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The Case of Junk Science - Arson Evidence
📻 Episode #149
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Aug 17, 2020
About This Episode
Josh Dubin sits down with Barry Scheck, Co-Founder of the Innocence Project to discuss Arson Evidence.
The Case
Josh Dubin sits down with Barry Scheck, Co-Founder of the Innocence Project to discuss Arson Evidence.
Built on a foundation of conjecture and best guesses that were never adequately tested and confirmed according to any valid scientific principles, what Arson Evidence experts and prosecutors have been telling juries for decades, that one can definitively determine that a fire was intentionally set, is completely wrong.
But why, after generations of experts have all been proven wrong, is there still an unwillingness to change?
2009 Article in The New Yorker by David Grann
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/junk-science
In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:03:52“Speaker 1: story of how you committed this crime. You pour lighter fluid, Speaker 1: which they referred to as an accelerant, under your baby's Speaker 1: beds in the hallway by the front door. The burn Speaker 1: marks seared into the floor indicate where that light or Speaker 1: fluid was puddled on the carpet. They say, there's no”
00:17:14“Speaker 2: And they examined the crime scene and they were all ready, Speaker 2: by their own admission, to make a recommendation that it Speaker 2: was an intentional arson. But they realized that right next Speaker 2: to the house that burned down was another house that Speaker 2: was abandoned, but it was the same construction. So they”
00:29:33“Speaker 2: of Cameron Todd Willingham. You see the suffering up to Speaker 2: the very very end, and the execution of an innocent man. Speaker 2: How could it not haunt you? There's so much importance Speaker 2: attached with the state finally admitting that it was wrong Speaker 2: and that an innocent person is executed, and that will”
Listen to the Episode
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← #148 James Davis #150 Randal Padgett →
Also on the podcast: #145 Junk Science - Bite Mark Evidence · #147 Junk Science - Bloodstain Pattern Evidence · #152 Junk Science - Hair Microscopy Evidence