Verdict The public reaction to the
verdict was mixed. Many Louisville and Southern Indiana residents who lived through the extensive media coverage were surprised by the not guilty verdict in the third trial. In reaction to the verdict, a local resident stated "A lot of people are — just like I am — completely shocked, and a lot of people think that he should not be out." Nationally, the Camm case garnered a lot of attention from wrongful conviction advocacy groups who believed that the previous convictions were miscarriages of justice. Bill Lamb, President and General Manager of
WDRB, the
Fox affiliate in
Louisville, Kentucky, issued a public apology to Camm stating: "Seven years ago, I did a Point of View criticizing David Camm's attorneys for seeking yet another appeal right after his second conviction for the murder of his family. I wondered when Indiana taxpayers would get to stop paying fortunes in trial expenses, and why any accused killer could possibly deserve so many 'do-overs'. Well, now we have the answer: When they're not guilty." After the third trial, a juror, in response to the question "Do you think that they intentionally wanted to convict an innocent man?" responded "I would hope not but ... I sense that the State Police had a hard time admitting that they had made a mistake."
Blood spatter evidence The heavy reliance on blood spatter evidence in this case was widely criticized. In his review of the case, former federal prosecutor Kent Wicker said "Blood spatter evidence has come under a lot of criticism in the past few years. In 2009 the
National Academy of Sciences issued a report criticizing the scientific foundation of that." The report calls for more standardization within a number of forensic fields including blood spatter analysis. The report highlights the tendency of blood spatter analysts to overstate the reliability of their methods in the courtroom. Dr. Robert Shaler, founding director of the
Penn State Forensic Science Program, decried blood spatter analysis as unreliable in the Camm case. "The problem in this case is the number of stains are minimal," he said. "I think you're really on the edge of reliability." Dr. Shaler said blood stain pattern analysis as a science is "essentially guesswork". The problem with blood spatter analysis is that "you do not have the supporting underlying
science" to back up your conclusions. All of the blood spatter analysts involved in the case from the start (aside from Stites) have been "
experts" in the traditional sense. The problem is "We have two opinions in this case. That, in essence, is a 50 percent error rate."
Perjury admission Evidence of misconduct regarding the blood spatter was uncovered when, in the third trial, Stites testified for the defense, admitting he had
perjured himself in the first two trials. Stites' assertion that the spots on Camm's shirt were high velocity impact spray (HVIS) was the cornerstone of the probable cause affidavit that led to Camm's arrest and his testimony at the first two trials helped the prosecution win Camm's convictions. He had previously testified that he was an expert blood spatter pattern analyst and a professor at Portland State University who was in the process of attaining a Ph.D. — credentials which were fabrications. Stites asserts that Floyd County prosecutor Stan Faith helped create those fraudulent credentials. During the third trial, he outlined how he was sent to the crime scene by Rod Englert to photograph and take notes. Despite his lack of formal training in the field or work experience as a crime scene analyst, his notes ended up being used in the probable cause affidavit, with him being listed as a "
crime scene reconstructionist", a title that did not apply to him. The defense pointed out several aspects of Stites' notes that were later proven to be false including "HVIS" on the garage door, later proven to be a
petroleum based-product and not blood. Stites' opinion that there was a clean-up at the crime scene involving bleach was also incorrect. The confusion came from the unfamiliar look of the blood after the serum had separated from the blood cells. Regarding his actions, he commented, "It was a dumb thing...In hindsight, I would have kept my mouth shut." Stites was not charged with perjury for his testimony in the previous two trials. highlighted the Camm trials as an example of the problems within the American justice system. Boyne stated that the judges in these trials allowed the prosecutors to present "specious claims of motive designed to paint the defendant with a broad stroke of guilt and moral condemnation and overcome a lack of physical evidence". Boyne stated "the state overreached and that overreaching did not serve the cause of justice". Camm's defense team has long been critical of their inability to present evidence of Boney's involvement, particularly when the prosecution was allowed to speculate about Camm's motives. Despite Boney's history of stalking and armed violence against women, his past crimes were ruled inadmissible.
