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A DNA Test Approved, But Evidence is Lost
Posted: December 2, 2008 1:37 pm
Eugene Pitts has been in Arkansas prison for nearly three decades for a murder he says he didn’t commit, and a hair from the crime scene could potentially prove his guilt or innocence – if it can be found. An Arkansas judge granted Pitts the right to DNA testing under the state’s 2001 DNA access statute. But crime lab officials now say they are unable to find the hair.
Pitts became a suspect shortly after the 1979 murder of Bernard Jones, the brother of former U.S. Attorney General Joycelyn Elders, because he had allegedly made threats to Jones’ wife. Microscopic hair comparison and other unreliable forensic science was also used to convict him. A state hair examiner testified – improperly – at trial that "in my experience as a hair examiner, the only times hairs have matched as they do with defendant have been when they were from the individual." Hairs should never be said to “match” one another; they should only be said to be consistent. Soil comparison and handwriting analysis were also used to connect Pitts to the crime. Neither of these disciplines follows a set of reliable standards, so findings and testimony can vary in every trial.
Whether Pitts is innocent or guilty, this case raises the issues of evidence preservation and improper/unvalidated forensic science. The Innocence Project advocates for law enforcement agencies to retain biological evidence from crime scenes as long as the defendant is incarcerated or under state supervision. And, as raised last week in the case of Innocence Project client Steven Barnes (another soil comparison case), we also support the establishment of national standards for forensic science to minimize the risk of improper or unvalidated science leading to wrongful convictions.
Read more about the Pitts case here. (Associated Press, 12/1/08)
Tags: Arkansas, Forensic Oversight, Evidence Preservation
Innocence Project Sparks Review of Baltimore Crime Lab
Posted: December 17, 2008 3:17 pm
This morning, the Innocence Project filed a formal allegation with the Maryland State Police, requesting a thorough examination of negligence and error in the Baltimore Police Department Crime Lab.
Months ago, it was discovered that DNA from employees at the lab had become mixed with crime scene samples. Although it is standard practice nationwide for lab analysts to compare test results with a database of employee profiles, this step was not taken in the Baltimore lab. This negligence could have led police investigations away from the real perpetrators of crimes and could have contributed to wrongful convictions. The Innocence Project is requesting an inquiry under a 2004 federal law which requires that all labs receiving federal funds have an independent oversight panel to investigate allegations of wrongdoing.
Innocence Project Policy Director Stephen Saloom said today:
“We don’t know how many cases have been contaminated in Baltimore’s crime lab or how those cases might have turned out differently if the lab used proper safeguards. The only way to fully address this is through an independent investigation that can identify the root problem, rather than just the symptoms, and develop specific actions that can prevent future contamination.”
Read the full Innocence Project press release here.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Arizona State University to Host Forensic Science Conference
Posted: January 7, 2009 4:00 pm
Some of the world's leading scholars and experts in evidence, forensic science and criminalistics will gather to discuss the future of forensic science in the criminal justice system in April. The Center for the Study of Law, Science, & Technology at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University announced this week that it is hosting "Forensic Science for the 21st Century: The National Academy of Sciences Report and Beyond" April 3 and 4.
Organizers said the conference is being held “in light of the highly anticipated report of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Sciences Community” that is expected to be released within the next couple of months. Harry T. Edwards, Chief Judge Emeritus of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Co-chair of the NAS Forensic Science Committee, is scheduled to deliver the Center's annual Willard H. Pedrick Lecture, titled "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward."
The event will also feature discussions about the NAS report, an unprecedented examination of forensic science nationwide that will outline findings and recommendations for how to ensure that the criminal justice system relies on sound science.
In addition to experts from major research institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard Law School, the University of Michigan Law School, the University of California, Irvine, the University of Virginia and ASU, among others, participants will include state and federal judges, the co-chairmen of the National Academy of Sciences Forensic Science Committee, the president of the American Association of Forensic Sciences. The directors of the FBI Crime Laboratory and the Innocence Project, and prosecutors, defense attorneys, forensic scientists, and criminalists also will be involved.Visit the conference's website for more information, including registration and scheduled events.
Tags: Arizona, Reforms, Forensic Oversight, Evidence Preservation, Access to DNA Testing
Hearing Tomorrow Could Exonerate Steve Barnes of All Charges
Posted: January 8, 2009 2:30 pm
After serving nearly 20 years in prison for a rape and murder he didn't commit, Innocence Project client Steven Barnes may be fully exonerated tomorrow. Barnes and Innocence Project Staff Attorney Alba Morales will appear in Oneida County court tomorrow in Utica.
Barnes was released from prison in late November after DNA testing showed he is innocent. His conviction was vacated, but the indictment against him was not dismissed, meaning he could be retried for the crime at any time. The Oneida County District Attorney’s Office, with cooperation from the Innocence Project, has been reinvestigating the case since Barnes was released.
If the indictment against Barnes is dismissed, he will become the 227th person exonerated by DNA evidence.
Barnes' conviction is just one example of how improper or invalid forensic science can lead to wrongful convictions. His conviction was largely based on unvalidated forensic science, including soil comparison and analysis of an imprint allegedly left on the outside of Barnes’ truck by the victim’s jeans. He was found guilty of second-degree murder, rape and sodomy of a teenage girl 1985. However, test results conducted last year on materials collected from the victim’s body and clothing did not match Barnes, which led to his release from prison in November and tomorrow’s hearing that may exonerate him officially.
We’ll post more on the blog tomorrow after the hearing.
Read more on the Barnes case on the Innocence Blog.
Today’s news coverage of Barnes’ case:
Utica Observer Dispatch: Barnes’ charges to be dismissed Friday in teen's '85 murder
WKTV: Friday hearing could exonerate Steven Barnes for 1985 rape and murder
Tags: New York, Forensic Oversight, Steven Barnes
Steven Barnes Officially Exonerated in New York
Posted: January 9, 2009 4:30 pm
Steven Barnes was able to spend the holidays with his family for the first time in almost 20 years when DNA testing proved that he did not commit a murder for he was convicted in 1989. Even though he was released as a result of the testing, the state said the charges against Barnes would stay until further investigation.
At a hearing this morning in Utica, New York, Barnes was officially exonerated when the county apologized for his wrongful conviction and the court lifted the original indictment. Barnes is the 227th person to be exonerated by DNA evidence and is the 24th in New York.
Read the Innocence Project's press release here.
Highlights of today’s news coverage of Barnes’ case:
Utica Observer-Dispatch: It's official: Barnes exonerated on all charges
Associated Press: Wrongly jailed NY man formally cleared of murder
WKTV: Steven Barnes fully exonerated for 1985 rape and murder
Tags: New York, Eyewitness Identification, Forensic Oversight, Informants/Snitches, Steven Barnes
Lab Backlogs Continue to Pile Up
Posted: January 29, 2009 3:38 pm
Many crime labs around the United States are suffering under substantial backlogs, and the budget crises in most states aren’t making things any better. While the federal stimulus package approved by the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday included $4 billion to support state and local law enforcement, it is unclear how much of that money will make its way to forensic labs.
Backlogs hinder law enforcement agencies in investigating crime and they can lead to testing errors and problems with evidence storage and preservation. Here are some of the issues facing labs today around the country:
Minneapolis officials, facing a budget shortfall, said recently they may cut crime lab funding.
A review of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Crime Lab has revealed that evidence in more than 800 unsolved rape and sexual assault cases has gone untested due to a massive backlog there. Testing evidence quickly is important because it can help investigators identify a suspect – and can help avoid wrongful accusation and conviction of the innocent.
Earlier this year, the Arizona State Crime Lab began charging local jurisdictions to conduct DNA testing in criminal investigations, and at least one city has begun to challenge the fees.
The Wisconsin Attorney General called the state’s backlog “monstrous” and said eliminating the lag would take existing analysts 20 months.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Crime Lab Backlogs
NY Times: Upcoming Federal Report Could Call for Forensic Standards
Posted: February 5, 2009 12:19 pm
The National Academy of Sciences is expected to release a report in the weeks ahead examining forensic science nationwide. The New York Times reports today that the NAS report may call for a federal agency to guarantee the independence and scientific integrity of the field.
The NAS has held hearings on forensic practices over the last two years, and the Innocence Project has offered testimony on the lessons learned from DNA exonerations about the chances that questionable forensic disciplines and techniques can lead to wrongful convictions. In our January email newsletter, we wrote that we are “hopeful that the report will call for additional research to validate forensic disciplines, clear standards for using various forensic disciplines in the criminal justice system and nationwide enforcement of those standards.” Today’s New York Times story on the NAS report says there is a consensus that the report will be “a force of change in the forensics field.”
Peter J. Neufeld, a co-director of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that uses DNA evidence to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, presented to the academy a study of trial transcripts of 137 convictions that were overturned by DNA evidence and found that 60 percent included false or misleading statements regarding blood, hair, bite mark, shoe print, soil, fiber and fingerprint analyses.Read more about the need for a federal forensic science agency.
Read the full story here. (New York Times, 02/05/09)
Tags: Forensic Oversight, NAS Report
Major U.S. Report Calls for "Massive Overhaul" of Forensics
Posted: February 18, 2009 6:43 pm
The National Academy of Sciences released a report this afternoon that could transform forensic science in the United States.
The report, released by a diverse committee of scientific and legal experts who have spent two years studying these issues and holding public hearings at Congress’ request, recommends the creation of an independent, science-based federal entity that would direct comprehensive research and evaluation in the forensic sciences, establish scientifically validated standards and oversee their consistent application nationwide.
Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld, who testified before the panel at two of its five hearings, said today’s report is a “major breakthrough.”
“For too long, forensic science professionals have not had the support or management needed to identify the real strengths and weaknesses of different assays and techniques,” Neufeld said. “This report provides the roadmap for rectifying that problem, and we look forward to working with Congress and other key stakeholders to implement the report’s recommendations.”And members of Congress reacted to report in the hours after its release.
"People’s lives hinge on the results of these forensic tests and scientific rigor must be applied in each and every case to make sure that justice is truly served,” said U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “I will study the National Academy’s recommendations very carefully and propose legislation to address the need for standards, including best practices and certification and accreditation of forensic professionals.”Rep. John Conyers, the chairman of the U.S. House of Represenatives Judiciary Committee, called the report a “wake up call.”
“Our nation’s forensic science community needs our increased support and direction in order to ensure that criminal justice is more science-based, more reliable, and ultimately more just,” Conyers said.Read more reaction from exonerees, crime victims, forensic experts and others here.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Media Coverage of NAS Report
Posted: February 18, 2009 6:40 pm
Below is a sample of media coverage of today’s groundbreaking forensics report from the National Academy of Sciences. We’ll post more coverage tomorrow.
LA Times: Report Questions Science, Reliability of Crime Lab Evidence
Associated Press: Real World CSI's Lack Consistent Standards
CNN: Crime Labs Need Major Overhaul, Study Finds
MSNBC: Crime Labs Are Seriously Deficient, Report Finds
ProPublica: Government-Funded Study Calls for Overhaul of Nation’s Crime Labs
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
More Media Coverage of Forensics Report
Posted: February 19, 2009 5:36 pm
We posted yesterday some feedback and media coverage of the watershed forensics report released by the National Academy of Sciences. Here are some more stories running around the world today. We’ve noted which stories allow comments, so you can click through and join the discussion:
NPR On Point: Crime Labs and Dismal Science - One-hour radio show with Judge Harry Edwards (the co-chair of the committee that published the report), Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck, L.A. County Crime Lab Director Barry Fisher and John Jay College Prof. James Doyle. (Allows comments)
New York Times: Study Calls for Oversight of Forensics in Crime Labs
USA Today: Report: Real-world Police Forensics Don’t Resemble ‘CSI’
LA Times Op-Ed: Clueless ‘Science’
LA Times: Report questions science, reliability of crime lab evidence
NPR Morning Edition: Call for Forensics Overhaul Linked to 'CSI' Effect (Allows Comments)
Simple Justice: National Academies of Science: Trust Nothing (Allows Comments)
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Votes for Reform
Posted: February 23, 2009 11:38 am
An editorial this weekend in the New York Times praised the National Academy of Sciences on its “sensible suggestions” for improvements to forensic science practices in the United States, and called for research into unvalidated disciplines.
The academy’s panel makes sensible suggestions for improvement, such as certification of forensic professionals, accreditation of laboratories, uniform standards for analyzing evidence and independence of the laboratories from police and prosecutors who might bias judgments. In the long run, research is needed to determine the accuracy of forensic methods. For now, judges, lawyers and juries are on notice that high-tech forensic perfection is a television fantasy, not a courtroom reality.And writing in the Austin American-Statesman, author Joyce King (a member of the Innocence Project of Texas Board of Directors) writes that “lawmakers should not ignore” criminal justice reforms proven to prevent wrongful convictions – especially in the wake of Timothy Cole being cleared posthumously.
Read the full editorial here. (New York Times, 02/21/09)
Read King’s op-ed here. (Austin American-Statesman, 02/22/09)
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Innocence Project Report Points to Failures in Forensic Oversight
Posted: March 11, 2009 4:52 pm
An 84-page report released today by the Innocence Project finds that the U.S. Department of Justice is failing to ensure that forensic negligence and misconduct are properly investigated. Nearly five years ago, Congress passed legislation to improve forensic oversight, but today’s report shows that the federal government’s poor management of the program has kept serious problems in crime labs across the country from being addressed.
Read the executive summary and download the full report here.
Over the last five years, all 50 states have received federal forensic funds and nearly $100 million has been dispersed in all, but the Department of Justice has not enforced the oversight requirement. Including in today’s report is an Innocence Project survey of more than 256 relationships between applicants for funding and their designated oversight entities, finding that only 13% of them meet the requirements of the federal law.
The report goes on to outline steps the Obama Administration can take to fix the problem, including:
• Provide better guidance to applicants about what qualifies as an “independent external government entity” and an “appropriate process” for conducting investigations under the Coverdell program’s forensic oversight requirements.Click here for today’s press release and to download the executive summary or the full report.
• Require applicants to specifically certify that the oversight entity knows it has been designated to receive allegations and handle investigations, articulating how the entity is independent and external, and spelling out the process the entity would use to conduct an investigation.
• Make it easier for forensic employees, criminal justice practitioners and members of the public to file allegations of forensic negligence or misconduct under the Coverdell program.
• Make sure labs are referring allegations to their investigative entities.
• Monitor thoroughness and independence of investigations.
• Withhold funding when the requirements aren’t met — but only after giving Coverdell grant recipients the guidance, information and time they need to comply with the requirements.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
New Study on Forensics and Wrongful Conviction
Posted: March 18, 2009 11:15 am
A new law review article by Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld and University of Virginia Law Professor Brandon Garrett finds that forensic analysts often overstated evidence in wrongful conviction cases. The pair spent over a year reviewing 137 DNA exoneration cases in which a forensic analyst testified at trial, and found that in 60 percent of these cases, the forensic expert gave invalid testimony.
Watch a video with Garrett discussing the paper, and download the full Virginia Law Review paper.
While conducting the research for this paper, both Garrett and Neufeld testified before the National Academy of Sciences committee that recently released a report on the need for forensic reform in the United States. The NAS report called for a new federal agency to oversee and support forensic sciences in order for the disciplines to play a more reliable role in the American court system.
The Innocence Project also recently completed a review of the role of forensic science in wrongful convictions. The review went beyond transcripts of testimony to analyze all forensic science evidence used in the cases, and found that in more than 50% of the first 225 DNA exonerations, unvalidated or improper forensics played a role in the wrongful conviction. Learn more about the Innocence Project study here. (PDF)
Garrett said studies like these are rare, despite the fact that the systematic review of wrongful conviction cases can reveal a great deal about the causes of wrongful conviction.
“These trial transcripts were fascinating to read, because in retrospect we know that all of the defendants were innocent,” he said. “Yet few have looked at these records. Even after these wrongful convictions came to light, crime laboratories rarely conducted audits or investigations to review the forensic evidence presented at the trial.”
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
An Overhaul of the Forensic System
Posted: March 18, 2009 5:51 pm
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony today from the co-chairman of the National Academy of Sciences committee that recently released a report calling for the creation of an independent agency to oversee and support forensic science in our criminal courts.
Former Judge Harry Edwards told members of the Judiciary Committee that the committee was “thoroughly convinced” that it was time to move from the current forensic science system, “which is dysfunctional.”
“The principal point of our report is simple,” Edwards said in his testimony today. “There’s an obvious need to overhaul the existing system of forensic science in the United States. …Unfortunately, adversarial approach to the submission of evidence in court is not well-suited to the task of finding scientific truth. Judicial review alone will not cure the ills of the forensic science community.”Watch a video of Edwards’ testimony and questioning from Senators.
Download the National Academy of Sciences report and learn more about unvalidated or improper science as a contributing cause of wrongful convictions.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
The Dangers of Crime Lab Backlogs
Posted: April 1, 2009 3:19 pm
As states around the country struggle with budget shortfalls this year, law enforcement agencies and crime labs have felt the pinch. And when crime labs don’t get the funding they need, cold cases go unsolved and wrongful convictions become more likely.
California has at least 12,000 untested rape kits in storage facilities, including at least 1,218 from unsolved cases where the perpetrator was a stranger to the victim, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch. Testing of this evidence could clear the innocent and find true perpetrators before they have a chance to commit another crime.
A new audit in Illinois found that the state’s DNA backlog skyrocketed in recent years under Gov. Rod Blagojevich as the state used money meant for forensic testing on other law enforcement projects.
Evidence preservation can also suffer during a budget crunch. One New Jersey police department is storing crime scene evidence in unused jail cells. Vineland Police Chief Timothy Codispoti says evidence preservation is “one of the most grossly neglected areas of policing.”
As regular readers know, the National Academy of Sciences released a report in February calling for the creation of a new federal agency that would direct comprehensive research and evaluation in the forensic sciences, establish scientifically validated standards and oversee their consistent application nationwide.
Read more about forensic oversight and evidence preservation.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Evidence Preservation
Forensics and Conflict of Interest
Posted: April 6, 2009 12:36 pm
An editorial in today’s USA Today urges lawmakers to act on the National Academy of Sciences’ recent recommendation to separate crime labs from prosecutors’ offices and police departments. The NAS recommendation came as part of the group’s February report urging comprehensive reform of the forensic sciences and recommending the creation of a National Institute of Forensic Sciences. USA Today strongly backs the report’s call for independent crime labs:
Forensic science in criminal courts has been a part of American culture long before CSI became a prime-time obsession. Mark Twain was writing about fingerprints in criminal cases in the 1880s, before there was an FBI or anyone even imagined DNA. The allure is easy to understand. Juries and judges finding someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt would really like there to be no doubt at all, a desire that science could help fulfill. But science can't live up to that promise until the scientists serve the truth, not one side or the other in an adversarial courtroom.An op-ed counterpoint article from Ralph Keaton, Executive Director of the American Society of Crime Lab Directors Laboratory Accreditation Board, argues that the vast majority of labs connected to law enforcement agencies “exonerate suspects as routinely as they implicate suspects” and that moving to paid private labs doesn’t eliminate bias from the process.
