led to a conviction. The FBI can’t do it, but a fucking dentist could?
Honestly, this whole thing would be laughable if real lives hadn’t been so drastically affected.
We’ve got a fucking fraud and liar for a medical examiner and a narcissistic charlatan for a forensic jack-of-all-trades, who literally tamper with forensic evidence to meet their own wanted ends and bring nothing but pseudoscience to court, convincing juries that it’s peer-reviewed accepted science. And the prosecutors didn’t care about any of this, as long as they got the win.
The book weaves a disturbing and outrageous story about the egregiousness of Hayne and West, the wrongful convictions of Brooks and Brewer, the history of medical examiners, the politics of the justice system and how the court system will bend itself around laws whenever it can to secure convictions and never admit its mistakes.
"It’s often said that the wheels of justice grind slowly. That isn’t always true. When it comes to convicting people, they can move pretty swiftly. It’s when the system needs to correct an injustice—admit its mistakes—that the gears tend to sputter to a halt."
In one insane example, a defendant convicted on the testimony of Hayne petitions the court for a new trial after Hayne is officially discredited as a medical examiner. Seems simple enough – if you are convicted partly because of a fraud presenting fraudulent evidence, of course, you should get a new trial. Duh!
However, the law states that a defendant must file their petition within one year of discrediting. In this case, the prosecution argued that the media had been talking about Hayne being a fraud for five years. Even if the official discrediting hadn’t happened within that five years, the court ruled that the defendant “should have discovered this information” sooner. So using one case, the court acknowledged that Hayne was a fraud while simultaneously ruling that it was too late for anyone convicted off of his autopsies to have their cases revisited.
Ain’t that some shit?
"Just as a cockroach scurrying across a kitchen floor at night invariably proves the presence of thousands unseen, these cases leave little room for doubt that innocent men, at unknown and terrible moments in our history, have gone unexonerated and been sent baselessly to their deaths"
So yeah, this book fucked with me emotionally. It’s eye-opening and sobering and will have you grateful for things like The Innocence Project, but angry that we need The Innocence Project at all.
This is pretty heavy, dry reading at times, however. It’s full of medical and legal inner workings, political workings and so much history that explores just exactly how something like this metastasizes. If you’re in it for the true-crime aspect, it’s not very robust. The bulk of this book is about putting people on blast, exposing the bad guys pretending to be good guys. and refusing to leave any doubt about who is truly guilty in Mississippi – not some of the people behind bars, but the people who put them there.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ | 4 stars
Well, shit.
This book is sobering AF.
It’s robust, in-depth and densely investigated from every angle, with the authors conducting over 200 interviews and reviewing thousands of pages of court documents to deftly present to readers all the ins and outs of a corrupt system.
I’m wholly impressed with this nonfiction account of Mississippi’s completely fucking horrific justice system and two men in particular who should be punched in the throat every time they step outside.
Like, top to bottom, what the actual fuck are we doing as a society that anything in this book was allowed to happen?
I took some time after reading this before writing my review because I needed to collect my thoughts and emotions – namely rage. Now that I’m sitting here writing this, I’m realizing I’ve actually not gathered myself at all and I’m back to confusion, rage and endless judgment.
Broadly, this book looks at bad forensics, institutionalized racism in the justice system and shitty white men finding loopholes galore because of laws written by other shitty white men and other other shitty white men willing to cover asses to “get the job done,” so that in the end, all the shitty white men are richer and more powerful at the expense of truth, justice and people’s freedom.
It’s fucking disgusting, honestly. But not surprising either.
In 1990s Mississippi, two 3-year-old girls are taken from their homes, sexually assaulted and murdered within close succession of each other. One seriously disturbed man is guilty, but two other (Black) men – Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks – are arrested and subsequently convicted, collectively spending thirty years behind bars based on bad forensics and bad police work, only later exonerated by DNA evidence.
Two men, in particular, are responsible for this injustice. They exploited and thrived in this corrupt system like pigs in shit.
The absolute assholery that is Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West is chronicled in this nonfiction book, exploring how they amassed power and prestige by peddling junk pseudoscience.
"The primary antagonists in this story are Steven Hayne, the state’s former de facto medical examiner, and Michael West, a prolific forensic dentist. A third is the state of Mississippi itself—not its people, but its institutions. In a larger sense, blame rests on the courts—both state and federal—media, and professional organizations that not only failed to prevent this catastrophe but did little to nothing even after it was clear that something was terribly wrong. What you’re about to read didn’t happen by accident."
While Brooks and Brewer are mainly highlighted in this book, the authors also identify a stunning array of other wrongful convictions that were unquestionably sealed by Hayne’s and West’s testimonies on their “forensic findings.” And that aspect really showcased how gullible people can be when presented with theories that are actually just fancy lies told with confidence, and how willing prosecutors are to convict people without any thought as to someone’s guilt or innocence. It’s all about closing the case, no matter what mistakes you made and what lives you destroy.
Hayne was shockingly reprehensible and a ridiculous liar. When the authors plainly lay out the math of just how many autopsies Hayne was doing, I was like…
Hayne, at the height of his bullshit, was responsible for 80% of the autopsies in Mississippi. That’s roughly 1700 a year, which is physically impossible even if, as Hayne tries to explain it away, he never took days off. For reference, the National Association of Medical Examiners states that performing more than 325 autopsies a year is essentially malpractice. And here Hayne is doing 1700. His mistakes and lies and half-assing it are on full display when his autopsies make no fucking sense, like in one case where he notes that he removed the uterus and ovaries from a male body.
WHY DID ANYONE BELIEVE THIS MAN?
"West is either a master bullshit artist or an autodidact for the ages."
Hayne’s partner in (literal) crime is Michael West, a dentist. Just a dentist. Sometime in the ’80s, he attended a conference on forensic dentistry and when he got home he started knocking volunteers out with anesthesia and having other volunteers bite them really hard to test his new theories, leading him to eventually claim and tout in court that he can identity bite marks months after the bite was made. It’s an ultraviolet method that he calls, without a hint of irony, the “West Phenomenon," because no one can see it but him. Seriously.
You can tell by the events in the book that West became addicted to the acclaim and power that came from being an “expert” in his field – a field he has no training for, lest we forget – so he ups the ante, eventually giving “expert” testimony on things like wound pattern analysis, gunshot reconstruction, fingernail scratch analysis, trace metal analysis, video enhancement, pour pattern analysis, tool-mark analysis, arson investigation and shaken-baby syndrome.
The man literally has NO CREDENTIALS for any of this shit and yet he claims to have investigated over 5800 deaths in Mississippi.
West is quoted in the book as saying his error rate was, “something less than my saviour, Jesus Christ.”
I can’t even. WTF.
My jaw was on the floor (and that happened a lot with this book) when the fucking FBI said that they couldn’t make any clear conclusions from security footage of a suspect because it was too grainy and outside their reconstruction skills, but then in comes West saying he cleared up the video and could see everything about the suspects clearly, but he couldn’t show the video in court. And somehow that was allowed and led to a conviction. The FBI can’t do it, but a fucking dentist could?
Honestly, this whole thing would be laughable if real lives hadn’t been so drastically affected.
We’ve got a fucking fraud and liar for a medical examiner and a narcissistic charlatan for a forensic jack-of-all-trades, who literally tamper with forensic evidence to meet their own wanted ends and bring nothing but pseudoscience to court, convincing juries that it’s peer-reviewed accepted science. And the prosecutors didn’t care about any of this, as long as they got the win.
The book weaves a disturbing and outrageous story about the egregiousness of Hayne and West, the wrongful convictions of Brooks and Brewer, the history of medical examiners, the politics of the justice system and how the court system will bend itself around laws whenever it can to secure convictions and never admit its mistakes.
"It’s often said that the wheels of justice grind slowly. That isn’t always true. When it comes to convicting people, they can move pretty swiftly. It’s when the system needs to correct an injustice—admit its mistakes—that the gears tend to sputter to a halt."
