Dark tale of 'The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist' brings wrongful convictions to light

For nearly two decades, Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West were the go-to experts that Mississippi law enforcement and prosecutors relied on when there was a potential homicide. Haynes performed the bulk of the autopsies in the state, while West was a dentist who touted his skill in bite-mark analysis. But after years of investigations and countless testimonies from the men, their claims of expertise began to fall apart–and wrongful convictions began coming to light. In The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South, authors Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington lay out how the state’s legal system aided and abetted the use of flawed forensic evidence; how systemic racism influenced Mississippi’s coroner system; and the stories of some of the innocent people whose lives were derailed. Carrington, the founding director of the Mississippi Innocence Project and Clinic at the University of Mississippi School of Law, joins the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles for this episode of the Modern Law Library.