Michael Hansen was freed last month after six years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.<\/p>\n
And now the county attorney has\u00a0finally dropped the charges<\/a>, aborting the new trial that was called for last summer:<\/p>\n …Douglas County Attorney’s Office dropped all charges against him and said it “no longer believes that it can prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”<\/p>\n The exoneration came after a judge in July had vacated Hansen’s conviction and ordered a new trial based on evidence presented by the Innocence Project of Minnesota, saying that there was evidence that the Ramsey County medical examiner might have given “false or incorrect” testimony at the first trial. He was released from prison in August.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The death of Hansen’s daughter was a tragedy. \u00a0 His conviction and imprisonment were partly the result of a bureaucrat’s botch…<\/p>\n In a review whose results were issued early this month, Ramsey County said [Ramco medical examiner Michael] McGee complied with all state laws and with his contract with the county.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n …(in other words, “the dog ate his homework, but the rules say there’s nothing you can do about it), and the assumption that the father had <\/em>to be guilty.<\/p>\n McGee couldn’t be reached for comment Sunday.<\/p>\n Erika Applebaum, executive director of the Innocence Project of Minnesota, said that if anything can be learned from Hansen’s experience, it’s that juries should not blindly accept all expert testimony.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Naturally, The System doesn’t like mere peasants getting uppity and questioning their “experts”; they’ve been bellyaching about juries asking too many questions – the “CSI Effect<\/a>” – and in some places is taking action<\/a> to stymie those exact questions.<\/p>\n