BS Summary: This video contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Confirmation Bias, and Negativity Bias, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 24% saturation with 183 hits. Analysis detected 2,032 faulty-reasoning hits from 762 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 72% and a BS Rank of 85% (3,910 of 25,189 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 84.50% of the video peer group.
to an NBC News exclusive. And the man now free after spending nearly three decades on death row. His release coming with the help of a video that his jury did not see. That tape never before broadcast until now.
And we want to warn you, it is upsetting.
Dan Slepion reports.
>> Last November, Jimmy Chris Duncan walked out of a Louisiana prison after spending nearly three decades on death row for a murder that multiple judges now agree never happened.
Your mom passed while you were on death row.
>> Yeah.
Oh,
I lost a lot of people.
>> On December 18th, 1993, Duncan was watching his girlfriend's daughter, Haley Olivo, just 23 months old. He left her alone in the bathtub while he cleaned.
>> I heard a sound, a bump. Hollered at him like, "Haley." And she didn't answer.
>> Duncan found her face down, not breathing.
Police initially charged him with criminally negligent homicide.
>> What do you say to people who know of your case and say, "You know what? He he he left this baby alone in the bathtub." What do you say to them?
>> Hang argued with that.
>> Hay's body was sent to a medical examiner named Steven Hayne, who claimed he saw bite marks and possible signs of sexual assault. Hayne called in Dr. Michael West, a dentist who said that marks on Haley's body matched Duncan's teeth. And with that, Duncan was charged with first-degree murder.
He stood trial, was convicted, and sentenced to die.
>> How do you not give up in that situation? I did give up. I was completely suicidal for a long time.
>> But the truth had been on video all along. West had recorded his examination of Haley. Duncan's jury never heard about the tape. It wasn't until 2024 that Duncan's attorneys won him a new hearing. It was granted by Judge Alvin Sharp, who agreed to play the tape in court.
>> So, you hadn't seen it before the hearing started?
>> I absolutely hadn't seen it. Absolutely hadn't seen.
>> This is the first time that Sharp, now retired, is publicly speaking about Duncan's case.
A warning, the video of a dead toddler in a morg is difficult to watch, so we've concealed some of it.
At the beginning, Haley's face appears blemish free. 5 minutes in, the camera turns off. When it resumes the next day, bruises are visible.
West then presses the mold of Duncan's teeth into Haley's body roughly 50 times. I was a guest.
I'm left in a state of constonnation.
Total conststonation. Is it fair to say that Dr. West is manufacturing and creating the evidence on this child's body.
>> He's absolutely creating uh marks on that baby's body.
>> West has said he wasn't creating any marks that the tape shows him comparing Duncan's dental mold to marks he claimed were already there. The hearing revealed even more evidence Duncan's jury never knew.
Haley suffered seizures before her death.
In the end, Judge Sharp concluded Haley drowned in the bathtub.
He found no evidence of sexual assault and vacated Duncan's conviction.
>> He was convicted cuz they lied.
>> Allison Leighton, Haley's mother, always believed Duncan murdered her daughter.
Seeing the video changed that.
>> They railroaded this man. They fabricated evidence. They desecrated my daughter and videotaped it.
>> Why would they videotape themselves doing that?
>> I think they were advertising.
Journalist Bradley Balco has investigated Hay and West for two decades, co-authoring a book about them.
He says they were widely known for helping prosecutors secure convictions.
How many cases do you know factually where Dr. West and Dr. Haynes findings helped send an innocent person to prison?
>> We've had 11 exonerations now of people who either were convicted or arrested and spent a lot of time in jail.
Hayne defended his work until his death in 2020.
West did not reply to our request for comment, but in a 2012 deposition in a different case said he no longer believed in the uniqueness of human bite marks.
Duncan is free, but what remains is an unknown future and the little girl who never got one.
>> Do you still carry Haley with you?
>> Yeah, always.
I know an angel.
>> Dan Slepian, NBC News.
>> We thank you for watching and remember, stay updated on breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or watch live on our YouTube channel.
Analysis
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