Was Jones knowingly violating the law?...what started as a relaxed and unassuming interview, will have far-reaching implications on his career
It's been close to a year that Travis Jones (perhaps unwittingly), admitted to MSNBC's Keith Morrison what has been 'standard practice' at the Monroe County Sheriff's Office... A total disregard for the legal steps required to present evidence in court--his admission could open the floodgates for possible re-trials in cases where a defendant's civil rights, (especially those not having a good attorney at the time), may claim their civil rights were violated. The failure of the sheriff's dept. to properly train officers, and the lack of oversight when misconduct occurred, made national headlines in the Dawson case.
Can the state of Tennessee "teach an old dog new tricks?" Even if it was possible, the "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree" doctrine may hang like a storm cloud, and raise reasonable doubt in any future investigations or court testimony involving former MCSD Captain Travis Jones.
Call it an October surprise or however you wish to characterize it; but, it was a 'head-turner' to learn that Jones was 'abandoning ship' as head of MCSD detectives to work as a 'fire investigator' with the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance--what led to his departure and more importantly, what does he know about fire investigation?
A good fire investigator should have a 'scientific or chemical' background--Dr. Gerald Hurst earned his PhD in chemistry from Cambridge, he said that "fire investigation in general is the 'swamp of forensic science'-in fact, many forensic scientists refuse to recognize arson investigation as a 'sub-field' of forensic science." Many innocent people are sitting in prison, because of inaccurate conclusions drawn from faulty science.
Senior members of local police departments are often times recruited and move up to the TBI, FBI, and other law enforcement agencies--not in this case--why? we can only guess at all the possibilities...
Prior to 2014, MCSD had a history of bungling death investigations, or conducting no death investigations whatsoever in cases where the evidence of possible criminal conduct was crystal clear.