I would submit that the cost, both financially and in lost productivity, to make such a transition is too great to make this the best way to achieve the desired outcome. The desired result is the elimination of all bias and undue influences on forensic testing and reporting of forensic testing results.The Innocence Project agrees with Keaton that the desired result is to eliminate all bias and undue influence in forensic testing and analysis. The National Academy of Sciences report highlighted the potential for crime labs housed within law enforcement agencies to reach conclusions favorable to those agencies – not necessarily because they intend to reach such results, but because so-called “context bias” or “context confounds” can lead scientists to inadvertently reach conclusions when they know the expected outcome.
Read the articles and join in the discussion. (USA Today, 4/6/09)
Read more about the National Academy of Sciences report and the Innocence Project’s recommendations for forensic science reform.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Untested Evidence and Unsolved Crime
Posted: April 10, 2009 1:45 pm
According to a new investigative report, the Phoenix (AZ) Police Department crime lab had untested biological evidence in its possession for months that could have identified a notorious serial killer and possibly prevented as many as seven murders. The North Scottsdale Times story, “Justice Delayed,” alleges that the Phoenix police lab conducted preliminary testing in a sexual assault believed to be connected to a crime spree but then failed to conduct follow-up tests or request outside assistance from labs capable of conducting more advanced forms of testing.
In 2006, nine months after the sexual assault, the unknown “Baseline Killer” suspect was believed to have committed seven additional murders. The Phoenix lab then asked the state crime lab to conduct further testing on the partially tested sex assault evidence. According to media reports, the DNA profile matched a man who had served 13 years in prison for aggravated assault, armed robbery and kidnapping. The man, Mark Goudeau, is now charged with 15 sexual assaults and nine murders.
Despite a new $34 million crime lab, the Phoenix Police Department is still facing an enormous backlog of cases to be tested, and it routinely takes three months to conduct DNA testing. Some observers have alleged that the lab has failed to learn from mistakes and attempted to cover up its failure to request outside assistance in the Baseline Killer case.
Billy Coleman, a representative for the (police) department’s union, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, says rather than addressing and correcting the problems, the Phoenix Police Department is ignoring the situation by dismissing complaints from investigators and even going as far as to punish detectives who speak negatively about the lab.
“Those people did not deserve to die. I think we could have saved one or as many as seven if we would have just done it right,” an emotional Coleman says, pounding his fist on the desk.
Read the full story here. (Times Publications, 04/09/09)The Innocence Project doesn’t evaluate the performance of particular labs, and has not independently confirmed these media reports. We do, however, support a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences to create a new federal agency that would direct comprehensive research and evaluation in the forensic sciences, establish scientifically validated standards and oversee their consistent application nationwide.
Crime lab backlogs and untested evidence can allow cold cases to remain unsolved while perpetrators commit additional crimes, and they can also lead to wrongful convictions – when exculpatory evidence sits untested, the wrong person could be convicted of a crime based on circumstantial evidence.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
NY Times: Plugging Holes in Forensic Science
Posted: May 12, 2009 1:37 pm
A special series today in the New York Times examines the findings of the recent National Academy of Sciences report entitled “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward.” A cross-section of stakeholders in the forensic science community, the Times reports, support the NAS recommendation of federal and state government support, research and oversight for forensic sciences.
Barry Fisher, a past president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and a former director of the crime laboratory at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, said he and others had been pushing for this kind of independent assessment for years. “There needs to be a demonstration that this stuff is reliable,” he said.Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld will testify tomorrow before a U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary subcommittee. More on his testimony tomorrow.
It’s not that there hasn’t been any research in forensic science. But over the years much of it has been done in crime labs themselves. “It hasn’t gotten to the level where they can state findings in a rigorous scientific way,” said Constantine Gatsonis, director of the Center for Statistical Sciences at Brown University and co-chairman of the National Academy of Sciences committee. And rather than being teased out in academic papers and debated at scientific conferences, “a lot of this forensic stuff is being argued in the courtroom,” Mr. Fisher said. “That’s not the place to validate any kind of scientific information.”
Read the full story: Plugging the Holes in the Science of Forensics (05/12/09)
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Missouri Column: Too Many Errors
Posted: June 1, 2009 5:25 pm
Attorney and former police officer Stephen Wyse writes in the Springfield, Missouri, News-Leader today that his state is in dire need of reforms to prevent wrongful convictions and better identify the perpetrators of crime. There have been seven DNA exonerations in Missouri, but efforts to reform eyewitness identification procedures, forensic practices and interrogations have fallen flat in recent years.
There are no endeavors where perfection is universally possible, but where substantial errors can be eliminated by adopting the "best practices," don't we owe that to ourselves as citizens? Memorial Day honors those who protect our freedom. We should all commit ourselves to defending the spirit of the Constitution and the liberty it enshrines.For an overview of exonerations by state and the reforms in place, visit our interactive maps here.
Read the full column here. (News-Leader, 06/01/09)
Tags: Missouri, False Confessions, Eyewitness Identification, Forensic Oversight
U.S. Supreme Court: Forensic Science Has �Serious Deficiencies�
Posted: June 25, 2009 1:55 pm
In a 5-4 decision today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that defendants have the right to cross-examine forensic analysts who handle scientific evidence in criminal cases. In finding that defendants have the right to question analysts, the majority wrote that forensic findings are open to interpretation and could be manipulated. The court also cited a recent report on forensics from the National Academy of Sciences and Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion said: “serious deficiencies have been found in the forensic evidence used at criminal trials.”
The Innocence Project, as part of the Innocence Network, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, urging the court to recognize that forensic evidence can’t be trusted as neutral fact. The majority cited the Innocence Network brief in its opinion.
Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld said today that although today’s decision is an important step forward, the court’s opinion underlines the need for national forensic standards ensuring that science in criminal trials is reliable and fair.
“This is an important decision that will help defendants expose faulty evidence at trial, but it doesn’t resolve serious underlying problems with forensic science. Too often, our criminal justice system relies on evidence that is not rooted in solid science, which is why Congress needs to create a National Institute of Forensic Science.Read the court’s full opinion here. (PDF)
“Earlier this year, the National Academy of Sciences called on Congress to create an independent, science-based agency to stimulate research and set and enforce standards long before forensic evidence reaches court. Today’s ruling underscores the need for Congress to take action.
Read Neufeld’s complete statement.
Visit the Just Science Coalition website to sign the petition for Congress to create a federal Office of Forensic Science Improvement and Support.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
The Supreme Court and Unvalidated Science
Posted: July 6, 2009 3:09 pm
An editorial in the Birmingham News makes a strong case for federal oversight and support of forensic science across the U.S. – especially in the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. In the Melendez-Diaz case, the court ruled 5-4 that defendants have a right to cross-examine experts who conduct forensic tests in their case.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, says “serious deficiencies have been found in the forensic evidence used at criminal trials.” The Birmingham News editorial agrees that there are major problems with forensic science and calls for the creation of the National Institute of Forensic Science, a reform recommended in the recent National Academy of Sciences report on forensics and supported by the Innocence Project.
In our view, cross-examining forensic scientists is only a partial answer to the problem.Learn more about the National Academy of Sciences report and sign a petition supporting the creation of a National Institute of Forensic Science here.
Congress needs to follow the advice of the National Academy of Sciences report -- specifically, to create an agency that can evaluate and improve these scientific techniques in criminal cases, set standards for their use and provide better oversight for practitioners and labs.
This is not just about making sure people aren't wrongly convicted of crimes, although that's part of it. Juries have often been led to believe that forensic tests on things like bullets and hairs are more authoritative than they are. Some people are sitting on Alabama's Death Row right now based largely on this kind of untested science. Even fingerprint identification has proved in some cases to be wrong.Read the full editorial here. (Birmingham News, 07/02/09)
Tags: Alabama, Forensic Oversight
New National Institute Would Help Improve Forensic Science
Posted: July 13, 2009 5:06 pm
Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld writes today in the Tennessean that federal oversight and support for forensic science would vastly improve the justice system in the United States and help prevent wrongful convictions.
A National Institute of Forensic Science is a vital step toward strengthening our criminal justice system. When an innocent person is wrongfully convicted, the actual perpetrator remains free to commit additional crimes. That's exactly what happened in Memphis after Clark McMillan was wrongfully convicted — during the 22 years he was in prison before DNA proved his innocence, the actual perpetrator went on to commit several additional rapes.Do you want to join the call for federal forensic reform in the U.S.? Visit the Just Science Coalition website to sign the petition for reform and to learn more about the recommendations.
In the months ahead, Congress will seriously consider how to structure a national institute. U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., will play a key role in this as the chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology.
Read Neufeld’s op-ed here. (The Tennessean, 07/13/09)
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Shrinking State Budgets and Crime Labs
Posted: July 14, 2009 5:46 pm
As states face budget shortfalls this year, crime labs across the country are feeling the pinch. Cutbacks in lab budgets can lead to layoffs and longer backlogs for DNA testing and other forensic work, and it can compromise case investigations. In some cases, critical forensic testing could be skipped in a case because there aren’t funds to conduct the tests.
