Hat’s off to Chris Mumma!

Moristotle doffs his hat to 2007 Tar Heel of the Year Christine Mumma, shown here in a detail from Shawn Rocco’s photo on the front page of this morning’s News & Observer.

In the accompanying story, Samiha Khanna writes:

Mumma helped design guidelines for police lineups that, if followed, should prevent the kinds of missteps that led to wrongful arrests in the Duke lacrosse case. Also due to Mumma’s work, North Carolina is one of only nine states that require investigators to record interrogations of murder suspects [emphasis mine]. And soon, a state law Mumma drafted will ensure that biological evidence is safely retained long after a suspect is convicted. Had evidence in [Dwayne] Dail’s case been readily available for DNA testing, he wouldn’t have spent half his life in prison.
    The changes in laws and procedures have drawn national attention to North Carolina, now recognized as a pace-setter for criminal justice reform..... [emphasis mine]

Though I am a Californian by birth and have lived in North Carolina for only twenty-four years, I am proud to be a North Carolinian.

I admit that I didn’t know who Chris Mumma was when I approached her a year and a half ago to ask her whether she’d read the manuscript of Jim Rix’s book about his wrongfully convicted cousin Ray Krone. She was just someone at the University of North Carolina School of Law whom a student there had recommended as a potential supporter of Rix’s work. As busy as she was (although I had no idea how busy), she did read the manuscript and wrote a blurb proudly displayed on Jingle Jangle’s jacket:

Ray Krone’s story has so many of the elements we see over and over again in innocence cases – unreliable forensic conclusions, incomplete investigations and overvalued testimony resulting from “confirmatory bias” that occurs because everyone thinks they have the right perpetrator and they ignore evidence to the contrary. There are more Ray Krones out there – there just aren’t many who are lucky enough to have a cousin like Ray’s.

The news about Chris Mumma in the months after the book was published in July (including her essential role in the judicial exoneration of Dwayne Dail, who had spent almost nineteen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit) has made the author and me even prouder of that quotation. Thank you, Chris Mumma, and congratulations!

In honor of Ms. Mumma’s well-deserved recognition, Moristotle is pleased to announce to his readers that Jim Rix is now offering Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out at a special price. Visit his publisher’s discount store.