The UW Law School's Wisconsin Innocence Project, in a case led by Professor Byron Lichstein, has brought new DNA evidence to challenge a 1985 murder conviction based on the controversial forensic technique of bite-mark analysis.

Lichstein has asked prosecutors to vacate the conviction of Robert Lee Stinson, whose DNA has been found not to be that in saliva found on the victim. A review of testimony from a dental scientist and law professor that convicted Stinson is under way, and the entire field of bite-mark comparison is being called into question. The only evidence against Stinson in his 1985 was the bite-mark analysis.

Forensic experts reviewing the case have found that "there is little or no correlation of Robert Lee Stinson’s dentition to the bite marks."

A detailed article on the case appears in the Chicago Tribune of Thursday, July 10, 2008, which can be read online at

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-bite-mark-exonerationjul10,0,2835607.story . 

Submitted by on July 10, 2008

This article appears in the categories: Articles