The California legislature has proposed cutting the state’s crime lab budget in half, and the Daily Breeze newspaper recently said this will lead to "a less safe state.” The state crime lab may start charging local agencies to conduct forensic tests on evidence collected from crime scenes, and if those agencies don’t have the money for the tests they might not get done.
Federal funds will soon help the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office address backlogs of untested rape kits that compromise public safety – and could potentially lead to overturning wrongful convictions. The Pasadena Star-News wrote this week that money spent on addressing crime lab backlogs is a “wise investment.”
Medical examiners offices around the country are cutting back on autopsy schedules due to budget shortfalls and some critics say the cuts could hamper investigations.
A new law in Mississippi requires that evidence from some crimes be stored, and some local law enforcement agencies are saying they don’t have the capacity to store crime scene evidence and comply with the law. Evidence preservation is vital to overturning wrongful convictions – and locating the real perpetrators of crimes.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Crime Lab Backlogs
Crime Victim: Our System Failed Me
Posted: August 3, 2009 1:02 pm
In 1985, Texas Tech sophomore Michele Mallin was abducted at knifepoint and raped in Lubbock, Texas. She spent years in counseling, but was consoled somewhat by the knowledge that Timothy Cole had been arrested and convicted for the attack. She relived the crime last year, however, after learning of the “added tragedy” that Cole was innocent and had died in prison before he could be exonerated.
She wrote in an op-ed this weekend in the Houston Chronicle that her experience – and that of hundreds of other exonerees and crime victims – should lead to reforms in our criminal justice system that prevent future wrongful convictions and help law enforcement agencies apprehend the true perpetrators of crime.
Cole died in prison of a heart attack in 1999 and DNA testing obtained posthumously by the Innocence Project of Texas, in consultation with the Innocence Project, proved that a Texas prisoner named Jerry Wayne Johnson had raped Mallin. She wrote this weekend that she and Cole weren’t the only victims of this terrible injustice. After she was attacked, Johnson raped at least two other women – crimes that could have been prevented if he had been apprehended after raping her.
Cole was convicted based in part on the unvalidated forensic science of hair comparison, and Mallin calls in her op-ed for the creation of federal forensic standards to ensure that the injustice she suffered doesn’t happen to anyone else.
I put my faith in the criminal justice system, and it failed me. I am back in counseling to grapple with the renewed trauma of the rape and the knowledge that I played a role in Cole's wrongful conviction by identifying him as the man who attacked me.Sign the Just Science petition to call on Congress to create a National Institute of Forensic Science.
I have learned a great deal over the last year — about myself, about Cole and about our system of justice. One of the most troubling things I've learned is that juries often hear evidence that is not as solid as it sounds.
Read the full op-ed here. (Houston Chronicle, 08/03/09)
Read more about Timothy Cole’s case here.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Examining the Houston Crime Lab
Posted: August 12, 2009 6:17 pm
Ernest Sonnier walked out of a Houston courtroom last week a free man for the first time in 23 years, and his case is the latest to be overturned after faulty testing at the Houston Police Department Crime Lab contributed to a wrongful conviction.
An editorial today in the Houston Chronicle points out that two years after the conclusion of a $5 million investigation into problems at the lab, countless cases still need to be evaluated for possible retesting. In addition, the paper writes today that the case is a sign of the need for independent crime labs.
Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck said, “There are still thousands of cases from the Houston Crime Lab that need to be reviewed, and that needs to happen quickly.”
He praised the administration of DA Lykos for ending prosecutorial foot dragging, creating a unit to examine convicts' credible claims of innocence, and being “focused on getting to the truth.”
In addition to swiftly reviewing those remaining cases, local officials need to move forward with a plan to create a regional crime lab independent of police and prosecutor influenceLast week, Chronicle columnist Rick Casey addressed another cause of wrongful conviction in a two-part series on eyewitness identification and the Timothy Cole case. Chronicle cartoonist Nick Anderson contributed a cartoon about faulty lineups.
Read the full editorial here. (Houston Chronicle, 08/11/09)
Tags: Eyewitness Identification, Forensic Oversight
Five Years Later: Wilton Dedge and Dog Scent Evidence
Posted: August 13, 2009 2:30 pm
This week marks the fifth anniversary of the day Wilton Dedge walked out of a Florida prison into the arms of his parents. In 1982, he was convicted of a rape he didn’t commit and sentenced to life in prison. He would serve 19 years before DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project conclusively proved his innocence in 2001. The state then opposed Dedge’s release on procedural grounds and he was not freed for another three years.
In addition to an eyewitness misidentification and unreliable testimony by a forensic hair analyst, unvalidated dog-scent evidence played a large role in Dedge’s first conviction in 1982. At trial, a “scent-tracking expert” named John Preston testified that his dog, “Harass 2,” sniffed an item with Dedge's scent and then allegedly alerted Preston of the same scent in the victim's house. Although Dedge’s conviction was overturned in 1983, the appeals court nevertheless asserted that the dog’s scent identification was persuasive. Mainly based on the testimony of a known jailhouse snitch, Dedge was reconvicted after a second trial in 1984.
Despite not being a validated science, dog-scent identifications and lineups have continued to be permitted at trial and have been a contributing factor in other wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA testing. The case of another recent Florida exoneree, William Dillon, also hinged on the testimony of the same so-called expert, John Preston, who died in 2008. In the course of his career, Preston convinced over one hundred juries in Brevard County, Florida, and around the country of his dog’s ability to track scents, even if those scents were underwater or it had been more than a week since the crime had occurred. Other scent experts have countered that such scent identifications are impossible.
Responding last month to public outrage and concern that others are still wrongly jailed based on the fraudulent dog scent testimony, Florida State Attorney Norman Wolfinger ordered a review of murder and sexual battery cases in which Preston testified. Florida Today wrote that an in-house review of the cases won’t be reliable, and the Innocence Project of Florida has called for an independent investigation.
Unvalidated forensic science such as dog scent evidence has been involved in about half of the 241 wrongful convictions overturned to date. The Innocence Project supports the creation of the National Institute of Forensic Science, a federal agency to support and oversee forensics to prevent wrongful convictions and ensure public safety. Thousands of people have joined the campaign by signing the Just Science Coalition’s petition calling for federal forensic oversight. Add your name now.
Other Exonerations
Sunday: Ryan Matthews, Louisiana (Served 5 years, Exonerated 8/9/2004)
Friday: Gary Dotson, Illinois (Served 10 years, Exonerated 08/14/1989)
Saturday: Roy Criner, Texas (Served 10 years, Exonerated 08/15/2000)
Eduardo Velasquez, Massachusetts (Served 12.5 years, Exonerated 08/15/2001)
Tags: Florida, Wilton Dedge, Forensic Oversight
Forensics Series Continues Tonight on CNN
Posted: August 20, 2009 3:15 pm
CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” has been investigating questions about forensic disciplines in a special series on forensics this week. Last night, CNN contributor Sanjay Gupta visited the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab to report on hair analysis, bullet analysis and DNA testing practices. Watch video of his visit here.
And CNN medical producer Stephanie Smith posted on the AC360 blog today about Innocence Project client Steven Barnes and the role of unvalidated forensics in wrongful convictions.
The show continues tonight at 10 p.m. ET with a report on Dr. Steven Hayne in Mississippi, who has been accused of reaching conclusions that go beyond science to fit what prosecutors need to secure convictions. Tonight's broadcast will feature an interview with Tyler Edmonds, who was sentenced to death row partly as a result of Hayne's testimony. Edmonds was released after the Mississippi Supreme Court threw out his conviction -- in a ruling that called Hayne's testimony "scientifically unfounded."
Two Innocence Project clients were exonerated last year after Hayne's testimony contributed to their wrongful convictions; read more about their cases here.
Learn about recommendations for forensic reform and take action at the Just Science website.
Tags: Steven Barnes, Kennedy Brewer, Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Groundbreaking New Reports Show Texas Executed an Innocent Man
Posted: August 31, 2009 12:06 pm
An exhaustive report released today by the New Yorker finds that Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 in Texas for murders he didn't commit. The report follows years of investigation into the case, and concludes that the arson analysis used to convict Willingham was wrong — and that none of the other evidence used to convict Willingham was valid.
The findings in the New Yorker report and other evaluations of Willingham's case have brought renewed calls for a moratorium on executions and comprehensive reforms of forensic science in the United States.
Read the full New Yorker story here.
Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck writes in the Huffington Post today that this case should lead to sweeping improvements in the forensic sciences:
Whether our criminal justice system has executed an innocent man should no longer be an open question. We don't know how often it happens, but we know it has happened. Cameron Todd Willingham's case proves that.Today's 16,000-word New Yorker story comes a week after independent arson expert Craig Beyler submitted his report to the Texas Forensic Science Commission, which is conducting a review of Willingham's conviction. Beyler, like a panel of national arson experts assembled three years ago by the Innocence Project, found that the science used to convict Willingham was wrong. The Texas Forensic Science Commission announced that it is reviewing Beyler's report and will release its conclusions next year.
The focus turns to how we can stop it from happening again. As long as our system of justice makes mistakes -- including the ultimate mistake -- we cannot continue executing people.
