Mississippi AG Defends Hack Medical ‘Expert’

Medical examiner Steven Hayne has been called to testify in thousands of Mississippi cases, though legal groups have raised major questions as to his workload, professionalism, and credibility. In the Washington Post, legal journalist Radley Balko raised an example from a recent case, Brandon v. Mississippi. In that case, Hayne referenced “the Alperi study by Harvard University in the Mass General,” but it was later discovered that the study doesn’t exist. The state responded to that revelation with a strong defense of Hayne, suggesting the examiner may have been thinking of a panel discussing a related subject. The problem is, the panels the state uses in its defense took place years after Haynes took the stand. The incident, writes Balko, raises major concerns for the cases Haynes has influenced, and is “rather embarrassing for the state.”