The Week 90 Forensic Science Geek of the Week is Announced

The Forensic Science Geek of the Week

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The week 90 “www.TheTruthAboutForensicScience.com Forensic Science Geek of the Week” honors goes to: Joseph Rome, Esquire

According to our Geek’s website, the following is offered:

Criminal defense attorney, Joseph C. Rome completed his undergraduate education at Washington State University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1999. He received his Juris Doctorate degree from Western New England College School of Law in 2005.

Since graduating from law school in 2005, he has become a Member of both the Washington State and Hawaii State Bar. Attorney Rome moved to Maui in 2006, and worked at the Hawaii State Public Defender’s Office where he acquired a broad base of legal knowledge and hands on experience.

In 2009 he opened his own practice with a primary focus on helping clients with DUI offenses and serious crimes. Attorney Rome is a Washington Criminal Lawyer who has proven experience and is highly qualified representing clients with DUI offenses or serious crimes throughout the state of Washington. Mr. Rome is a member of the National College for DUI Defense, Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He has been both certified to administer the Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFSTs) and has received advance training in the SFST to become a certified instructor in the SFSTs. Attorney Rome recently traveled to California where he assisted in the instruction of attorneys attempting to be certified in the SFSTs. He is one of the few attorneys who has demonstrated knowledge of the science and forensic use of roadside sobriety testing and intoxication far beyond the scope of the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) training by becoming Forensic Sobriety Assessment (FSA) Certified. In 2011 he was selected to study at the prestigious Trial Lawyer College with Gerry Spence, one of the nation’s Top Trial Lawyers who has never lost a criminal case either as a prosecutor or a defense attorney. Attorney Rome, is known for his aggressive and highly successful representation of those accused of DUI offenses and serious felonies.

Congratulations to our Forensic Science Geek of the Week winner!

OFFICIAL QUESTION:


Forensic Science Geek of the Week Challenge

1. Who is pictured above?

2. Why should forensic scientists and other people in the public know about him?

Our Geek of the Week answered:

Ray Krone. Krone was labeled “the snaggle tooth killer” (a feature which has since been corrected) and spent 10 years in prison, including two years on death row, after being found guilty of killing a Phoenix, Arizona bartender in 1991. The woman was found dead in a bar where Krone played darts. On April 8, 2002, Krone left prison after DNA evidence proved that he did not murder the victim. He was the 100th inmate exonerated from death row since the death sentence was reinstated in 1976.

[BLOGGER’S NOTE: On the morning of December 29, 1991, the body of the thirty-six year old victim was found, nude, in the men’s restroom of the Phoenix, Arizona bar where she worked. She had been fatally stabbed, and the perpetrator left behind little physical evidence. Blood at the crime scene matched the victim’s type, and saliva on her body came from someone with the most common blood type. There was no semen and no DNA tests were performed.

Investigators relied on bite marks on the victim’s breast and neck. Upon hearing that the victim had told a friend that a regular customer named Ray Krone was to help her close up the bar the previous night, police asked Krone to make a Styrofoam impression of his teeth for comparison. On December 31, 1991, Krone was arrested and charged with murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault.

At his 1992 trial, Krone maintained his innocence, claiming to be asleep in his bed at the time of the crime. Experts for the prosecution, however, testified that the bite-marks found on the victim’s body matched the impression that Krone had made on the Styrofoam and a jury convicted him on the counts of murder and kidnapping. He was sentenced to death and a consecutive twenty-one year term of imprisonment, respectively. Krone was found not guilty of the sexual assault.

Krone won a new trial on appeal in 1996, but was convicted again, mainly on the state’s supposed expert bite-mark testimony. This time, however, the judge sentenced him to life in prison, citing doubts about whether or not Krone was the true killer.

It was not until 2002, after Krone had served more than ten years in prison, that DNA testing would prove his innocence. DNA testing conducted on the saliva and blood found on the victim excluded Krone as the source and instead matched a man named Kenneth Phillips. Phillips was incarcerated on an unrelated sex crime and, although he had lived a short distance from the bar where the victim worked, he had never been considered a suspect in her murder.

On April 8, 2002, Krone was released from prison and on April 24th, the District Attorney’s office filed to formally dismiss all charges against him. Murder and sexual assault charges have since been brought against Phillips.

Ray Krone spent more than a decade in prison, some of it on death row, before DNA testing cleared his name. He is the 100th former death row inmate freed because of innocence since the reinstatement of capital punishment in the United States in 1976. He was the twelfth death row inmate whose innocence has been proven through postconviction DNA testing. Prior to his arrest, Krone had no previous criminal record, had been honorably discharged from the military, and had worked in the postal service for seven years. Source: The Innocence Project-Ray Krone]

The Hall of Fame for the www.TheTruthAboutForensicScience.com Forensic Science Geek of the Week:

Week 1: Chuck Ramsay, Esquire

Week 2: Rick McIndoe, PhD

Week 3: Christine Funk, Esquire

Week 4: Stephen Daniels

Week 5: Stephen Daniels

Week 6: Richard Middlebrook, Esquire

Week 7: Christine Funk, Esquire

Week 8: Ron Moore, B.S., J.D.

Week 9: Ron Moore, B.S., J.D.

Week 10: Kelly Case, Esquire and Michael Dye, Esquire

Week 11: Brian Manchester, Esquire