Today's Coverage of The Case:
Innocence Project Press Release: New Report Shows that Cameron Todd Willingham, Executed in Texas in 2004, Was Innocent
New Yorker: Trial by Fire
New Yorker Video: Flashover
Huffington Post: Innocent, But Executed
New York Times Editorial: Questions About an Execution
Background
Expert Panel Review of Willingham and Willis convictions.
Background on the cases of 17 people exonerated through DNA testing after spending years on death row.
Understand the Causes: Unvalidated or Improper Forensic Science
The Just Science Coalition: Supporting Forensic Reform to Improve the Accuracy of the Criminal Justice System
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Death Penalty, Cameron Todd Willingham
Watch Live: Senate Judiciary Hearing on Forensic Reform
Posted: September 8, 2009 5:56 pm
Watch online tomorrow at 10 a.m. EST as Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld testifies before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on the need for a National Institute of Forensic Science. He will be joined by Law Professor Paul Giannelli, Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt, a lab director and two prosecutors.
Visit this link at 10 a.m. EST to watch live.
The Innocence Project has called for the creation of an independent federal agency to support and oversee forensic science practices across the country. Learn more and voice your support for forensic reform at the Just Science Coalition website.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Senators Consider Federal Forensic Reforms
Posted: September 9, 2009 5:42 pm
Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee today about the need for federal standards and for research in forensic science. And Neufeld and other witnesses found bipartisan support for a federal role in stimulating research, training forensic analysts and setting standards.
Forensics have been a central part of the criminal justice system for decades. Defendants are regularly convicted of crimes based on analysis of fingerprints, hair samples or blood spatters from a crime scene. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences said many of those techniques have never been scientifically tested.With Neufeld at today’s hearing was Roy Brown, who spent 15 years in prison in New York for a murder he didn’t commit. He was convicted based in large part on faulty bite mark analysis.
That report "is one of the most important developments in forensic science since the creation of the first crime laboratory in the 1920s," Case Western Reserve professor Paul Gianelli told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Al Franken (D-MI) called the report's conclusions "damning" and "terrifying."
"The forensic dentist [at Roy Brown's trial] used what was then the prevailing method of comparing bite marks found on a body with the dentures of a suspect," said Neufeld. "He examined them and decided that he had a match with Roy's bite. He so testified in court, and Roy was convicted."
Read (and listen to) the full story. (NPR All Things Considered, 09/09/09)Watch a webcast of the full hearing.
Take action today: Tell Congress you support the creation of the National Institute of Forensic Science.
Tags: Roy Brown, Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
New Report Examines Unreliable Dog Scent Lineups
Posted: September 22, 2009 3:10 am
A report released yesterday by the Innocence Project of Texas examines the practice of dog scent lineups, which is still employed in Texas cases despite serious questions about its reliability.
Scent lineups conducted by a Texas sheriff’s deputy named Keith Pikett are being challenged in two federal lawsuits, filed by men who were accused of crimes they didn’t commit based on faulty dog scent evidence. The new report alleges that scent lineups are completely unreliable and have contributed to wrongful convictions. A British police canine-handling expert reviewed a videotape of a scent lineup performed by Pikett and said:
“This is the most primitive evidential police procedure I have ever witnessed,” he said. “It goes against all the principles of tracking and trailing.”The Texas report alleges that Texas prosecutors use Pikett’s scent lineups to confirm suspicions about a suspect. The report quotes a prosecutor, who wrote on a public message board in June:
Woo-hoo! Just got word that Keith's dogs unanimously hit on my evidence today, just as we'd hoped. Did I mention that I'm a big fan!Download the full report at the Innocence Project of Texas website. IPOT is a member of the Innocence Network.
Learn more about the Innocence Project’s call for an independent federal agency to support the forensic disciplines and set science-based standards.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Texas Forensics: Fingerprints, Fires and Email
Posted: December 3, 2009 3:50 pm
This week has brought more news from Texas on unvalidated forensics and questionable lab procedures, while the state commission charged with investigating allegations of forensic negligence and misconduct continues to draw questions from lawmakers and the media.
New forensic problems were reported Tuesday from the troubled Houston Police Department. An audit of fingerprint analysis cases handled by HPD found problems in half of the cases reviewed, leading officials to suggest the need for a thorough review of all fingerprint cases in the city in the last six years. The lab is also facing a two-year backlog of 6,000 cases that have yet to be examined. And Wednesday, officials announced that the investigation could result in criminal charges relating to lab misconduct.
The reports are reminiscent of problems that closed the Houston Police DNA lab in 2002 and again suspended testing in 2008. A two-year audit completed in 2007 found extensive problems in the lab stretching over several years. At least three people have been exonerated through DNA tests after serving years in prison based in part on faulty tests by the Houston lab.
Read more about the fingerprint news in Houston Chronicle stories from Tuesday and Wednesday.
And there are also new questions this week about the status of the Texas Forensic Science Commission. Houston Chronicle columnist Rick Casey wrote on Tuesday that he’s troubled by a new email policy announced by commission chairman John Bradley.
Chairman Bradley told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram through an e-mail, that he “simply seeks to make sure that all relevant information is saved at a single location.”The commission was in the process of reviewing evidence in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004, when Gov. Rick Perry abruptly replaced four members of the group in October. Bradley was named as the new chairman. For more on the TFSC and the Willingham case, visit our resource center.
That is patently absurd. You don't need to be a scientist to understand that deleting e-mails doesn't save them at a central location.
Read Casey’s full column. (Houston Chronicle, 12/1/09)
And a recent story in the Waco Tribune examined the impact of the Willingham case on arson investigations statewide. The story notes that the arson investigation field now relies on more scientifically sound practices, but that many convictions may have been based on the same kind of disproven methods used in the Wllingham case.
[Killeen, Texas, Fire Marshal James] Chism said the controversy over the Willingham case is a good chance for the profession to look at old investigations where questionable techniques may have been used. The industry also needs to seize the opportunity to weed out investigators who cling to outdated beliefs. It would be naive to think none exist, he said.
“Whether it is an old-school mentality or sheer laziness because it’s what they’ve always done, I still have to think those old wives’ tales are still getting play in the state of Texas,” Chism said.
Read the full story. (Waco Tribune, 11/29/09)
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Cameron Todd Willingham
Forensics and the Gates Case
Posted: December 16, 2009 5:11 pm
As we reported yesterday, Donald Eugene Gates was freed in Arizona after serving nearly three decades behind bars for a Washington, D.C., crime he didn’t commit. An examination of the forensics behind his wrongful conviction makes a strong case for federal forensic reform to prevent injustices like this in the future.
FBI forensic analyst Michael Malone testified at Gates’ trial in 1982 that hairs found at the scene of the 1981 rape and murder were “microscopically indistinguishable” from Gates’ hairs. His statements vastly overstated the possible conclusions that could be drawn from a hair comparison. Unlike some other forensic disciplines (DNA testing, blood type testing), hair comparison analysis can only reveal potential similarities between specimens, not the statistical likelihood that two specimens might share common characteristics.
Although Malone’s forensic conclusions have been challenged in other cases, and a 1997 Justice Department review discredited his work, no formal review of his convictions has ever been conducted. The Judge who presided over the Gates case recently ordered the U.S. Attorney’s Office to conduct such a review.
Gates joins a growing group of exonerees whose wrongful convictions were caused, at least in part, by unvalidated or improper forensic science. More than 100 people have been exonerated through DNA testing after unvalidated or improper forensic science contributed to their wrongful conviction (flawed analysis of hair was a factor in many of those cases).The National Academy of Sciences has reported a systemic lack of forensic standards and oversight and has proposed the creation of an independent federal agency to oversee the forensic sciences. According to a report released by the National Academy of Sciences earlier this year, microscopic hair analysis is not a valid science.
In response to the groundbreaking NAS report finding serious problems with forensic science nationwide, the Innocence Project recently drafted a proposal for federal legislation to create the a federal Office of Forensic Science Improvement and Support (OFSIS). The office would be established within the Department of Commerce, which would help define the office’s agenda for research. OFSIS would also engage existing government entities to regulate the mandatory accreditation of crime labs and certification of forensic practitioners; support science-based education and training throughout the criminal justice system; provide periodic needs assessments of the forensic system; and oversee compliance. To learn more and sign a petition in support of the agency visit the Just Science Coalition website.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Report: NY Lab Hid Pattern of Misconduct
Posted: December 18, 2009 2:02 pm
A new report released yesterday by the New York Inspector General finds that a major State Police crime lab failed to detect and act upon systematic problems in the handling of evidence and the falsification of test results in hundreds of cases over 15 years. And as signs of misconduct began to appear, the report finds, lab officials hid evidence that the problem was widespread and pinned it on an analyst who had committed suicide in 2008.
“Cutting corners in a crime lab is serious and intolerable,” the state’s inspector general, Joseph Fisch told the New York Times. “Forensic laboratories must adhere to the highest standards of competence, independence and integrity. Anything less undermines public confidence in our criminal justice system.”The state police superintendent said the agency planned to hire an outside consultant to review forensic tests conducted in the lab. Several analysts whose conduct is questioned in Thursdays report remain in their jobs pending an internal review.
Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck said the New York scandal is another clear sign that forensic reform is needed.