Errors in evidence collection By the third trial, the backbone of the defense's case was the evidence of police and
prosecutorial misconduct in the case. The defense argued that the investigation was riddled by critical mistakes, both in the collection of evidence and in the investigation of Boney as a suspect. The sweatshirt found at the crime scene revealed Boney's DNA, his girlfriend's DNA, his prison nickname, and his
Department of Corrections ID number. Kim Camm's shoes were also lined up on the top of the vehicle. Boney has a long history of fetish-driven assaults that included the theft of shoes. It is unclear how the investigative team missed these pieces of evidence during the initial investigation. The defense team was told that the evidence had been thoroughly investigated.
Errors in the investigation of Charles Boney The defense argued that the police should have also taken notice when Boney's story went through so many revisions. They noted that many details of his story were first suggested by police detectives in recorded interviews, notably the detail regarding the gun wrapped in the sweatshirt. Other details of his story were changed following discussions with detectives who pointed out the discrepancies. Ultimately, the jurors in the third trial believed the defense's criticisms of the investigation: "They tried to make the evidence fit their theory of the case," a juror said in interview. Lead defense attorney Richard Kammen accused police of feeding Boney a false story designed to implicate Camm and coerce Boney into testifying against Camm by playing on his fear of
racial prejudice within the
criminal justice system by telling him that a black man accused of killing a white family would get the death penalty if he didn't cooperate. During interrogations, he was reminded on several occasions of the likelihood of getting the death penalty on the basis of his race and that the best way to avoid the death penalty was to testify against Camm. The defense cited a suspicious series of undocumented and unrecorded phone calls—33 in all—between Boney and the Floyd County Prosecutor's office in the two-week span between his DNA being identified and his arrest.
Evidence tampering allegations Another allegation that surfaced involved a distant relative of Boney named Myron Wilkerson (1959–2012). Wilkerson was a police officer but was not assigned to the case. He met with Boney privately at the station following his arrest. Two months later, it was learned that Wilkerson had removed Kim Camm's phone from the evidence room without signing it out and taken it to his residence. When the phone was located and returned to the police, it was found to have been wiped clean of fingerprints. Wilkerson died prior to the third trial and therefore was not charged with evidence tampering for his actions.
Witness tampering allegations In addition to testimony by Rob Stites alleging subornation of perjury, several other allegations of witness tampering surfaced during the case. Lynn Scamahorn, a
DNA analyst from the
Indiana State Police claimed that during the first trial, the prosecutor (Stan Faith) threatened her when she refused to perjure herself and testify that she had found Camm's DNA on Boney's sweatshirt.
Fingerprint analyst John Singleton reported a similar encounter. He claims Faith wanted him to "shade testimony" while testifying regarding the then unidentified palm print on Kim Camm's Bronco that was later determined to belong to Boney. The defense also accused the state of witness tampering and presenting false and misleading testimony regarding the molestation allegations. During the first trial, the prosecution alleged that the injuries Jill sustained happened during the attack, as testified to by the state medical examiner. During the second trial, they altered their timeline to implicate Camm instead of Boney on the basis of testimony by a single witness who changed their theory at the last minute. "Dr. Spivack, before in her deposition, told us that the injuries occurred near the time of death due to the painful nature of them. Today, on the stand, she backtracked to fit the state's theory." said defense attorney Stacy Uliana. Following the verdict, the jurors explained that they made their decision largely on the molestation allegations, and specifically, on the testimony of Spivack, who testified that the child was molested several hours prior to her death instead of during the attack. DNA analyst Lynn Scamahorn claimed prosecutor Faith also attempted to get her to commit perjury by testifying that lab results indicated the comforter from the master bedroom in the Camm household contained vaginal secretions or saliva from Jill to help bolster their claims that Jill had been molested; no such test exists. The fraudulent testimony of Stites and the attempted coercion of Scamahorn were featured in a forensic textbook called
Forensic Fraud: Evaluating Law Enforcement and Forensic Science Cultures in the Context of Examiner Misconduct. ==Personal life==