In one insane example, a defendant convicted on the testimony of Hayne petitions the court for a new trial after Hayne is officially discredited as a medical examiner. Seems simple enough – if you are convicted partly because of a fraud presenting fraudulent evidence, of course, you should get a new trial. Duh!
However, the law states that a defendant must file their petition within one year of discrediting. In this case, the prosecution argued that the media had been talking about Hayne being a fraud for five years. Even if the official discrediting hadn’t happened within that five years, the court ruled that the defendant “should have discovered this information” sooner. So using one case, the court acknowledged that Hayne was a fraud while simultaneously ruling that it was too late for anyone convicted off of his autopsies to have their cases revisited.
Ain’t that some shit?
"Just as a cockroach scurrying across a kitchen floor at night invariably proves the presence of thousands unseen, these cases leave little room for doubt that innocent men, at unknown and terrible moments in our history, have gone unexonerated and been sent baselessly to their deaths"
So yeah, this book fucked with me emotionally. It’s eye-opening and sobering and will have you grateful for things like The Innocence Project, but angry that we need The Innocence Project at all.
This is pretty heavy, dry reading at times, however. It’s full of medical and legal inner workings, political workings and so much history that explores just exactly how something like this metastasizes. If you’re in it for the true-crime aspect, it’s not very robust. The bulk of this book is about putting people on blast, exposing the bad guys pretending to be good guys. and refusing to leave any doubt about who is truly guilty in Mississippi – not some of the people behind bars, but the people who put them there.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ | 4 stars
April 19, 2018
4 1/2 stars
This book is really hard for me to review. I have been mad at books before, have had a book that actually gave me nightmares, and have had books that gave me doubt - but this particular one scared the hell out me. It points out that we are not always in control of our lives. Not in a sci-fi way, this book is a non-fiction book - but in the way that our families, our freedoms and our futures can be taken away - at the drop of a hat - for absolutely no fault of our own, whatsoever.
This book is based on the state death investigation system in the state of Mississippi. It screams of the corrupt, unapologetic, egotistical, racist, lying judicial system - starting with police, mayors, prosecutors, judges, attorney generals, coroners - and right on up the line. There has not been a lot of change down there since the early 1900's. Except that it has gotten worse as far as bad officials go. Innocent men, some with good alibis, have sat on death row for years for crimes they did not commit and some of them cannot get a judge to even let them test the DNA from these crimes.
Two men were responsible for over 24 years of bad forensics, bad judgment and fabricating evidence and testimony in Mississippi to collaborate with prosecutors who had already determined that a person was guilty. One was medical examiner Steven Haynes. He claimed to do over 300 autopsies a month - which is the standard amount a coroner is scheduled to do in a full year - he gave expert testimony in murder trials twisting the evidence to coincide with what the prosecutors wanted, he testified to being a 'certified' pathologist, when he had walked out of that testing and ended up buying his certification from a diploma mill. Most of this information was known by the Attorney General, judges, prosecutors and the police force and it was in their best interest to ignore it. Haynes side kick was a small time dentist, Michael West. He touted a number of new and none proven scientific forensics as gospel, such as being able to see bite marks on people or corpses, often weeks after their death, by using ultra violet lights. He would then build a mold and continually press that mold into where he said the bite mark was, until there was an imprint. Hence, conviction. Both these men had medical examiners and forensic specialists testify against them as to their findings and methods being totally wrong, when the arrested person could afford that extra specialist, which was next to impossible. The courts most often ignored that testimony and went with whatever Haynes and West testified. Even when they could not produce any evidence - boldly saying that the evidence had been thrown away and the court should "just take my word for it". Their twisted and or false evidence corroborated what the prosecutor wanted. Mississippi courts still do not assign a public defender, to this day. And if the accused can afford to hire one, they are so logged down with cases that often their help is next to worthless.
For 24 years these two men helped to imprison innocent people until in 2008 Haynes was ousted by Steve Simpson of the Department of Public Safety. He had his Mississippi state autopsy rights taken away from him and additional rules were implemented to keep non-certified persons from performing autopsies and giving expert testimony in court. This took about $2 million a year away from Haynes. He had many, many people stand up for him, in addition to the Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. In 2010 a bill to legitimize doctors performing autopsies was introduced to the Mississippi legislature. Both West and Haynes lobbied against that bill. It finally passed. In 2012 West gave up his dental practice and started denouncing the bite mark evidence as being credible, the very evidence he had used for years to convict so many people.
Then it was proven that two men on death row were innocent - Kenny Brewer and Levon Brooks, both accused of the rape and murder of two small children in separate incidences. Together they spent 30 years in prison before being exonerated in 2008. Both men convicted due to evidence by Haynes and West - trying to fit the evidence to what the prosecutors wanted, while the man guilty of both the crimes, Justin Johnson, went free, until finally after 30 years he confessed. Jim Hood, Mississippi's Attorney General has since moved to prevent the reassessment of all the convictions that were determined on the evidence that West and Haynes fabricated, even knowing that there had been errors made, forensics used that were proven wrong, many people in prison, many people on death row for crimes they did not commit. And to make matters worse after all their appeals, a prisoners final appeal to the federal courts have usually been denied due to the overly strict set of guidelines that the convicted must adhere to. Many appeals have been denied on time frame. The Mississippi Supreme Court made sure of that by imposing rules that are next to unattainable. With DNA now advanced and able to collaborate guilt or innocence the courts have denied even the request to have that DNA tested, stating a one year time limit has been exceeded.
A retired former chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court is quoted as saying, "Looking back I can't believe I bought into all of that…" "Experience eventually taught me that it really begins with the DA. Once the DA decided he was going to seek the death penalty, it was really all downhill from there." " I wish I had been more courageous", said retired Supreme Court chief justice Edwin Pittman, "A couple of those old cases embarrass me now. We should have been less accepting of Haynes and that culture." Pittman's tenure began as Hayne and West's were just beginning and lasted through most of their careers. He reviewed 46 of Haynes cases and did not throw out any for bad forensics or tainted testimony. He says now he wises he had been more skeptical. "There could be a herd mentality on the court - there was always a strong majority of justices that were just always accepting of the prosecutors and expert testimony."
It appears that Mississippi, among other states, does not care about justice or innocence. They only care about upholding the process they used to incarcerate and condemn a person to death. Lives are not even worth the cost of testing a DNA kit.
This book is really hard for me to review. I have been mad at books before, have had a book that actually gave me nightmares, and have had books that gave me doubt - but this particular one scared the hell out me. It points out that we are not always in control of our lives. Not in a sci-fi way, this book is a non-fiction book - but in the way that our families, our freedoms and our futures can be taken away - at the drop of a hat - for absolutely no fault of our own, whatsoever.
This book is based on the state death investigation system in the state of Mississippi. It screams of the corrupt, unapologetic, egotistical, racist, lying judicial system - starting with police, mayors, prosecutors, judges, attorney generals, coroners - and right on up the line. There has not been a lot of change down there since the early 1900's. Except that it has gotten worse as far as bad officials go. Innocent men, some with good alibis, have sat on death row for years for crimes they did not commit and some of them cannot get a judge to even let them test the DNA from these crimes.
Two men were responsible for over 24 years of bad forensics, bad judgment and fabricating evidence and testimony in Mississippi to collaborate with prosecutors who had already determined that a person was guilty. One was medical examiner Steven Haynes. He claimed to do over 300 autopsies a month - which is the standard amount a coroner is scheduled to do in a full year - he gave expert testimony in murder trials twisting the evidence to coincide with what the prosecutors wanted, he testified to being a 'certified' pathologist, when he had walked out of that testing and ended up buying his certification from a diploma mill. Most of this information was known by the Attorney General, judges, prosecutors and the police force and it was in their best interest to ignore it. Haynes side kick was a small time dentist, Michael West. He touted a number of new and none proven scientific forensics as gospel, such as being able to see bite marks on people or corpses, often weeks after their death, by using ultra violet lights. He would then build a mold and continually press that mold into where he said the bite mark was, until there was an imprint. Hence, conviction. Both these men had medical examiners and forensic specialists testify against them as to their findings and methods being totally wrong, when the arrested person could afford that extra specialist, which was next to impossible. The courts most often ignored that testimony and went with whatever Haynes and West testified. Even when they could not produce any evidence - boldly saying that the evidence had been thrown away and the court should "just take my word for it". Their twisted and or false evidence corroborated what the prosecutor wanted. Mississippi courts still do not assign a public defender, to this day. And if the accused can afford to hire one, they are so logged down with cases that often their help is next to worthless.