“It is a wake-up call to the forensic community,” said Scheck, director of the Innocence Project and a member of the New York State Commission on Forensic Science, which monitors all the state’s crime labs. “What’s alarming about this report and others that we’ve seen like it is it’s not so much the bad actors, it’s the fact that the system didn’t detect them earlier.”Download the full report here. (PDF)
Read the full story here. (New York Times, 12/18/09)
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Ten Great Moments of the Decade
Posted: December 30, 2009 11:00 am
It goes without saying that DNA testing and the issues surrounding wrongful convictions have left their mark on the criminal justice system in the last ten years. When the decade began, DNA testing had been used in American courtrooms for more than 11 years, but exonerations were still fairly rare.
In the last ten years, 182 people have been exonerated through DNA testing and states have passed dozens of laws addressing the causes of wrongful convictions. Yet there is plenty of work to do — countless innocent people remain behind bars as we pass into 2010 and the threat of wrongful convictions in today’s courtrooms is still very real.
As we look forward to freeing more innocent people than ever in the decade ahead and enacting major reforms to prevent wrongful convictions, here is a list (in chronological order) of 10 seminal moments from the 2000s.
"Actual Innocence” is published (2000)— Written by Innocence Project Co-Directors Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, with Jim Dwyer, this groundbreaking book examines the emergence of DNA testing and the causes of wrongful conviction it unveiled. During the decade, it became a blueprint for overturning wrongful convictions and reforming the criminal justice system.
Larry Mayes becomes the 100th Exoneree (2001) — Mayes spent 21 years in Indiana prisons before DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project and the Innocence Project at the Indiana University School of Law proved his innocence and led to his release.
Illinois clears death row (2003) — Pointing clearly to the frightening rate of exonerations in his state (since 1977, 13 death row prisoners had been cleared while 12 had been executed), Gov. George Ryan granted blanket clemency to all 167 people on death row on January 10, 2003.
Congress passes the Justice for All Act (2004) — The JFAA is the most significant legislation to ever address wrongful convictions in the United States. It provides an avenue for federal prisoners to seek DNA testing and funds incentives for states to offer similar testing and to improve DNA testing capacity. It also provides compensation for federal exonerees.
“After Innocence” premieres (2005) — An award-winning documentary chronicling the lives of seven men released from prison after serving years for crimes they didn’t commit, After Innocence brought the issue of wrongful convictions to America’s movie theaters and living rooms. Watch a trailer here.
“The Innocent Man” published (2006) — John Grisham’s first non-fiction book tells the heartbreaking story of a murder in Oklahoma and an unimaginable injustice suffered by two innocent men. The book reached best-seller status around the world and a film version is in development. Following the book’s publication, John Grisham joined the Innocence Project’s board of directors. Several other excellent books also chronicled wrongful conviction cases during the decade, check back tomorrow for the decade's must read list.
Jerry Miller becomes the 200th Exoneree (2007) — It took 12 years to exonerate the first 100 people through DNA testing. It was just seven years later that Innocence Project client Jerry Miller became the 200th person exonerated through DNA. He served 25 years in Illinois prisons before he was cleared.
Dennis Fritz and Peggy Carter Sanders Dance on Stage (2008) — the history of criminal justice in the United States is filled with poignant moments of injustice overturned, from tear-filled homecomings to stirring speeches and courtroom victories. One of the most memorable is the moment Dennis Fritz, who was exonerated after 11 years in prison for an Oklahoma murder he didn’t commit, unexpectedly danced onstage with the mother of the murder victim at a New York event. Watch this touching moment on video here.
50th Member Joins the Innocence Network (2008) — the Innocence Network is an international affiliation of groups working to overturn wrongful convictions. As the field has broadened over the last 10 years, more organizations have been created to meet the growing need for pro bono legal services and advocacy. In 2008, the Innocence Network reached a membership of 50 organizations, today there are 54.
National Academy of Sciences releases forensic report (2009) — Faulty forensic evidence played a role in more than half of the wrongful convictions later overturned through DNA testing. Many forensic techniques used in courtrooms today have never been subjected to rigorous scientific evaluation. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences released a landmark report calling for the U.S. federal government to create a federal entity to oversee and support the forensic disciplines. Learn more here.
Photo: Innocence Project client Luis Diaz was exonerated in Florida in 2005 after 25 years in prison for a series of crimes he didn't commit. Courtesy South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Tags: Innocence Commissions, Exoneree Compensation, False Confessions, Eyewitness Identification, Forensic Oversight, Evidence Preservation, Access to DNA Testing, False Confessions, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics, Informants/Snitches, Bad Lawyering, Government Misconduct, Eyewitness Misidentification
Improper Forensics and Two Decades in Prison
Posted: January 8, 2010 10:40 am
In 1989, Steven Barnes was convicted of the rape and murder of 16-year-old Kimberly Simon in Utica, New York. The prosecution's case against Barnes was based in part on unvalidated and improper forensic science. After serving almost two decades in prison, Barnes was officially exonerated one year ago this week
Today, Barnes works helps oversee a youth program for his county's workforce development office and recently moved into his own apartment. He frequently speaks to community groups and policymakers about the importance of addressing the causes of wrongful conviction to prevent injustice.
Faulty forensics were a central cause of Barnes' wrongful conviction. Three types of forensic evidence were used against Barnes: fabric print analysis, soil comparison, and microscopic hair analysis. None of these three techniques has been proven in empirical studies to be reliable and aspects of this evidence clearly misled the jury in Barnes' case.
The fabric print analysis allegedly linked the victim's unusual jeans to a dust print on the outside of Barnes' truck, but the methods used to determine a link were unproven and unreliable. Soil from Barnes truck was chemically compared to soil at the crime scene, but technicians didn't offer an analysis of whether the soil in either sample was particularly unique.
Testimony regarding microscopic hair comparisons in particular can mislead juries to believe that a similarly is actually a "match." According to a report released in 2009 by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), "No scientifically accepted statistics exist about the frequency with which particular characteristics of hair are distributed in the population. There appears to be no uniform standards on the number of features on which hairs must agree before an examiner may declare a 'match.'" Nearly one in five wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing involved faulty hair analysis.
Despite the groundbreaking recent NAS report on forensic science, there remains a grievous lack of oversight of crime labs across the country. Moreover, methodologies and standards vary by examiner. Countless innocent people have been sent to prison in the U.S. based on faulty forensics while the real perpetrators of crimes remain free. In response, the Innocence Project, spearheading the Just Science Coalition, has developed a plan for reform that includes the creation of a national Office of Forensic Science Improvement and Support (OFSIS). OFSIS, with input from law enforcement, prosecutors, crime laboratories, the judiciary and the defense bar, will support research in forensics practices, set mandatory accreditation and certification standards and ensure compliance with those standards.
These reforms are critical to prevent future injustices like the one endured by Steven Barnes. Learn more about federal forensic reforms and take action here.
Other Exoneree Anniversaries This Week:
Mark Diaz Bravo, California (Served 3 Years, Exonerated 1/6/94)
David Vasquez, Virginia (Served 4 Years, Exonerated 1/4/89)
Larry Holdren, West Virginia (Served 15 Years, Exonerated 1/4/00)
Tags: Steven Barnes, Forensic Oversight
Supreme Court Revisits Right to Confront Forensic Witnesses
Posted: January 11, 2010 3:55 pm
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this morning in a case that could affect last term’s decision granting criminal defendants the right to call forensic analysts as witnesses.
The court ruled 5-4 last term in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts that defendants in criminal cases have a right to cross-examine experts who conduct forensic tests in their case. This morning, the justices heard another forensics case, Briscoe et. al. v. Virginia, that some observers said could lead to a narrowing of the Melendez-Diaz ruling.
The Innocence Network filed a friend-of-the-court brief last year in Melendez-Diaz, pointing out that flawed forensic testimony has led to dozens of wrongful convictions later overturned through DNA testing – and arguing that the right to challenge forensic evidence is crucial to uncovering bad science that could wrongfully convict an innocent defendant.
An editorial in today’s New York Times said any change to last year’s ruling would be “a significant setback for civil liberties.”
Read the full editorial here.
Read more about Briscoe et. al. v. Virginia here.
Read more about Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts and download the Innocence Network brief.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Texas Dog Handler to Retire
Posted: January 21, 2010 4:05 pm
A Texas sheriff’s deputy who has come under fire in recent months for questionable investigative practices announced yesterday that he will retire at the end of the month.
The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s office said 63-year-old deputy Keith Pikett’s decision to retire was not related to pending lawsuits against him. Sheriff Milton Wright did say, however, that demand for Pikett’s services handling scent-tracking dogs had declined following recent negative reports. “The adverse publicity has certainly shut him down — at least out of county,“ Wright told the Associated Press.
For more than 20 years, Pikett has trained police dogs and conducted more than 2,000 “scent lineups” — procedures in which dogs examine a group of scents, including a suspect’s, to determine if any match a scent from the crime scene.
At least three lawsuits allege that Pikett’s dogs picked innocent people, leading to wrongful arrests. All three cases were dropped before trial. Additionally, a report from the Innocence Project of Texas in September questioned the accuracy of scent lineups and alleged that Texas prosecutors use Pikett’s scent lineups to confirm suspicions about a suspect.
Tags: Texas, Forensic Oversight, Dog Scent
Watch Live: Texas Forensic Science Commission Meeting
Posted: January 29, 2010 10:10 am
The Texas Forensic Science Commission is meeting today in Harlingen, Texas, to discuss the committee's procedures on handling allegations of forensic negligence and misconduct in the state. This is the group's first meeting in several months, and although it had planned to address the controversial Cameron Todd Willingham case in October, that case is not on today's agenda.
The Innocence Project is streaming today's meeting live online. Watch here from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. CST.
