Whether state experts' failure to apply a reliable method to forensic pathology investigations constitutes an insufficiency of evidence claim under Jackson v. Virginia and 28 USC § 2254 (f)

Whether state experts ’ failure to apply a reliable method to forensic pathology investigations, as required by state procedural law, when forming an opinion constitute an insufficiency of evidence claim under Jackson v. Virginia, U.S. 307, 324, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 61 L. Ed. 2d 560 (1979) and 28 USC § 2254 (f). Medical examiners are called upon to make two Preface to 2nd Question: determinations when performing an autopsy after a suspicious death, both of which are separately and distinctly set forth on the report of autopsy: (1) the cause of death and (2) the manner of death. The cause of death, well rooted in medicine, generally is not disputed. Examples include blood loss (exsanguinations), cardiac arrest, asphyxiation, blunt-force trauma, etc. But manner of death —the mechanism by which the death occurred —is a subjective determination that is much more consequential. Manner of death determinations include suicide, homicide, accident, natural cases, and undetermined. 1 3 The U.S. is the last remaining country in the developed world where medical examiners testify about the manner of death. Manner of death is not a medical determination. It’s a legal determination that necessarily involves processing nonmedical information. And medical examiners simply don ’t have the training to make those calls. Innocent parents, grandparents, siblings, and other caretakers have been sent to prison because a medical examiner determined a child ’s death to be a homicide when it was not. Ankney, Douglas. “Medical Examiners Biased Manner of Death Determinations Sending Innocent People to Prison... ” Criminal Legal News, Vol. 7 No. 6, June 2024, Human Rights Defense Center. Sources: The New Republic ; Journal of Forensic Sciences 2nd QUESTION PRESENTED Whether testimony of state medical examiners ’ reported determinations —or matter —regarding manner of death as reported in report of autopsies violate principles of fundamental fairness and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States when such determinations are not medical determinations but in fact are subjective determinations.for that medical examiner any ii