For 24 years these two men helped to imprison innocent people until in 2008 Haynes was ousted by Steve Simpson of the Department of Public Safety. He had his Mississippi state autopsy rights taken away from him and additional rules were implemented to keep non-certified persons from performing autopsies and giving expert testimony in court. This took about $2 million a year away from Haynes. He had many, many people stand up for him, in addition to the Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. In 2010 a bill to legitimize doctors performing autopsies was introduced to the Mississippi legislature. Both West and Haynes lobbied against that bill. It finally passed. In 2012 West gave up his dental practice and started denouncing the bite mark evidence as being credible, the very evidence he had used for years to convict so many people.
Then it was proven that two men on death row were innocent - Kenny Brewer and Levon Brooks, both accused of the rape and murder of two small children in separate incidences. Together they spent 30 years in prison before being exonerated in 2008. Both men convicted due to evidence by Haynes and West - trying to fit the evidence to what the prosecutors wanted, while the man guilty of both the crimes, Justin Johnson, went free, until finally after 30 years he confessed. Jim Hood, Mississippi's Attorney General has since moved to prevent the reassessment of all the convictions that were determined on the evidence that West and Haynes fabricated, even knowing that there had been errors made, forensics used that were proven wrong, many people in prison, many people on death row for crimes they did not commit. And to make matters worse after all their appeals, a prisoners final appeal to the federal courts have usually been denied due to the overly strict set of guidelines that the convicted must adhere to. Many appeals have been denied on time frame. The Mississippi Supreme Court made sure of that by imposing rules that are next to unattainable. With DNA now advanced and able to collaborate guilt or innocence the courts have denied even the request to have that DNA tested, stating a one year time limit has been exceeded.
A retired former chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court is quoted as saying, "Looking back I can't believe I bought into all of that…" "Experience eventually taught me that it really begins with the DA. Once the DA decided he was going to seek the death penalty, it was really all downhill from there." " I wish I had been more courageous", said retired Supreme Court chief justice Edwin Pittman, "A couple of those old cases embarrass me now. We should have been less accepting of Haynes and that culture." Pittman's tenure began as Hayne and West's were just beginning and lasted through most of their careers. He reviewed 46 of Haynes cases and did not throw out any for bad forensics or tainted testimony. He says now he wises he had been more skeptical. "There could be a herd mentality on the court - there was always a strong majority of justices that were just always accepting of the prosecutors and expert testimony."
It appears that Mississippi, among other states, does not care about justice or innocence. They only care about upholding the process they used to incarcerate and condemn a person to death. Lives are not even worth the cost of testing a DNA kit.
January 5, 2023
Who knew that my first 5 star read of the year 2019 would come so early, and that it would be nonfiction? I certainly wouldn’t have believed it if you told me. Bear with me, Goodreads friends, because this might be the longest review I’ve ever written. I’ll explain why at the end.
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South is named after two famous doctors in Mississippi (I’ll get to that in a few paragraphs) but mostly centers around two black men in rural Mississippi who were falsely convicted of sexual assault and murder of two different toddlers in the early 1990s. One received a life term; one was sent to death row. They served a combined 30 years before being exonerated by DNA evidence that showed another man who was initially a suspect in both crimes actually did commit those crimes — a man who should have always been the prime suspect based on his history. How does this happen in modern day America?
The authors explain it in detail. Radley Balko, a journalist who also writes an opinion blog on criminal justice and civil rights for the Washington Post, really did his research on this one. He teamed up with Tucker Carrington, the founding director of the Mississippi Innocence Project, to expose the widespread corruption in the Mississippi legal system that has been going on forever, and is still going on today.
The reader first gets a bit of a back story on the coroner system that began in England, political infighting, power struggles, civil wars, and finally the disgusting civil rights history of the southern states in the US. Mississippi arguably has the most disgusting history in that last category. Most people know the basic info of the widespread and unprosecuted lynchings (thanks to that coroner system) that occurred during Mississippi’s darkest period — Medgar Evers; Emmitt Till; Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner also known as the Freedom Riders (from which the movie Mississippi Burning was made); and many dozens of others that are recorded. And more likely there are hundreds when you add in the ones that weren’t recorded.
Eventually, Mississippi limped out of the civil rights era and into semi-modern times. Ish. During the 1980s and 1990s, racism was still alive and well. But it had become uncouth to wear your racism like a badge of honor. Whites no longer hanged blacks in the public square knowing that the coroner would always say that the murder was committed by “unknown persons” even when there were dozens of people in the crowd including the newspaper photographer who captured interesting pictures for tomorrow’s front page. But although individual and interpersonal racism had largely disappeared, institutional and structural racism was alive and well in politics, law enforcement, and the media.
This was during the “tough on crime” era that many of you who are around my age will remember vividly. There was a lot of talk about the death penalty, being harsh on repeat offenders of non-violent crimes, and even talk of adding drug dealers to the list of people who could earn himself a death sentence. There was a lot of talk about how long it took for someone to be sentenced to death, go through all those worthless and time-wasting appeals, beg the governor for a pardon, blah blah, and then maybe 20 years later if they didn’t ‘get off on a technicality’ they finally got punished for the crimes for which they had been convicted. A lot of talk. I mean, A LOT OF TALK. I grew up listening to this constantly and remember thinking, “Yeah, they got convicted by a jury of their peers. They need to die. Why are we dragging this out?” This is the kind of ignorant rhetoric that media and politicians say over and over and over until a person thinks it is part of their own private and personal belief system. There’s a reason for all that time and all those appeal attempts.
Enter the two doctors this book is named after. Read the book for yourself to get the details, but the de facto state medical examiner for the state of Mississippi, Steven Hayne (a doctor who was NOT a certified forensic pathologist, but a favorite of the coroners and law enforcement) and his buddy Michael West (a dentist who convinced the law enforcement and judicial system that he was an expert in dental bite mark forensics — which at that time and at no time since has received the backing of the scientific community — and several other junk science forensic techniques) monopolized the autopsies and court testimonies during that time. By monopolizing, I’m not talking about 53% of the state’s needs. Hayne did 80% of the state’s autopsies, which was more than 1000+ per year in his prime years. The agency that certifies forensic pathologists will not certify someone who does more than 325-ish per year, by the way, because they think that could cause negligent errors. And he called in West to consult with him on most of those cases.
DOESN’T MATTER. Mississippi believed they had two men on the cutting edge of forensics and allowed them to testify as “experts” on nearly every trial that carried a life sentence or death penalty sentence for 20 years. And the juries understood their testimonies as truth, because the judges allowed their testimonies in court and thus have been allowed to be the gatekeepers of scientific truth in the courts, even though everyone knows that lawyers don’t have a ton of science training. Remember, also, the scientific community never supported these junk science things that we see in these cases and now on CSI. Bite marks, tire treads, blood spatter patterns, and even fingerprint analysis are fun to watch on TV, but in real life are AT BEST subjective and AT WORST a way to convict law enforcement’s prime suspect without providing evidence about the other suspects. The coroners, local law enforcement, and prosecutors loved these two doctors because they never failed to back up the case against the chosen prime suspect. These two made happy, lucrative lives for themselves for a long time on a corrupt system at the expense of innocent people.
Long story short, DNA evidence comes along to exonerate the innocent. But it isn’t that easy, at least not in Mississippi. Religious, right-wing prosecutors just think DNA evidence is something else to believe in, and they prefer their original belief THANKS. The appellate courts are constantly up for re-election and don’t really want to go against the status quo. The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied all the appeals for so long because they were convinced that these charlatans were experts for many years, so how can they change their minds now and open up dozens upon dozens of wrongful conviction suits for the poorest state in the nation?
