Supreme Court refuses to hear bite mark case

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court declined Tuesday to review the case of an Alabama man who has spent decades in prison for a murder conviction supported by recanted and discredited testimony about bite marks.

Charles M. McCrory was convicted of murder for the 1985 killing of his wife, Julie Bonds, who was found beaten to death in her home. Key evidence against him was the testimony of a forensic odontologist who said that two small marks on the victim’s left shoulder matched McCrory’s teeth. The odontologist later said he “fully” recants that 1985 testimony. He wrote in an affidavit that modern science has exposed the limitations of bite mark evidence and that there is no way to positively link the marks to any one person.

Lawyers with the Innocence Project and the Southern Center for Human Rights, which are representing McCrory, had asked the Supreme Court to review an Alabama court’s decision denying his request for a new trial. Justices turned down the petition mostly without comment.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a statement that the case raises “difficult questions about the adequacy of current postconviction remedies to correct a conviction secured by what we now know was faulty science.”

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