The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of an Alabama man who served decades in jail for an Andalusia murder conviction based on recanted and discredited testimony regarding bite marks.
Charles M. McCrory was convicted of murder in the 1985 death of his wife, Julie Bonds, who was discovered beaten to death in her Andalusia home. A forensic odontologist testified that two minor scars on the victim’s left shoulder matched McCrory’s teeth, providing key evidence against him.
The odontologist later stated that he “fully” recants the 1985 testimony. He stated in an affidavit that current science has revealed the limitations of bite mark evidence and that there is no way to absolutely link the markings to any single person.
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McCrory’s lawyers, from the Innocence Project and the Southern Center for Human Rights, had petitioned the Supreme Court to reconsider an Alabama court’s decision to deny his request for a new trial. The petition was largely rejected without remark by the justices.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in a statement that the case raises “difficult questions about the adequacy of current post-conviction remedies to correct a conviction secured by what we now know was faulty science.”
“One in every four people exonerated since 1989 was mistakenly convicted due to inaccurate or misleading forensic evidence presented at their trials. Hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent persons may still be imprisoned despite a modern agreement that the major piece of evidence in their convictions lacked scientific validity,” Sotomayor said.
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Sotomayor stated that she voted against reconsidering the case because the constitutional issue posed by McCrory had not “percolated sufficiently in the lower courts.” However, she urged state and federal politicians to create avenues for offenders to fight “wrongful convictions that rest on repudiated forensic testimony.”
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals denied McCrory’s request for a new trial, ruling that he had failed to demonstrate that the outcome of his 1985 trial “probably would have been different” if the new forensic rules for bite marks had been followed.
According to the Innocence Project, at least 36 people have been erroneously convicted based on bite mark evidence. A Florida man was released in 2020 after serving 37 years in a Florida jail for a 1983 rape and murder he did not commit. The conviction was partially based on erroneous bite mark analysis.
Bonds was found battered to death on May 31, 1985, in the home she shared with her toddler son. The couple was divorcing and living separately at the time. McCrory has maintained his innocence. He informed authorities that he had come to the house the night before to do laundry and say goodnight to his son. His defense contended that there was no physical evidence linking McCrory to the crime and that the hair found clasped in the decedent’s fingers did not belong to him.
The Bonds family, who believed McCrory was to blame, engaged private prosecutors to handle the case against him. They engaged Florida forensic dentist Dr. Richard Souviron, who rose to prominence as an expert after testifying in the prosecution of serial killer Ted Bundy. McCrory was convicted and sentenced to life in prison WAKA stated.
Souviron eventually recanted his testimony. McCrory’s counsel claimed that two other forensic specialists denied that the marks were bite marks at all.
McCrory’s attorneys stated in their petition that the current district attorney had offered to resent Mr. McCrory to time served, allowing him to leave jail immediately, in exchange for a guilty plea.
“Mr. McCrory declined, unwilling to admit to a crime he did not commit,” his lawyers stated.
McCrory was denied parole in 2023. He’ll be eligible again in 2028.