It is disgusting.
It is disgusting, yet it is still happening. One of the convicts mentioned in this book was in the papers a few weeks ago. Even though the junk science that got him the death sentence was debunked a while back, he hasn’t been exonerated through multiple appeals. The appellate courts cite procedural errors, timeliness errors, etc. The last news I read was that the courts realized the junk science was no longer credible, so they granted a resentencing that resulted in a life without parole sentence for him instead of the death penalty. They didn’t grant a new trial. He is bravely appealing that decision, saying he would rather die proclaiming his innocence than spend the rest of his life in jail.
And he isn’t the only one. As a matter of fact, either Hayne, West, or both worked on most of the cases of the people currently on death row in Mississippi. And those convicts are still there. It’s 2019, and many of these folks are still on death row. Some of those guys are definitely guilty, sure. But some not so much.
I’m sick. Why? Because this is the world I live in. I was born and raised in Mississippi. I still live there. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of similarities between me and the fraudulent dentist. Although he is 20 years older than I am, we were raised in the same very small town, went to the same community college, and went to the same university. For you big city people, this might not be a big deal, but I’m talking about tiny rural populations of people. I am sure I have met this dude at least once or twice in my life. And I fawned over him, just like the Mississippi judicial system and law enforcement community did. Just like politicians and media told me to, because “convicted criminals need to face their punishments”. It makes me sick.
But I promise to do better. Hopefully, the rest of Mississippi will decide to do so, despite the workload and the cost that it will take to go through all those cases. Innocent lives are worth it.
If anyone reads this review through to the end, I’m so sorry it was so long. But this one hit really close to home. Will this be a 5 star read for everyone? No, but it was for me because it didn’t just hit close to home, it hit me at my doorstep.
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South is named after two famous doctors in Mississippi (I’ll get to that in a few paragraphs) but mostly centers around two black men in rural Mississippi who were falsely convicted of sexual assault and murder of two different toddlers in the early 1990s. One received a life term; one was sent to death row. They served a combined 30 years before being exonerated by DNA evidence that showed another man who was initially a suspect in both crimes actually did commit those crimes — a man who should have always been the prime suspect based on his history. How does this happen in modern day America?
The authors explain it in detail. Radley Balko, a journalist who also writes an opinion blog on criminal justice and civil rights for the Washington Post, really did his research on this one. He teamed up with Tucker Carrington, the founding director of the Mississippi Innocence Project, to expose the widespread corruption in the Mississippi legal system that has been going on forever, and is still going on today.
The reader first gets a bit of a back story on the coroner system that began in England, political infighting, power struggles, civil wars, and finally the disgusting civil rights history of the southern states in the US. Mississippi arguably has the most disgusting history in that last category. Most people know the basic info of the widespread and unprosecuted lynchings (thanks to that coroner system) that occurred during Mississippi’s darkest period — Medgar Evers; Emmitt Till; Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner also known as the Freedom Riders (from which the movie Mississippi Burning was made); and many dozens of others that are recorded. And more likely there are hundreds when you add in the ones that weren’t recorded.
Eventually, Mississippi limped out of the civil rights era and into semi-modern times. Ish. During the 1980s and 1990s, racism was still alive and well. But it had become uncouth to wear your racism like a badge of honor. Whites no longer hanged blacks in the public square knowing that the coroner would always say that the murder was committed by “unknown persons” even when there were dozens of people in the crowd including the newspaper photographer who captured interesting pictures for tomorrow’s front page. But although individual and interpersonal racism had largely disappeared, institutional and structural racism was alive and well in politics, law enforcement, and the media.
This was during the “tough on crime” era that many of you who are around my age will remember vividly. There was a lot of talk about the death penalty, being harsh on repeat offenders of non-violent crimes, and even talk of adding drug dealers to the list of people who could earn himself a death sentence. There was a lot of talk about how long it took for someone to be sentenced to death, go through all those worthless and time-wasting appeals, beg the governor for a pardon, blah blah, and then maybe 20 years later if they didn’t ‘get off on a technicality’ they finally got punished for the crimes for which they had been convicted. A lot of talk. I mean, A LOT OF TALK. I grew up listening to this constantly and remember thinking, “Yeah, they got convicted by a jury of their peers. They need to die. Why are we dragging this out?” This is the kind of ignorant rhetoric that media and politicians say over and over and over until a person thinks it is part of their own private and personal belief system. There’s a reason for all that time and all those appeal attempts.
Enter the two doctors this book is named after. Read the book for yourself to get the details, but the de facto state medical examiner for the state of Mississippi, Steven Hayne (a doctor who was NOT a certified forensic pathologist, but a favorite of the coroners and law enforcement) and his buddy Michael West (a dentist who convinced the law enforcement and judicial system that he was an expert in dental bite mark forensics — which at that time and at no time since has received the backing of the scientific community — and several other junk science forensic techniques) monopolized the autopsies and court testimonies during that time. By monopolizing, I’m not talking about 53% of the state’s needs. Hayne did 80% of the state’s autopsies, which was more than 1000+ per year in his prime years. The agency that certifies forensic pathologists will not certify someone who does more than 325-ish per year, by the way, because they think that could cause negligent errors. And he called in West to consult with him on most of those cases.
DOESN’T MATTER. Mississippi believed they had two men on the cutting edge of forensics and allowed them to testify as “experts” on nearly every trial that carried a life sentence or death penalty sentence for 20 years. And the juries understood their testimonies as truth, because the judges allowed their testimonies in court and thus have been allowed to be the gatekeepers of scientific truth in the courts, even though everyone knows that lawyers don’t have a ton of science training. Remember, also, the scientific community never supported these junk science things that we see in these cases and now on CSI. Bite marks, tire treads, blood spatter patterns, and even fingerprint analysis are fun to watch on TV, but in real life are AT BEST subjective and AT WORST a way to convict law enforcement’s prime suspect without providing evidence about the other suspects. The coroners, local law enforcement, and prosecutors loved these two doctors because they never failed to back up the case against the chosen prime suspect. These two made happy, lucrative lives for themselves for a long time on a corrupt system at the expense of innocent people.
Long story short, DNA evidence comes along to exonerate the innocent. But it isn’t that easy, at least not in Mississippi. Religious, right-wing prosecutors just think DNA evidence is something else to believe in, and they prefer their original belief THANKS. The appellate courts are constantly up for re-election and don’t really want to go against the status quo. The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied all the appeals for so long because they were convinced that these charlatans were experts for many years, so how can they change their minds now and open up dozens upon dozens of wrongful conviction suits for the poorest state in the nation?
It is disgusting.
It is disgusting, yet it is still happening. One of the convicts mentioned in this book was in the papers a few weeks ago. Even though the junk science that got him the death sentence was debunked a while back, he hasn’t been exonerated through multiple appeals. The appellate courts cite procedural errors, timeliness errors, etc. The last news I read was that the courts realized the junk science was no longer credible, so they granted a resentencing that resulted in a life without parole sentence for him instead of the death penalty. They didn’t grant a new trial. He is bravely appealing that decision, saying he would rather die proclaiming his innocence than spend the rest of his life in jail.
And he isn’t the only one. As a matter of fact, either Hayne, West, or both worked on most of the cases of the people currently on death row in Mississippi. And those convicts are still there. It’s 2019, and many of these folks are still on death row. Some of those guys are definitely guilty, sure. But some not so much.
I’m sick. Why? Because this is the world I live in. I was born and raised in Mississippi. I still live there. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of similarities between me and the fraudulent dentist. Although he is 20 years older than I am, we were raised in the same very small town, went to the same community college, and went to the same university. For you big city people, this might not be a big deal, but I’m talking about tiny rural populations of people. I am sure I have met this dude at least once or twice in my life. And I fawned over him, just like the Mississippi judicial system and law enforcement community did. Just like politicians and media told me to, because “convicted criminals need to face their punishments”. It makes me sick.
But I promise to do better. Hopefully, the rest of Mississippi will decide to do so, despite the workload and the cost that it will take to go through all those cases. Innocent lives are worth it.
