Longtime Medical Examiner Dr. Nizam Peerwani found his top deputy, Dr. Marc Kraus, made 59 mistakes in death investigations last year. Kraus was barred from performing autopsies in murder cases in November and left the office just last week. From our perspective and I m speaking collectively as the defense bar, it s really unprecedented,” Varghese said.
Defense attorneys say the revelations potentially raise questions about the prosecution of murder cases – past and present. Everyone is beyond shocked that this could have happened and now it s going to be raised in every case where the Tarrant County Medical Examiner has touched the file,” Varghese said.
Defense attorneys call for probe into troubled Tarrant County MEâs Office
By FOX 4 Staff article
FORT WORTH, Texas - Defense lawyers may have a reason to appeal a lot of convictions after serious questions were raised over the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.
They demanded that county commissioners launch an outside investigation of the ME’s office.
The questions began with the number two doctor there –Mark Krouse – who botched several autopsies, including failing to find a bullet left in one man’s body.
Then a state district judge accused the Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Nizam Peerwani of misleading a jury in a murder case.
Lawyers call for investigation into Tarrant County medical examiner’s office after errors in homicide cases
The group also requested an external audit of the county’s chief medical examiner himself.
Tarrant County Medical Examiner s office in Fort Worth, Tex. (NBC5)(KXAS-TV (NBC5) / NBC5)
The Tarrant County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association has requested an independent investigation of the county medical examiner’s office after an audit found that a deputy chief medical examiner had made dozens of mistakes in homicide cases over a 10-month period.
Dr. Marc Krouse(Courtesy / Digital File EMAIL)
The request, made at Tuesday’s Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting, referred to an audit of 41 homicide cases that concluded Dr. Marc Krouse had made errors in at least 27 cases from Jan. 1 to Nov. 9 of 2020.
Krouse is set to leave the medical examiner s office later this month.
The defendant in the death penalty case, Tilon Lashon Carter, was convicted in 2006 for the murder and home invasion robbery of 89-year-old James Tomlin after Peerwani offered key testimony during the trial.
Westfall focused largely on Peerwani’s testimony that the victim was suffocated, which Peerwani later acknowledged was just a possibility and may not have happened at all, according to the judge s finding.
Peerwani also failed to disclose that he found a pacemaker in Tomlin’s chest during his autopsy, which could have suggested he died of a cardiac issue instead of a respiratory one, the judge said.
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