Stock photo for illustrative purposes only
Last week, Jimmie “Chris” Duncan was released on bail after 27 years on Louisiana’s death row following a wrongful conviction for the murder of his girlfriend’s toddler. The initial charge was based on bite mark analysis—now considered junk science—proffered by discredited forensic analysts Michael West and Steven Hayne, who are responsible for at least nine other wrongful convictions.
Until last week, Duncan was the only known person still on death row as a result of the flawed testimony of Hayne and West. Together, the nine men and women wrongfully convicted by the “experts” spent more than a century wrongfully imprisoned, according to the Innocence Project.
Additionally, in the time since Duncan’s trial, bite mark matching and analysis—even the non-fraudulent kind—has been exposed as junk science and discredited in the court of law.
The accident
Duncan sat on death row for 27 years for a crime that never even happened. On Dec. 18, 1993, Duncan was giving his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter, Haley, a bath. He briefly stepped away and returned to find her unconscious. He tried to perform CPR and rushed to neighbors for help, who called paramedics. Unfortunately, the doctors were unable to revive Haley and she was pronounced dead at the hospital within the hour.
In the weeks prior to her death, Haley suffered from a series of seizures and head injuries, the final injury stemming from a fall that resulted in multiple skull fractures and a hospital stay for nearly a week. Haley’s drowning death occurred just two weeks later. According to medical personnel, the previous injuries Haley sustained increased her risk of subsequent seizures, which could also be triggered by, among other things, warm baths.
The fabricated evidence
After she was pronounced dead at the hospital, Haley’s body was transported to Jackson, Mississippi to be autopsied by Hayne, who enlisted his business partner West—"a forensic odontologist”—to help identify what he claimed were potential bite marks on Haley’s body. Following a cursory visual examination, Hayne concluded that Haley had been bitten and sexually assaulted at or about the time of death.
In a video-taped experiment the following day, West pressed molds of Duncan’s teeth into Haley’s body—creating the bite marks later “matched” to Duncan’s teeth at trial.
Neither the state’s testifying expert nor the jury saw the video of West creating the evidence used to convict Duncan. The jury was also not told of Haley’s previous seizures and head injuries that are now believed to have caused her accidental drowning.
The “experts”
At the evidentiary hearing in September 2024 where Duncan presented new evidence and ultimately proved his innocence, more information came to light about Hayne and West. By this time, the duo was already disgraced, but new evidence was introduced showing that Hayne was performing 1,200 autopsies a year at the time of Haley’s death—a number more than 5x the maximum allowed by the National Association of Medical Examiners.
Also at the hearing, two board-certified forensic pathologists testified that Hayne’s autopsy was careless, superficial and contrary to accepted practice, and that his conclusions were false and scientifically unsupported.
In its subsequent order overturning Duncan’s conviction, the court noted the “wide divide” between the evidence presented at the 1998 trial and the significant new scientific, forensic and testimonial evidence that emerged showing that Haley’s death was a tragic accidental drowning.
Last thoughts
According to the Innocence Project, the court’s order to grant Duncan bail was welcomed by many of Haley’s surviving relatives—including her mother—all of whom have declared their public support of Duncan’s innocence and release. Duncan had no prior criminal history, much less of the heinous acts for which he was wrongfully convicted.
The state has appealed the decision finding Duncan innocent and vacating his conviction to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which will hear the appeals case in early 2026. For now, after 27 years on death row for a crime that never happened but was rather a tragic accident, Duncan is free.
Information provided by the Innocence Project