If anyone reads this review through to the end, I’m so sorry it was so long. But this one hit really close to home. Will this be a 5 star read for everyone? No, but it was for me because it didn’t just hit close to home, it hit me at my doorstep.
March 10, 2018
This book is a comprehensive, incredibly well researched exploration of the intertwining of politics, law, justice/injustice, and racism in the deep south.
I read a lot of true crime and sociology, but I've never read a book that explores corruption within our legal system in regards to our coroners and medical examiners. I'm embarrassed to admit that I never considered this angle. The science, we like to think, should be the trustworthy aspect of our justice system. Radley Balko shows us, without question, that all "facts" can be manipulated, or simply eliminated, when convenient.
What I felt while reading this book was total outrage, disgust, and sorrow. The events portrayed are difficult to align with any conception of justice, even as flawed as I knew the system to be.
While I have immense respect for the author's undertaking, I did have some problems with the way the book was put together. The story revolves around Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West, as the title suggests, but really this book takes on the entire modern-day political and legal system in rural Mississippi. We have a whole lot of people moving in and out, including judges, lawyers, politicians, medical examiners, doctors, victims, and the accused.
The scope of this book is enormous and at times lacks focus. This was the crux of the problem for me. The author occasionally takes us wandering into areas that are interesting, but not pertinent. For instance, we're given lengthy education on the history of coroners from the time of the Crusades. Throughout the book, we seem to wobble in and out of the timeline, jumping from one case to another, and then over to a side bit, and then on to something else. Keeping up with all the players, their stories, the cases, and the various tidbits makes for an exhausting reading experience.
In fairness to the author, the magnitude of these events had to be difficult to wrangle into a neat and concise story. This was not one or two people caught in corruption; this was the entire system, from its core on out. The entire mess is so badly entangled that unraveling it to find the core problem demands we pull out all the many threads. And so I recommend reading this book because, until you see all the pieces, you won't believe the whole picture could be real.
*I received an ebook copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*
I read a lot of true crime and sociology, but I've never read a book that explores corruption within our legal system in regards to our coroners and medical examiners. I'm embarrassed to admit that I never considered this angle. The science, we like to think, should be the trustworthy aspect of our justice system. Radley Balko shows us, without question, that all "facts" can be manipulated, or simply eliminated, when convenient.
What I felt while reading this book was total outrage, disgust, and sorrow. The events portrayed are difficult to align with any conception of justice, even as flawed as I knew the system to be.
While I have immense respect for the author's undertaking, I did have some problems with the way the book was put together. The story revolves around Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West, as the title suggests, but really this book takes on the entire modern-day political and legal system in rural Mississippi. We have a whole lot of people moving in and out, including judges, lawyers, politicians, medical examiners, doctors, victims, and the accused.
The scope of this book is enormous and at times lacks focus. This was the crux of the problem for me. The author occasionally takes us wandering into areas that are interesting, but not pertinent. For instance, we're given lengthy education on the history of coroners from the time of the Crusades. Throughout the book, we seem to wobble in and out of the timeline, jumping from one case to another, and then over to a side bit, and then on to something else. Keeping up with all the players, their stories, the cases, and the various tidbits makes for an exhausting reading experience.
In fairness to the author, the magnitude of these events had to be difficult to wrangle into a neat and concise story. This was not one or two people caught in corruption; this was the entire system, from its core on out. The entire mess is so badly entangled that unraveling it to find the core problem demands we pull out all the many threads. And so I recommend reading this book because, until you see all the pieces, you won't believe the whole picture could be real.
*I received an ebook copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*
October 6, 2019
Re-read for school. Book works really well for college students
You will never look at science the same way after reading this book. Even if you know that the shows like C.S.I. are science fairy tales what Balko and Carrington chronicle isn't so much a miscarriage of justice but a deliberate hoodwinking by a group of men (the two in the title are the most important but hardly the only ones) who didn't give a damn about the truth because those accused were poor, or black or the forgotten or all three.
The book focuses on Mississippi and two men who were supposedly "science experts" were anything but. Because of a variety of factors - from judges and the public who don't know or are misinformed, too science groups that slap on wrists, to racism - lives were badly effected and harmed by these two men.
You will, as the book itself notes, want to throw it across the room. But it is an important read because it disabuses (with footnotes) several myths and images readers have about science and crime.
And makes a case for getting rid of elected coroners.
You will never look at science the same way after reading this book. Even if you know that the shows like C.S.I. are science fairy tales what Balko and Carrington chronicle isn't so much a miscarriage of justice but a deliberate hoodwinking by a group of men (the two in the title are the most important but hardly the only ones) who didn't give a damn about the truth because those accused were poor, or black or the forgotten or all three.
The book focuses on Mississippi and two men who were supposedly "science experts" were anything but. Because of a variety of factors - from judges and the public who don't know or are misinformed, too science groups that slap on wrists, to racism - lives were badly effected and harmed by these two men.
You will, as the book itself notes, want to throw it across the room. But it is an important read because it disabuses (with footnotes) several myths and images readers have about science and crime.
And makes a case for getting rid of elected coroners.
January 18, 2019
I started out being excited to read this book. I had lived in Mississippi in the 1980s, about the time in the historical narrative of this text really should getting interesting. But doesn't. Largely not well written.
Let's start with What Did Work.
1. The Preface has important information explaining how policework is botched, how the legal system is imperfect, how innocent people can be convicted of murder.
2. The Author Notes are bit long, but give a good and full view of why the writers write this book.
3. The Epilogue is good and satisfying. It is not called an "Epilogue," but it is there and serves fairly well.
3. The Notes are well written, giving other researchers plenty of opportunity to followup.
What Goes Wrong
1. Where is the is the Introduction?
2. Where is the Index?
I wanted to detail more, but I found writing roadblocks. What I kept finding: Certain elements still want black men put away from white society. This is not just a Mississippi problem. Amd it is a difficult problem to discuss because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Last year I read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. Not a perfect book. A decidely better book. Alexander names the problem--Too many people with power to effect their desires lock away people of color. Alexander names the problem better. She moves the dialogue forward better. A better starting place for discussion.
Let's start with What Did Work.
1. The Preface has important information explaining how policework is botched, how the legal system is imperfect, how innocent people can be convicted of murder.
2. The Author Notes are bit long, but give a good and full view of why the writers write this book.
3. The Epilogue is good and satisfying. It is not called an "Epilogue," but it is there and serves fairly well.
3. The Notes are well written, giving other researchers plenty of opportunity to followup.
What Goes Wrong
1. Where is the is the Introduction?
2. Where is the Index?
I wanted to detail more, but I found writing roadblocks. What I kept finding: Certain elements still want black men put away from white society. This is not just a Mississippi problem. Amd it is a difficult problem to discuss because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Last year I read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. Not a perfect book. A decidely better book. Alexander names the problem--Too many people with power to effect their desires lock away people of color. Alexander names the problem better. She moves the dialogue forward better. A better starting place for discussion.
June 5, 2018
"It's often said that the wheels of justice grind slowly. That isn't always true. When it comes to convicting people, they can move pretty swiftly. It's when the system needs to correct an injustice--admit its mistakes--that the gears tend to sputter to a halt."
August 6, 2019
So interesting and well researched. Really brings to light many issues with the criminal justice system in America. The writing is straightforward and easy to follow. Though I did get bored at times and/or couldn’t follow the chapter breaks. But overall very good.
April 26, 2018
Listened to in audio format.
DNF
This book is undoubtedly well researched but it is a bit heavy going for me.
DNF
This book is undoubtedly well researched but it is a bit heavy going for me.