Learn more about the Willingham case and the commission's work.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Cameron Todd Willingham
Texas Forensics Panel to Discuss Willingham Case at Next Meeting
Posted: February 1, 2010 3:32 pm
The Texas Forensic Science Commission met Friday for the first time in six months, but the meeting focused on committee procedure and the controversial case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004, was not discussed.
Commission Chairman John Bradley committed, however, to discussing the case at the committee’s next meeting, set for April 23 in El Paso.
"Yes, they will be on the agenda. Yes, they will be discussed," Bradley said, referring to open cases under review.Innocence Project Policy Director Stephen Saloom, who attended the meeting, noted that Bradley attempted to develop new procedures that would have given him more power, but members of the commission insisted that the new rules clearly call for consent and approval from the group:
"The rules Mr. Bradley proposed create needless bureaucracy, steer the commission away from the Legislature's intent, limit the commissioners' authority and vest more power in him as the chair," Saloom told the Associated Press.And Houston Chronicle columnist Rick Casey wrote today about Bradley’s decision to bar a documentary film crew from the meeting room, which was reversed 90 minutes after the meeting began:
Bradley evicted an Austin-based documentary crew before the meeting started. One of its members called the attorney general's office in Austin, which sent a message to Barbara Dean, the assistant district attorney who has attended all of the commission's meetings, providing legal guidance since its inception.Read more about Friday’s meeting:
An hour and a half into the meeting, Dean, seated behind Bradley, tapped him on the shoulder and quietly spoke into his ear. He announced a 10-minute break, and when the meeting resumed the film crew was in the room.
Associated Press: Texas Panel Meets, Skips Talk of Willingham Case
The Monitor: Forensics Panel Dodges Discussion of Controversial ExecutionRick Casey in the Houston Chronicle: The Revolt of the Scientists Grits for Breakfast: Live Blog of the Meeting
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Forensic Oversight Badly Needed, Experts Say
Posted: February 23, 2010 5:05 pm
From Maine to California, crime lab backlogs and budget shortfalls are threatening to derail court systems and jeopardize fair justice.
MSNBC reports today on the state of the nation’s crime labs and the impact of the National Academy of Science’s 2009 report calling for federal forensic oversight.
There are serious questions about the credibility of nearly every kind of crime lab analysis, the conclusions of which often rest on unproven science filtered through the subjective judgment of technicians whose training and certification vary wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
And with crime labs struggling under backlogs that already reach back years in many cities and states, budget cuts driven by the recession are threatening to make credible crime scene analysis a lost art, law enforcement officials and forensic specialists say.
Read the full story here. (MSNBC, 02/23/10)
News of injustice caused by unvalidated or improper forensics has almost become a weekly event. Last week, Gregory Taylor was freed in North Carolina after serving 17 years in prison for a murder evidence shows he didn’t commit. He was convicted in 1993 based in part on misleading forensic analysis of a substance found in his truck.
To call on Congress to take action on forensic reforms, and to read weekly forensic news updates, visit the Just Science Coalition website.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
The Many Faces of Forensic Science
Posted: February 25, 2010 5:32 pm
In 1985, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were sentenced to death in Illinois for the murder of a ten-year-old girl. They were convicted based mainly on admissions they allegedly gave to police. Biological evidence didn’t play a role in their trials. The case was far from over, however, and science would play a central role in the years ahead.
Ten years later, DNA testing helped set the two free. Cruz and Hernandez were exonerated when DNA evidence uncovered by the Medill Innocence Project and the Center on Wrongful Convictions implicated another man, since identified as Brian Dugan, in the crime.
In November of last year, Dugan was convicted of the murder and sentenced to die. A column in today’s Daily Herald examines the case’s 27-year history and considers the number of victims it has left in its wake. The case has also left a fascinating trail of forensic science, from DNA to the emerging practice of functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans (fMRI, which examines brain activity.
In considering Dugan’s punishment, jurors heard testimony on his mental condition from psychologists and from a neuroscientist who works with fMRI. As Michael Haederle writes in Miller-McCune magazine this week, neuroscientist Kent Kiehl testified that magnetic scans of Dugan’s brain showed the impact of his mental illness and suggested that he didn’t feel emotion like others, possibly disqualifying him for the death penalty. It may have been the first time fMRI was used in a capital sentencing hearing.
Other supporters of fMRI suggest that someday the technique could be used in court as a sort of lie detector. This case and others have spawned questions about whether fMRI should be admitted in a courtroom before the practice has been vetted by an independent agency.
The history of wrongful convictions in the United States is replete with new forms of science, and further research is needed to validate existing and new forensic techniques. A groundbreaking report from the National Academy of Sciences last year found that no forensic discipline other than DNA analysis has been subjected to the kind of rigorous scientific evaluation needed to develop reliable information. Unvalidated and improper forensic testimony can have a devastating impact on a criminal case, misleading jurors and contributing to injustice.
Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld is speaking about the impact of the NAS report and the need for a federal forensic entity this week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Forensic Scientists’ in Seattle.
Learn more about forensic oversight and call on Congress to create a federal oversight agency.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Nebraska Forensics Chief Convicted of Evidence Tampering
Posted: March 24, 2010 6:04 pm
The verdict sent shock waves through Omaha’s criminal justice community, with Sheriff Tim Dunning calling it a “dark day for the Douglas County Sheriff's Department.” Many today are asking whether other cases investigated under Kofoed’s leadership should reevaluated.
“They need a one-time, top-to-bottom review, and they need to issue a public report of all their findings. They need a national audit of their crime lab. They need outside leadership, and they need to pay whatever it will cost to do all these steps, because their credibility is essential,” said Sam Walker, professor emeritus of criminology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Read more:
The Journal: Kofoed Found Guilty of Evidence Tampering
Omaha World-Herald: Questions Follow ‘Dark Day’
To learn more about the Innocence Project’s recommendations for reforms in forensic science oversight and standards, visit the Just Science Coalition website.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Video: Forensics in Context
Posted: March 26, 2010 4:27 pm
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Federal Judge Questions Forensic Reliability
Posted: March 29, 2010 5:05 pm
More than half the 252 wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing to date involved unvalidated or improper forensic science at trial.
Read more about the National Academy of Sciences report and join the call for federal forensic oversight at the Just Science Coalition website.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Newsweek: Forensics Often Aren't Science
Posted: April 2, 2010 4:31 pm
Tags: Forensic Oversight
More Scientists Join Call for Forensic Reform
Posted: May 3, 2010 5:45 pm
More than half of wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing involved unvalidated or improper forensic science, and many procedures admitted in courtrooms today still have not been subjected to empirical study. The Innocence Project also supports the creation of an independent federal forensic agency to address this issue.
Learn more and take action at JustScience.org.
Photo Credit: Horia Varlan
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Stress and Injustice in Overburdened Crime Labs
Posted: June 22, 2010 2:40 pm
St. Louis has set a recent example of progress in improving evidence preservation practices. Two years ago, the city hired a private firm to audit its disorganized property room and recommend changes. Now, cameras monitor every move, and the video is audited monthly. Significantly, not even the chief of police has all the codes to pass through every layer of security in the vault.
Although the auditors have analyzed and organized more than 60,000 items in the past two years, there are still over 110,000 more items to sort through, plus an additional 25,000 pieces of ballistic evidence dating to as far back as 1949. The department is encouraged by the progress, but needs another $1 million to continue. Officials say police property storage will ultimately be run by civilians rather than police officers.
Find out more about the need for crime lab oversight and the need for proper procedures on our site and at the Just Science Coalition.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Evidence Preservation
Crime Lab Problems Continue to Plague Houston
Posted: June 28, 2010 6:19 pm
Defense attorney Patrick F. McCann wrote in an op-ed this weekend that the problem in Houston’s lab makes clear the need for forensic oversight:
Our leaders should create a regional crime lab, actually run by scientists, perhaps under a university, and not under any elected sheriff or appointed law enforcement officer, that can run actual, neutral and competent forensic testing untainted by pressure and uncorrupted by malfeasance or negligence. The people accused of crimes are owed that much. We as taxpayers are owed that much.
The Innocence Project is a member of the Just Science coalition, which supports federal and state support, research and oversight of forensic disciplines in the United States to ensure public safety and prevent wrongful convictions. Learn more about federal forensic reform efforts here.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics, Fingerprints
Houston Prosecutor Calls for Emergency DNA Lab
Posted: July 19, 2010 6:48 pm
In the meantime, the HPD will hire additional analysts and buy new equipment to update the current DNA lab at the downtown police headquarters. Innocence Project of Texas General Counsel Jeff Blackburn told the Chronicle that the responsibility for forensic testing should be moved to an independent entity:
"At a bare minimum, the whole process of forensic testing — old cases or new cases — has to be removed over to some responsible entity and, given the track record of HPD, they're not the ones to do this," said Jeff Blackburn, general counsel for the Innocence Project of Texas. "They just can't clean this up."
Harris County's Chief Medical examiner Dr. Luis A Sanchez said his department is ready to step in and take over
DNA testing from the HPD.
"Valid science is the cornerstone of the criminal justice system," Sanchez wrote in a statement. "Our commitment to move forward with this essential endeavor rests with the City of Houston. We now await the necessary resources to create and support the regional DNA laboratory."
Read the full story here.
