Thread by @ashtonpittman

THREAD: Eddie Lee Howard, a Black man, is free after spending 26 years on death row at Parchman for a rape/murder DNA now proves he didn't commit.

The primary evidence against him?

INVISIBLE bite marks an alleged expert found using "special glasses." 1/ mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

"Bite mark expert" Dr. Michael West's 1994 testimony ensured Eddie Lee Howard's death sentence.

Later, West testified that bite marks on a 3-year-old's body were those of Kennedy Brewer—her father.

The real culprit? Crawfish, a forensic panel found. 2/ mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

Thanks to Dr. Michael West's testimony, Kennedy Brewer, who is Black, spent seven years on death row for the murder of his three-year-old child before advanced DNA testing excluded him from the crime.

As @11_mcgee's reports, he wasn't alone. 3/ mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

In Mississippi alone, Dr. Michael West's expert "evidence" has led to wrongful charges, convictions & death row sentences for at least 7 people for a combined 75+ years in prison, including Eddie Lee Howard & Kennedy Brewer, @Innocence says. 4/ mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

But even decades after Dr. Michael West was widely discredited, Eddie Lee Howard remained on death row.

Then, in 2020, Lowndes County's first Black district attorney, @ScottColom, dropped the charges after the MS Supreme Court ordered a new trial. 5/ mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

But it wasn't just Dr. West's "junk science" testimony that troubled DA Colom: New DNA testing was done on the knife blade in the victim's home.

“But it didn’t match Howard, and in fact Howard was excluded as a source of the DNA,” he told @11_mcgee. 6/mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

In his first trial, DA Colom says now that prosecutors did not enter pictures or even diagrams of the bite marks that they relied on to convict Eddie Lee Howard.

“There is no documentation of (the bite marks) anywhere,” he said. 7/mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

Scott Colom, who became district attorney in 2015, has committed to not using bite-mark evidence in current & future cases.

“Dr. West and the bite-mark evidence that was used is not reliable and has a lot of problems,” Colom said. 8/mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

Eddie Lee Howard was 38 at the time of his arrest. He is now free at 67.

For over a quarter century, he spent 22 hours each day in a solitary cell in Parchman.

His only meaningful social interactions for 26 years was with two inmates in nearby cells. 9/ mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

"Since Howard’s incarceration in 1992, Parchman has violated the Safe Water Drinking Act over a hundred times for excess amounts of dangerous bacteria such as coliform and for routinely having radiologicals in the water such as Uranium and Radium-226." 10/ mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

Parchman began as a 90% Black prison farm that replicated Old South slave cotton plantations. It's often called "the worst prison in the United States."

Since Howard’s incarceration in 1992, Parchman has violated the Safe Water Drinking Act 100+ times. 11/mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

Rep. Karriem: “When I led a delegation to (Parchman) early last year, the suffocating stench of feces hung in the air. Blood was still visible on the floor from the recent rash of violence. Water was ankle-deep with live wires floating like electric eels." mississippifreepress.org/8163/legislato…

Give @11_mcgee a follow & read his excellent report on Eddie Lee Howard's story. He's celebrating freedom in the photo, but remember: he lost 26 years.

You can also follow the @Innocence project for more on their work in freeing innocent people.
mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

If you support people-centered reporting that holds the powerful to account in Mississippi, please follow @MSFreePress and consider giving a one-time or recurring donation to mfp.ms/donate.

Note: In September 2016, President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology concluded that forensic bite-mark evidence is “not scientifically valid.”
mississippifreepress.org/9488/eddie-lee…

Multiple innocent Black men went to prison because of Dr. Michael West's testimony.

In The Innocence Files, Dr. Michael West praised the Forrest Cty Confederate monument (which Hattiesburg residents want removed) & compared himself to it:

"They wanted to erase me from history."

Tune in for an episode of MFP Live on Thursday featuring DA Scott Colom, who dropped the charges against Eddie Lee Howard, along with @MSFreePress editor @DonnerKay and @11_mcgee, who reported this story.

https://twitter.com/MSFreePress/status/1364357203520614403?s=20