January 30, 2019
In the later decades of the 20th century, Michael West, a self-proclaimed bite expert and pioneer in other bogus forms of pattern recognition, and Steven Haynes, an uncredentialed and untrained coroner, defrauded a gullible Mississippi judicial court system, condemned numerous innocent people to prison, even the death penalty, and cheated Mississippi citizens of a small fortune in tax dollars. Although this book starts with the history of racial injustice in Mississippi, racism did not appear to be behind their fraud. However, it could be argued that efforts to deny justice to blacks for so long, weakened the system to such an extent that these shysters could function with impunity. The more immediate cause for their travesty of justice was a “get tough on crime” mood among the populace, prosecutors determined to get a conviction at any cost, a “good o’l boys” network that managed to resist modernizing the state medical examiner office to match the rest of the country, judges fearful of not being re-elected and jurors ignorant about basic science. To the extent that racism played into this horrific miscarriage of justice, it was the exponentially higher number of black men falsely accused of crimes and the disproportionate number of black families living in poverty. To add insult to injury, appellate courts now deny a retrial to those convicted by the false evidence produced by these men. At times, I found the book to drag, becoming a bit repetitive and a bit tedious. But, this is an important story. I can only hope that it leads to changes in our judicial system and allows those falsely accused to find justice at last. 3.5 stars
August 29, 2019
This makes me sad. The book deserves more than three stars. Consider this a three and a half star review.
This is about justice denied, for who knows how many people, by a system set up to protect a monstrously evil racial caste system and was then turned to other uses, such as making slimy politicians rich on the backs of the poor and downtrodden.
It’s depressing to think how easy it was for a couple of con artists to use a system which then used them back.
One can never point the finger at a single individual for corrupting the “justice” system. The system was obviously never about justice. It didn’t reward justice, it rewarded convictions. It assumed that if you were charged you were guilty, particularly if your skin was brown, and they would make sure to put you away so they could tell everyone that they were “tough on crime.” Every time a politician uses that slogan, my respect for that person drops down a few notches.
It’s sick and disgusting and I’ll never look at an episode of CSI the same again. All that pseudoscience everywhere.
I would’ve given this more stars, but it seemed to drag on for me. I guess the authors were piling up the evidence against the accused, with one example after another of corruption and blatant fabrication of evidence that goes largely overlooked by the system to this day. I guess they don’t want to face the cost and embarrassment of fixing twenty years of such abuses, even if that cost is measured in human lives.
This is not just an indictment of Mississippi, it’s an indictment of similar systems everywhere.
This is about justice denied, for who knows how many people, by a system set up to protect a monstrously evil racial caste system and was then turned to other uses, such as making slimy politicians rich on the backs of the poor and downtrodden.
It’s depressing to think how easy it was for a couple of con artists to use a system which then used them back.
One can never point the finger at a single individual for corrupting the “justice” system. The system was obviously never about justice. It didn’t reward justice, it rewarded convictions. It assumed that if you were charged you were guilty, particularly if your skin was brown, and they would make sure to put you away so they could tell everyone that they were “tough on crime.” Every time a politician uses that slogan, my respect for that person drops down a few notches.
It’s sick and disgusting and I’ll never look at an episode of CSI the same again. All that pseudoscience everywhere.
I would’ve given this more stars, but it seemed to drag on for me. I guess the authors were piling up the evidence against the accused, with one example after another of corruption and blatant fabrication of evidence that goes largely overlooked by the system to this day. I guess they don’t want to face the cost and embarrassment of fixing twenty years of such abuses, even if that cost is measured in human lives.
This is not just an indictment of Mississippi, it’s an indictment of similar systems everywhere.
February 24, 2019
An excellent dissertation on the use of science in Courts. The focus was on outrages in Mississippi and criminal prosecutions. The book also seriously challenges the procedural laws surrounding appeals, particularly as it relates to the inevitable refinement of science and forensics in particular. It is also an expose on "the good 'ole boys'" network of how the "justice" system works. Everyone should read this to see how our humanity tends to operate in the real world when trying to dispense justice.
This book is extremely well researched and written in a clear, concise voice, very readable for any person.
The justice system is very slow to change. Many of the rules of evidence are honed by time and tribulation but the use of expert testimony has not been as guarded as the written rules or evidence professors would hope. The desire to free appellate judges of workloads, under the guise of the importance of finality is directly challenged. Indeed this book destroys any meaningful defense of the importance of "finality" when the final result is wrong. It is an "Emperor Wears No Clothes" book that I doubt many in real power will heed.
This book is extremely well researched and written in a clear, concise voice, very readable for any person.
The justice system is very slow to change. Many of the rules of evidence are honed by time and tribulation but the use of expert testimony has not been as guarded as the written rules or evidence professors would hope. The desire to free appellate judges of workloads, under the guise of the importance of finality is directly challenged. Indeed this book destroys any meaningful defense of the importance of "finality" when the final result is wrong. It is an "Emperor Wears No Clothes" book that I doubt many in real power will heed.
February 20, 2024
3.5 🧬🧬🧬
April 13, 2024
Before 2016 I was against the death penalty. I felt like life in prison should be the strongest punishment. That changed after a family member was murdered. I felt hatred, true hatred, for a man I’d never meet. I understand the white hot rage that comes when someone you love hasn’t just died - they’ve been taken from you deliberately by someone else’s selfish actions.
This book is about two cases of murder (of young children) in Mississippi. It’s a narrative of injustice, racism, and sexism in the legal system. It’s also an eye opening account on how forensics (excluding DNA) isn’t so much a science as much as an educated guess.
The cadaver king, Steven Hayes, was doing thousands of autopsies a year, when the recommended number to be board certified was around 300.
From the legislature’s point of view, the state was saving money by not funding the salary and benefits of a state medical examiner and a full office of support staff. From the counties’ perspective, the $500 autopsy fee remained the same whether the funds went to the state medical examiner’s office or to Steven Hayne’s bank account. The former might give prosecutors a more professional autopsy, but the latter often guaranteed a conviction. The coroners were happy. Police and prosecutors were happy. People charged with serious crimes were going to prison.
Dentist Micheal West used his “expertise” as a dentist to exam bite marks in crimes that lead to death row convictions.
As of this writing in 2017, no court in America has yet upheld a challenge to the scientific validity of bite mark evidence. And yet the field has been denounced by every panel of scientists that has attempted to assess its scientific validity. Perhaps more pertinent: twenty-five people arrested or convicted primarily based on bite mark matching have been exonerated. Two of them were nearly executed.
I understand wanting justice for victims and their families. But this book shows how much physical DNA evidence is needed before a death row conviction is made. This true story of injustice will certainly make you question your beliefs in the legal system.
This book is about two cases of murder (of young children) in Mississippi. It’s a narrative of injustice, racism, and sexism in the legal system. It’s also an eye opening account on how forensics (excluding DNA) isn’t so much a science as much as an educated guess.
The cadaver king, Steven Hayes, was doing thousands of autopsies a year, when the recommended number to be board certified was around 300.
From the legislature’s point of view, the state was saving money by not funding the salary and benefits of a state medical examiner and a full office of support staff. From the counties’ perspective, the $500 autopsy fee remained the same whether the funds went to the state medical examiner’s office or to Steven Hayne’s bank account. The former might give prosecutors a more professional autopsy, but the latter often guaranteed a conviction. The coroners were happy. Police and prosecutors were happy. People charged with serious crimes were going to prison.
Dentist Micheal West used his “expertise” as a dentist to exam bite marks in crimes that lead to death row convictions.
As of this writing in 2017, no court in America has yet upheld a challenge to the scientific validity of bite mark evidence. And yet the field has been denounced by every panel of scientists that has attempted to assess its scientific validity. Perhaps more pertinent: twenty-five people arrested or convicted primarily based on bite mark matching have been exonerated. Two of them were nearly executed.
I understand wanting justice for victims and their families. But this book shows how much physical DNA evidence is needed before a death row conviction is made. This true story of injustice will certainly make you question your beliefs in the legal system.
March 17, 2019
“A study of Mississippi death investigations from 1981 through 1984 showed staggeringly high rates of deaths classified as “undetermined causes.” In DeSoto County, for example, the rate was 53 percent. In Benton County, it was 70 percent. The average across the country is around 3 percent.”
“The Mississippi system was run by the triumvirate for years,” says one long-serving former coroner. “Imagine that. A pathologist, a small-town dentist, and a funeral director.… The state provided an audience of adoring idiots.”