Read more about past problems at the HPD crime lab.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Texas Forensic Science Commission to Convene Friday
Posted: July 21, 2010 2:55 pm
But two years ago, the Commission and Attorney General’s office agreed that cases like Willingham’s that precede 2003 are well within its authority.
And rightly so: The Willingham inquiry into the use of unreliable arson analysis is an urgent matter for more than 600 people incarcerated in Texas whose arson convictions may have been based on invalid science. If its investigation is derailed, the commissioners would be turning their backs on these potentially innocent Texans.
. . .
The people of Texas deserve a justice system they can believe in. But if commissioners keep allowing Bradley to rewrite the rules and sabotage the commission’s mission, their ability to redress the forensic problems that have plagued the criminal justice system in Texas will never materialize.
Read the full op-ed here.
Get more information on Friday's meeting in our press advisory.
Visit our Willingham Resource Page for more informaton on the Willingham case and the Texas Forensic Science Commission.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Cameron Todd Willingham
Report Finds Serious Flaws in NC Crime Labs
Posted: August 17, 2010 3:35 pm
The News & Observer series also found that SBI agents have concealed test results and ignored key evidence of innocence. As a result, defense attorneys in North Carolina often hire their own experts to examine evidence.
Since the series was published, Attorney General Roy Cooper removed the SBI director, hired an outside auditor and suspended all bloodstain pattern analysis work. A state legislator is calling for the creation of an independent crime lab.
"Everybody ought to understand that this is something that needs to be fixed," said State Rep. Mickey Michaux, a Durham Democrat who heads the powerful budget committee.
To date, seven people have been exonerated in North Carolina through post-conviction DNA testing.
Read the four-part series here.
Read the Innocence Project’s recommendations for forensic oversight and independent forensic labs.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Government Misconduct
Science Thursday - A Blood-Based Age Test?
Posted: November 25, 2010 8:25 am
Police in Taos, NM used voice analysis to charge a man for calling in bomb threats to local schools.
Two Texas men were convicted of infecting women with HIV based on a genetic test created by Texas university researchers.
Investigative reporters question the work of the Ramsey and Washington County Chief Medical Examiner, who also contracts with 13 counties in Minnesota, in two possible cases of wrongful conviction.
Radley Balko advocates for bifurcated trials as a solution to prevent more wrongful convictions.
The National Football League is using digital forensics to investigate inappropriate text exchanges by its players.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Science Thursday: Forensics Around the World
Posted: December 2, 2010 5:05 pm
In India, officials are observing 2010 as the "Forensic Year" to revamp and modernize the organizational structure of various forensic laboratories, personnel policies and training needs.
Indian officials are setting up a bulletproof testing facility in the state forensic laboratory to test whether vehicles and protective gear can actually resist gunfire.
New Zealand is demonstrating new technology that reduces the processing time for DNA from 28 days to five.
The ASPCA's forensic veterinarian co-founded a first-of-its-kind veterinary forensic training program at the University of Florida.
The scientific reliability of bloodstain pattern analysis was questioned in a Connecticut murder case.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors is exploring the cost of separating the county's forensic services from law enforcement.
A panel of law enforcement officials, defense attorneys, prosecutors, a judge and a professor convened in NC as part of the state's national search for a new director for the State Bureau of Investigations.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
New York Crime Lab Goes On Probation
Posted: December 8, 2010 5:28 pm
A spokesman for the Nassau County Police Department said the probation does not pose a threat that the lab will be closed down and pointed to staffing issues as the root of many of the issues. But, former president of the Criminal Courts Bar Association of Nassau County Brian Griffin disagreed.
"You very well may see former convictions called into question, and pending cases scrutinized further," he said.
All police crime labs in New York State must be accredited by the ASCLD/LAB as well as the state Commission of Forensic Science.
Read the full article here.
Read more about the importance of forensic oversight to prevent wrongful convictions.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Science Thursdays: Crime Lab Problems, Animal Forensics and a New "Body Farm"
Posted: December 9, 2010 12:04 pm
A crime scene reconstruction expert reviewed evidence in Amanda Knox’s murder conviction in Italy. According to the expert, the crime was the work of a single perpetrator.
New Jersey’s Health and Human Services' Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team includes a forensic odontologist who also consults with the State Police Office of Forensic Sciences.
The Michigan State Legislature approved funding for a $15M Detroit facility to house the Detroit fire and police headquarters and a new crime laboratory.
The Canadian government is considering whether it will switch to a public-private partnership to replace the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s (RCMP) troubled forensic laboratories and services.
Bode Technology Group, a major forensic DNA company, was sold to SolutionPoint International for $30.5 M.
A Pennsylvania man donated land to California University of Pennsylvania's Institute of Criminological and Forensic Sciences for a “body farm”.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Science Thursday: Questions Surround Death Investigations
Posted: February 3, 2011 8:10 pm
Dane County, WI, welcomes its first medical examiner, who hails from New York City, as it replaces its coroner system.
Scottish scientists from Abertay University worked with the Scottish Police to develop a technique to lift fingerprints off fabric. While the research demonstrates that this technique is possible, scientists warn that it is not a silver bullet.
Forensic botany can be used to evaluate an alibi or assist in determining time since death.
A West Virginia forensic chemistry professor received a grant from the National Institute of Justice to study factors that affect interpretation of data by fire debris analysts and the associated error rate.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Is the "CSI Effect" Real?
Posted: June 24, 2011 3:50 pm
One 2006 study, from a judge and two Eastern Michigan University law professors, found that crime-drama viewers had a higher expectation for forensic evidence, but their votes to convict or acquit weren't affected. (Summary here, full study PDF here). Another, from two Arizona State professors in 2007, found that CSI-lovers were more skeptical of questionable forensics and more confident of their verdicts, but their verdicts also weren't significantly different from jurors who didn't watch these shows.
Interestingly, a 2009 Purdue study found that crime-drama viewers vastly overestimate the amount of violent crime in the U.S.
We asked our Facebook community this week whether CSI-style shows have an impact on criminal trials, and we heard thoughtful analysis from many sides of the argument. A few of your Facebook comments:
Dan B.: “People believe that cases are more easily solved, not realizing that the show does not represent the amount of time it takes to actually get something done. They make it look too easy; almost magical.”
Candise W.: “These shows have greatly influenced defendants inability to get a fair trial. Most have no clue about the court system and how it works. I see people right now watching a trial and wanting it to hurry along thinking I suppose it should be over in an hour.”
Tyler A.: I think it creates a sense that law enforcement uses scientific standards for all cases. I think it hinders our ability to have unbiased juries.
These shows don’t seem to be going anywhere, so the debate over the existence of a “CSI Effect” is sure to go on.
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Supreme Court Upholds Right to Cross Examine Lab Technicians
Posted: June 24, 2011 3:54 pm
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Friday Roundup: The Long Road to Prove Innocence
Posted: July 22, 2011 1:45 pm
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Fixing Forensics
Posted: August 3, 2011 5:45 pm
Tags: Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics
Science Thursday
Posted: October 13, 2011 5:32 pm
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Friday Roundup: Compensation, Real Perpetrators and the Death Penalty
Posted: January 20, 2012 1:00 pm
Tags: Ohio, Texas, Washington, New York, Exoneree Compensation, Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics, Life After Exoneration, Death Penalty, Real Perpetrator
Fixing Forensic Oversight, a National Priority
Posted: September 6, 2012 4:35 pm
In a three-part series for the Huffington Post, University of Virginia Law Professor Brandon Garrett tells the story of Donald Gates, the D.C. exoneree whose case led to an FBI crime lab investigation, and explains why federal legislation to improve forensic oversight is so urgently needed.
Donald Gates spent 28 years in prison before DNA testing exonerated him in 2009, despite the fact that prosecutors had known for over a decade that the FBI analyst who testified at Gates’ trial had been discredited and his testimony unfounded. According to research that Garrett conducted for his 2011 book, Convicting the Innocent, Gates is just one of many people whose wrongful conviction was caused at least in part by unvalidated or erroneous forensic science.
Gates was convicted of a rape and murder in 1981 based largely on improper forensic testimony from an FBI analyst who claimed that two stray hairs found on the victim belonged to Gates. He maintained his innocence and first sought DNA testing in 1988 but the results were inconclusive.
Meanwhile, the FBI analyst who had testified with such confidence at Gates' trial himself came under investigation in the late 1990s, after a whistle-blower repeatedly spoke out about shoddy work at the FBI lab. A 1997 review by the Department of Justice found that the analyst in Gates' case and 13 other FBI analysts reached false results and used inaccurate methods in a host of cases. The report found that the FBI analyst in Gates' case had "resorted to fabrication rather than admitting he did not know the answer."
In his research, Garrett has found similar problems with serology analysis, bite mark analysis, fiber comparisons, and other traditional forensics.
I even saw several more recent cases where analysts botched DNA tests. Analysts even concealed evidence of defendant's innocence. Had DNA tests not been done years later, these people might have spent the rest of their lives in prison. Still worse, some forensic analysts mistakenly ruled out people who were later shown by DNA to have been the actual culprits.
In the remaining two parts of the series, to be posted on Thursday and Friday, Garrett will discuss other forensic scandals across the country and make the case for federal forensic science reform.
Read Forensics on the Hill: Part I
Read about Gates’ case.
Read more about forensic oversight.
Tags: Forensic Oversight
Dallas Morning News Stresses Importance of Arson Review
Posted: January 10, 2013 4:50 pm
Tags: Texas, Forensic Oversight, Unvalidated/Improper Forensics, Cameron Todd Willingham