Robert Lee Stinson

Robert Lee Stinson is an innocent Wisconsin man who was charged with the rape and murder of a 63-year-old woman, Ione Cychosz. Cychosz’ body was discovered in a vacant lot close to Stinson's backyard. Bite marks that were left on the body were analyzed by Lowell T. Johnson, a forensic dentist, who advised that the bites were left by someone missing their front tooth. Due to Robert Lee Stinson's proximity and Johnson's testimony, which was later analyzed by Raymond Rawson (both members of the American Board of Forensic Odontology), he was sentenced to life in prison.

In 2005, the Wisconsin Innocence Project took up Stinson's case and alleged that the forensic evidence was faulty, and DNA evidence was reassessed that ruled out Stinson's involvement. Finally, on July 27, 2009, Robert Lee Stinson was exonerated of Ione Cychosz's murder after serving over 23 years in prison. Later the same year, he began a lawsuit against James Gauger, the lead investigator on the case, Lowell T. John and Raymond Rawson. Robert Lee Stinson's case is one of many that led to the continued push to discredit forensic evidence deemed admissible and relevant at the time of trial.

Stinson filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, which he settled with the city of Milwaukee for $7.5 million in 2019. In April 2012, Moses Price, Jr. was charged and sentenced with the murder of Ione Cychosz after DNA evidence linked him to the crime. Price was in prison serving a 35-year sentence for homicide when the DNA evidence was found and received another 19 years incarceration.

The 1985 case On the morning of November 3, 1984, a passerby discovered the body of Ione Cychosz, she had been beaten, raped and stabbed. There were no eyewitnesses or motives that police could identify in relation to the murder. Bite marks that were left on the body were subsequently examined by Lowell T. Johnson, who asserted that they must have been left by an attacker missing a front tooth. After interviewing Robert Lee Stinson due to his proximity to the scene, investigators noticed his missing front tooth and arrested and charged him for murder.

Finally on 12 December 1985, Robert Lee Stinson was convicted for the murder of Ione Cychosz and sentenced to life in prison.

Exoneration Robert Lee Stinson appealed the court's decision, arguing that the bite mark evidence is inadmissible; however, the Wisconsin judicial system upheld the previous conviction.

Throughout his 23 years in jail, Robert Lee Stinson refused to admit any guilt, and was subsequently never granted parole, which requires an acceptance of guilt, and acknowledgment of the crimes committed.

Subsequent appeals The first appeal launched by Robert Lee Stinson was in 1986 following the conviction. The appeal cited 4 main issues with the case; that the court erred in allowing expert testimony on bite mark identification, the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury verdict, the limits on the counsel's closing argument and the denial of Stinson's request to change counsel. Michael Bowers, Stinson's odontological expert in the case argued the methods used in the 1985 case ‘were flawed and did not comport with the accepted standards of practice in… forensic odontology at the time’. Thus he stated, ‘Johnson and Rawson knowingly manipulated the bite mark evidence… to match’. Stinson previously received $25,000 from the state of Wisconsin, as well as an additional $90,000 in 2014 after legislation was passed to award him more than the maximum allowed under the Wisconsin compensation law. which in turn was cited by many succeeding, cases, despite the court in this case ‘conceding there was no official science behind it’. The dentists in the Marx case went to great lengths to explain that in many other cases this type of bite mark comparison would not be valid but ‘this case, they felt, was a rare exception to the general rule’. Its inclusion in the case however led to what can be called a ‘judicial echo chamber’ as other cases cite it.

Following this bite mark comparison and analysis began to be more commonly used in legal cases. Notably, the field would become more ‘legitimized’ when it was used in the 1979 Ted Bundy's case. Lowell Levine went on to provide analysis on many cases including the wrongful arrest of Edmund Burke 20 years later due to his testimony. Stinson drew attention to this in his 2015 lawsuit against the two doctors, when Johnson first said the murderer was ‘missing the right lateral incisor’ not the ‘right central incisor’ that Stinson was missing.

In 2009, a committee on identifying the needs of the Forensic Science community pointed to the fact ‘that many forensic tests – such as those used to infer the source of… bite marks – have never been exposed to stringent scientific scrutiny’, as these fields had developed alongside law enforcement not as a scientific discipline. arguing that bite mark analysis could lead to important information and ‘analysis has nothing to do with comparing or matching anything to a suspect’. However, some still see value in the science and argue that the complete removal of all bite mark analysis would be an error ‘equivalent to the proverbial throwing the baby out with the bathwater’.