This is a very disturbing look, at the justice system in the south, zeroing in on Mississippi. It is a jaw-dropping read and I kept hoping that this was just fiction and not this jarring reality check. It is also recent history, which makes it even more terrifying. The authors do a fantastic job here, bringing this untold story, from the shadows, to the light. 4.5 stars
“The Mississippi system was run by the triumvirate for years,” says one long-serving former coroner. “Imagine that. A pathologist, a small-town dentist, and a funeral director.… The state provided an audience of adoring idiots.”
This is a very disturbing look, at the justice system in the south, zeroing in on Mississippi. It is a jaw-dropping read and I kept hoping that this was just fiction and not this jarring reality check. It is also recent history, which makes it even more terrifying. The authors do a fantastic job here, bringing this untold story, from the shadows, to the light. 4.5 stars
October 22, 2018
This is one of those books that can really rip the blinders off. Honest and objective, not only to our justice system but to the scientific realm as well. I was blown away by this account of the criminal justice system in Mississippi.
Listen - as much as we are drilled to believe that our system is righteous and without fault - it's completely false. There are so many faults with our system - and much has to do with politics and perceptions. We want our local entities to solve crimes and put the bad guys away - but sometimes the officials are more concerned with putting someone away than putting the RIGHT someone away. This should be a concern for all of us.
Balko & Carrington focus primarily on two individuals - Steven Hayne (The Cadaver King) and Micheal West (The Country Dentist) of Mississippi and their insane tale of mis-justice in the deep South. The authors focus on two deaths - Courtney Smith and Christine Jackson - but include information on many more cases that the two "experts" were involved with. Although the authors single out these two "professionals," I wonder where else in the country this craziness exists.
Full disclosure - I am a Forensic Chemistry major, these type of accounts are always hard to read. As part of our "training" in the field, we are reminded that we are scientists, not henchmen for the police. However, that's exactly what Hayne and West were. They slanted their findings to compliment what the authorities believed, instead of providing bias free results. In the end, this accounted for unjustice when it came to a number of defendants. The truth only being revealed after DNA came into the realm of physical evidence. Many of the people they helped put away, unfairly, are still behind bars. There were many signs that Hayne & West were misleading - Hayne because of the number of autopsies he supposedly completed and West for his misleading "scientific" methods. These men should have suffered more scrutiny than applied. Yet - this goes much deeper than two misleading men - our justice system has reinforced these men and has refused to grapple their dishonesty.
Some notable passages:
"Bite mark analysis, along with field like tire tread analysis, "tool mark" matching, blood spatter analysis, and even fingerprint analysis, all belong to a class of forensics called "pattern matching." These field are problematic because although they're often presented to juries as scientific, they're actually entirely subjective."
"... state officials didn't want a modern, objective death investigation system. They wanted one they could continue to control."
"State-employed forensic pathologists are independent fact seekers, not members of the prosecution or law enforcement team."
" 'There's the theory of how our criminal justice system should operate, and then of course there's the practice... Cases looked at individually can teach things. Whether they do teach us anything is the debate...' "
Listen - as much as we are drilled to believe that our system is righteous and without fault - it's completely false. There are so many faults with our system - and much has to do with politics and perceptions. We want our local entities to solve crimes and put the bad guys away - but sometimes the officials are more concerned with putting someone away than putting the RIGHT someone away. This should be a concern for all of us.
Balko & Carrington focus primarily on two individuals - Steven Hayne (The Cadaver King) and Micheal West (The Country Dentist) of Mississippi and their insane tale of mis-justice in the deep South. The authors focus on two deaths - Courtney Smith and Christine Jackson - but include information on many more cases that the two "experts" were involved with. Although the authors single out these two "professionals," I wonder where else in the country this craziness exists.
Full disclosure - I am a Forensic Chemistry major, these type of accounts are always hard to read. As part of our "training" in the field, we are reminded that we are scientists, not henchmen for the police. However, that's exactly what Hayne and West were. They slanted their findings to compliment what the authorities believed, instead of providing bias free results. In the end, this accounted for unjustice when it came to a number of defendants. The truth only being revealed after DNA came into the realm of physical evidence. Many of the people they helped put away, unfairly, are still behind bars. There were many signs that Hayne & West were misleading - Hayne because of the number of autopsies he supposedly completed and West for his misleading "scientific" methods. These men should have suffered more scrutiny than applied. Yet - this goes much deeper than two misleading men - our justice system has reinforced these men and has refused to grapple their dishonesty.
Some notable passages:
"Bite mark analysis, along with field like tire tread analysis, "tool mark" matching, blood spatter analysis, and even fingerprint analysis, all belong to a class of forensics called "pattern matching." These field are problematic because although they're often presented to juries as scientific, they're actually entirely subjective."
"... state officials didn't want a modern, objective death investigation system. They wanted one they could continue to control."
"State-employed forensic pathologists are independent fact seekers, not members of the prosecution or law enforcement team."
" 'There's the theory of how our criminal justice system should operate, and then of course there's the practice... Cases looked at individually can teach things. Whether they do teach us anything is the debate...' "
July 8, 2018
Let's see if this sounds familiar......politicians and law enforcement officials using, and at times subverting the system to obtain the necessary "forensic evidence" for a conviction. Sounds like something right out of Jim Crow south in the early/mid parts of the 20th century. However, this book covers a much more recent timeline 80's, 90's and even into the early 2000's.
The first third of the book discusses the history of the coroner, and later the medical examiner and shed some light on how the office has moved from a political appointment to an actual medical professional.
The rest of the book uncovers the situation in Mississippi where the team of Dr. Steven Hayne and local dentist Dr. Michael West used dubious forensic sciences to obtain convictions. Tells how the officials for state of Mississippi dragged their feet on developing a truly professional medical examiners office, even going so far as to create a position and department and then refusing to allocate money to fund the department.
The type of book that left me fuming and sad.
8/10
The first third of the book discusses the history of the coroner, and later the medical examiner and shed some light on how the office has moved from a political appointment to an actual medical professional.
The rest of the book uncovers the situation in Mississippi where the team of Dr. Steven Hayne and local dentist Dr. Michael West used dubious forensic sciences to obtain convictions. Tells how the officials for state of Mississippi dragged their feet on developing a truly professional medical examiners office, even going so far as to create a position and department and then refusing to allocate money to fund the department.
The type of book that left me fuming and sad.
8/10
January 13, 2019
What is an acceptable failure rate for the death penalty? A quote from the deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in a 2006 decision (Kansas v. Marsh) notes that "the possibility that someone will be punished mistakenly . . . is a truism, not a revelation." But this book leads the reader to confront the fact that innocent people, people who were exonerated by DNA evidence, were on Death Row. In 1998, one out of 7 people on Mississippi's Death Row were provably innocent. This book is both horrifying and enlightening in detailing how a long history of racism, confirmation bias, and a "good ole boy network" of a justice system involving elected judges, coroners, prosecutors, police, and particularly the title characters of "forensic analysts" of questionable qualifications supported testimony to garner convictions, rather than to obtain justice, resulting in unjust convictions and the inability to find a real killer. Compelling legal storytelling supported by well-organized facts and trenchant analysis. This book deserves a wide audience and highlights the dangers when the authority of the state goes unquestioned and state actors lose their humility and their humanity.
February 14, 2019
This book should be required reading in law school and police academies across the country! These profound injustices occurred in very, very recent history.....terrifying. In the era of Chump as president this all seems the more possible right now in our country. Grandiose narcissist convincing otherwise reasonable people to give them all the power but not be subject to societal rules. Truly soul haunting. I am retired from a large west coast police department and I worked homicide the last few years. It would destroy my every breath if I had caused even one person to be wrongly convicted. The checks and balances in place for west coast law enforcement would (hopefully) preclude most of this absolutely maniacal acceptance of junk science. I have been thinking about this book for a couple of weeks now. I applaud the authors for all the painstaking research. I also admire the reasonableness of his nuanced examination of the Mississippi justice system being reluctant to dig too deep.
