JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi dentist who has testified dozens of times about bite marks linking suspects to crime victims now says investigations should rely on DNA instead.
Since the 1980s, Hattiesburg dentist Michael West has testified in dozens of cases in which he said bite marks on victims matched certain suspects. Most suspects he testified against went off to prison.
West has estimated he's worked on 16,000 cases, and he's put the number of trials he's testified at across the U.S. as an expert at 81.Over the decades, his testimony has proved effective. Of the 38 Mississippi criminal trials in which The Clarion-Ledger could find a record of West's testimony, 31 ended in convictions.
Reversals have followed in several of those cases, most notably with two Noxubee County men, Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks.
In Brewer's trial, West testified he found bite marks on 3-year-old Christine Jackson that he said Brewer made.
Brewer went to Death Row and spent 15 years behind bars. Brooks, who received a life sentence, spent 18 years there.
In 2008, authorities said DNA proved the identity of the real killer in both cases - Justin Albert Johnson.
In February, Johnson pleaded guilty to murdering the two girls, saying, "I wasn't in my right mind when that happened."
Source: SFGate, August 6, 2012
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