A circuit court judge in Mississippi has refused to let defense attorneys hire their own expert to review two autopsies done by medical examiners hired by the district attorney:
A Hinds County Circuit Court judge Thursday denied an accused murderer's request to preserve the body of slain Jackson State University student Latasha Norman and hire an outside expert to examine her body.
A motion filed Wednesday by defendant Stanley Cole's attorney questioned the accuracy of earlier autopsies, including the one performed by the state's chief pathologist, Dr. Steven Hayne.
"Steven Hayne was unable to determine a cause of death. Consequently, at the behest of the state, the body was examined by a forensic anthropologist at the University of Southern Mississippi, and a cause of death was supposedly determined," the motion said.
District Attorney Faye Peterson said she aggressively fought the request because it would have been "cruel" to Norman's family.
"This family has been through so much for so long. They have a right to bury their daughter," she said.
Cole's attorney, public defender Matthew Eichelberger, said he sympathized with the family but that access to an independent examination is Cole's right.
"We understand that this is painful for the family, but we still have to protect the rights of our client," he said. "We feel that it is important to have an independent examination of the evidence."
I'm a little surprised Dr. Hayne didn't provide prosecutors with the results they were looking for. Either he's being more cautious since my expose of him in our November issue, or the prosecution's theory about what happened in this case is so unsupported by the victim's body, even Hayne couldn't bring himself to give them what they were looking for. My guess is the latter. My sources in Mississippi have told me that since my story came out, Hayne has only grown defiant, and has actually increased his break-neck autopsy workload.
But Hayne is really only the manifestation of the real problem in Mississippi—a corrupt system that allows prosecutors to shop bodies to friendly "experts," and denies indigent defendants the opportunity to have independent experts to evaluate their findings. Though I've heard there may be some eventual movement toward reform down there, it looks like for the short-term at least, it's business as usual.