May 7, 2020
Wow this book was amazing!! I honestly read it in like two days because of how gripping it was. The book is about two men: Michael West and Steven Hayne. Michael West is the “country dentist” in the book’s title, and Hayne is the “cadaver king.” Both these men effectively ruled Mississippi’s death investigation system for two decades by being the go-to men for coroners, law enforcement, and prosecutors when a suspicious death occurred in the state.
What happened in many cases is that Steven Hayne would perform an autopsy and then find marks on the victim’s skin that Hayne would identify as bite marks. Hayne would then bring his sidekick, Michael West, as a consultant on the alleged bite marks. West would confirm the marks as human bite marks and then match those marks to whoever law enforcement identified as the primary suspect in the case.
Although Hayne and West didn’t always work together, this scenario is typical of the role both men played in Mississippi’s death investigation system: they provided “expert” testimony for the D.A. whenever a crime had occurred (or even when one hadn’t occurred but the state wanted to prosecute anyways). This expert testimony was based on Hayne’s autopsy findings or in West’s case, bite mark evidence. Their testimony and seemingly impressive credentials would help sway a jury to convict a defendant.
The book chronicles Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, two innocent men who spent years behind bars as a result of Hayne and West’s testimony. The book is not a whodunit because the real murderer is revealed in the first few chapters (the murders were committed by the same man in both cases). Although the book’s purported focus is Brooks and Brewer, the two cases are really emblematic of the hundreds of others in which Hayne and West committed ethical and legal violations and sentence people to prison as a result. Brooks and Brewer were just lucky enough to be proven innocent by DNA evidence.
The authors do a really great job of putting the cases of the two innocent men into larger perspective, in that their cases are the result of a corrupt legal system and systemic racism. They also do a great job putting the cases into historical perspective and showing that the system was ripe for exploitation by going into the history of Mississippi’s death investigation system. For example, I really did not realize that the position of coroner is an elected position and that one does not need a medical license to become a coroner, which just seems wrong.
I also didn’t know the difference between a medical examiner and a coroner, but the book does a great job explaining the difference between each and why having a state medical examiner (an appointed position, not elected) is preferable to a coroner. What I also liked about the book was how well it illustrated that Haynes in particular was not a stereotypical “racist”; he was briefly married to a black police chief and also once helped put away a KKK member accused of murder in the 1960s. Haynes was not a racist, per se, however because he worked in a racist system his testimony helped put away primarily black defendants. Hayne was not a person with an “evil” moral system, he actually had no moral system at all and was happy to just work for the side with the most power.
Lastly, what I appreciated about the book is that despite its dark subject matter, the authors were able to inject a lot of humor into describing the ridiculous behavior of Steven Hayne and in particular, Michael West. Some of the events in the book are so ludicrous and described with such dry humor that I actually laughed out loud a couple times.
What happened in many cases is that Steven Hayne would perform an autopsy and then find marks on the victim’s skin that Hayne would identify as bite marks. Hayne would then bring his sidekick, Michael West, as a consultant on the alleged bite marks. West would confirm the marks as human bite marks and then match those marks to whoever law enforcement identified as the primary suspect in the case.
Although Hayne and West didn’t always work together, this scenario is typical of the role both men played in Mississippi’s death investigation system: they provided “expert” testimony for the D.A. whenever a crime had occurred (or even when one hadn’t occurred but the state wanted to prosecute anyways). This expert testimony was based on Hayne’s autopsy findings or in West’s case, bite mark evidence. Their testimony and seemingly impressive credentials would help sway a jury to convict a defendant.
The book chronicles Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, two innocent men who spent years behind bars as a result of Hayne and West’s testimony. The book is not a whodunit because the real murderer is revealed in the first few chapters (the murders were committed by the same man in both cases). Although the book’s purported focus is Brooks and Brewer, the two cases are really emblematic of the hundreds of others in which Hayne and West committed ethical and legal violations and sentence people to prison as a result. Brooks and Brewer were just lucky enough to be proven innocent by DNA evidence.
The authors do a really great job of putting the cases of the two innocent men into larger perspective, in that their cases are the result of a corrupt legal system and systemic racism. They also do a great job putting the cases into historical perspective and showing that the system was ripe for exploitation by going into the history of Mississippi’s death investigation system. For example, I really did not realize that the position of coroner is an elected position and that one does not need a medical license to become a coroner, which just seems wrong.
I also didn’t know the difference between a medical examiner and a coroner, but the book does a great job explaining the difference between each and why having a state medical examiner (an appointed position, not elected) is preferable to a coroner. What I also liked about the book was how well it illustrated that Haynes in particular was not a stereotypical “racist”; he was briefly married to a black police chief and also once helped put away a KKK member accused of murder in the 1960s. Haynes was not a racist, per se, however because he worked in a racist system his testimony helped put away primarily black defendants. Hayne was not a person with an “evil” moral system, he actually had no moral system at all and was happy to just work for the side with the most power.
Lastly, what I appreciated about the book is that despite its dark subject matter, the authors were able to inject a lot of humor into describing the ridiculous behavior of Steven Hayne and in particular, Michael West. Some of the events in the book are so ludicrous and described with such dry humor that I actually laughed out loud a couple times.
June 21, 2018
This book scared the hell out of me. To think during this time and era, a few people can infect an entire state's justice system is unreal, but that is what has happened.
Two 3 yr old girls were raped and murdered in rural Mississippi. Law enforcement pursued and convicted two innocent men: Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. They spent a combined 30 years in prison before finally being exonerated in 2008. Meanwhile, the real killer remained free.
Two doctors built their careers on the back of Mississippi's justice system. Dr. Steven Hayne & Dr. Michael West. For nearly two decades, Hayne, a medical examiner, performed almost all of Mississippi's autopises, while his friend, Dr. West, a local dentist, pitched himself as a forensic jack-of-all-trades. They were the go to doctors for the prosecutors, and law enforcement that ended up putting away countless Mississippian in prison. All of this based on evidence that wasn't there. Then some of the convictions began to fall apart.
If you think that our legal system protects the innocent from being falsely convicted, be prepared to have your faith shattered. The authors show how structural racism, junk science, overzealous prosecutors, complaint judges, and the press conspired to wreck lives and convicted the innocent.
Happy Reading
Two 3 yr old girls were raped and murdered in rural Mississippi. Law enforcement pursued and convicted two innocent men: Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. They spent a combined 30 years in prison before finally being exonerated in 2008. Meanwhile, the real killer remained free.
Two doctors built their careers on the back of Mississippi's justice system. Dr. Steven Hayne & Dr. Michael West. For nearly two decades, Hayne, a medical examiner, performed almost all of Mississippi's autopises, while his friend, Dr. West, a local dentist, pitched himself as a forensic jack-of-all-trades. They were the go to doctors for the prosecutors, and law enforcement that ended up putting away countless Mississippian in prison. All of this based on evidence that wasn't there. Then some of the convictions began to fall apart.
If you think that our legal system protects the innocent from being falsely convicted, be prepared to have your faith shattered. The authors show how structural racism, junk science, overzealous prosecutors, complaint judges, and the press conspired to wreck lives and convicted the innocent.
Happy Reading
September 26, 2018
The facts presented in this book are infuriating and heartbreaking, and I am so glad I read it. The content is 5 star reporting, but my reading experience was closer to 3 stars, because it was kind of dry and took a long time to push myself through it. I think it's really worth a read, and I'm so glad the authors have shed light on this issue. This book focuses on two men who are responsible for testifying to evidence based on incompetent work and/or downright quackery over many years in the Mississippi courts, but it goes deep into the larger picture as well, and how the Mississippi legal system and politicians have also worked together to create a system that has resulted in many poor and/or black defendants being wrongfully convicted. Highly recommended, though I'd love to see a documentary or podcast about this for those that aren't inclined to spend so much time with something so dry (I struggled!).
*Used for PopSugar 2018 Reading Challenge prompt "True crime" and Read Harder 2018 prompt "A book of True Crime."
*Used for PopSugar 2018 Reading Challenge prompt "True crime" and Read Harder 2018 prompt "A book of True Crime."
Displaying 1 - 30 of 723 reviews