Report: Illinois crime lab misused funds

Posted: August 29, 2007 5:05 pm

A report by the Illinois inspector general’s office has found that money earmarked to reduce the state’s crime lab backlog was misused by lab officials, according to press reports. The report says that nearly $800,000 in state funds meant to train lab technicians instead went to two private forensic companies headed by the commander of the crime lab. Now a lawsuit brought by two former state forensic trainers also alleges that lab employees were directed to underestimate the size of the state’s backlog.

In a Feb. 6, 2005, press release, Gov. Rod Blagojevich said only 158 cases were awaiting DNA analysis, compared to 1,113 the year before.

The lawsuit cites a different inspector general's report that says the actual number of untested DNA samples should have been about 850 rather than 158, and that state police did not provide the governor with the correct information.

"The DNA backlog numbers articulated by the governor on February 6, 2005, were fabricated," (training coordinator Andrew) Wist stated in an affidavit.

Read the full story here. (Chicago Tribune, 08/28/07)

Lab backlogs continue to slow investigations

Posted: October 5, 2007 1:38 pm

Police departments nationwide are suffering the repercussions of backlogs and slowdowns in crime labs, due to the overwhelming number of samples being submitted for testing, growth in state databases (which requires testing and storing more samples) and the costs of conducting complicated forensic tests. Delays in DNA testing can cause leads in investigations to go cold, can keep innocent people incarcerated longer than necessary and can lead to forensic error.

Officials in Wyoming have begun to outsource DNA tests to private labs, finding the labs can get testing done more quickly. But the backlog hasn’t been erased. Dan Zivkovich, police chief in Jackson, Wyoming, said that the net effect of lab delays “does have an impact. Not only does it affect solving; it also affects what direction you go in eliminating or including suspects.”

Read the full story here. (Casper Tribune, 10/01/07)

Meanwhile, other jurisdictions are experimenting with plans to increase their labs’ capabilities. North Carolina, Colorado and California have all developed crime lab expansion plans that aim to drastically reduce backlogs and expand the nature of DNA testing.

• North Carolina completed construction this month on an expanded crime lab. This expansion effort aims to reduce the severe backlog in North Carolina labs, which included thousands of rape cases. With a larger staff and improved technology, the lab is now able to take every rape case submitted. Read more.

• The Denver police crime lab will undergo a $40 million expansion project to improve its facilities. The lab currently faces severe space shortages and unsafe working conditions, according to an article in The Rocky Mountain News.

• The San Diego County Sherriff’s Department is responding to the ever-increasing demand for DNA testing by creating a new rapid response DNA team. This team, set to begin work in January 2008, will allow San Diego to expand its use of DNA testing from homicides and sexual assaults to other crimes including burglaries and auto theft. Read the article here.

Tags: Crime Lab Backlogs

 

Group calls for investigation of Washington lab

Posted: October 16, 2007 3:04 pm

A criminal defense organization today called on Washington State’s Forensic Investigations Council to review alleged misconduct in the Washington State Patrol’s crime labs. The Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (WACDL) urged the council in a letter today to examine possible problems in lab testing during the tenure of toxicology lab manager Ann Marie Gordon, who resigned in July after the allegations were made public. The group is also questioning the testimony of a ballistics analyst in a number of cases.

Read the full story here. (The Olympian, 10/16/07)

WACDL’s president-elect called for a thorough review of the lab’s work in a statement today:

“We want to ensure that innocent people are not imprisoned, and that people who have committed crimes are brought to justice. Accurate forensic work is essential to the fair administration of the law,” said Bill Bowman, president-elect of the Washington State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (WACDL).

Read the WACDL press release here. (PDF)

Houston convictions reopened due to possible lab error

Posted: October 23, 2007 5:05 pm

Houston prosecutors met with 19 inmates at a Texas state prison Monday to offer them a state-appointed legal representative to review possible lab errors in their case. Between now and Nov. 1, this option will be presented to 180 defendants whose convictions involved questionable serology testing at the Houston Police Department Crime Lab.

Prosecutor Marie Munier said the review might find that the serology lab work played very little in the conviction of an inmate.

“The question is do we have anyone in there that faulty serology work played a part or has someone that is innocent in prison. That’s the issue I’m concerned with,” she said.

Read the full story here. (KHOU, 10/22/07)

Dispatch from Austin: A panel of experts to oversee Texas crime labs

Posted: October 29, 2007 2:45 pm

By Gabriel S. Oberfield, Innocence Project Research Analyst

I’m writing from Austin, Texas, where today I’m attending a meeting of the Texas Forensic Science Commission. Today’s meeting is an important milestone for forensic science because the commission, created in 2005 to investigate allegations of serious negligence and misconduct affecting the integrity of forensic results, finally received funding this year to complete its duties. During the 2007 session, the Texas legislature budgeted for the commission’s operation and for full-time staff. This is an extremely positive development, and it is  exciting to see a newly energized commission in action.

This panel was created out of necessity. The federal government offers crucial funding to forensic laboratories, but only when jurisdictions can show they have a process in place to independently investigate allegations of serious forensic negligence or misconduct. Texas receives these funds – part of the Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grant Program – and as a result of Congress’s insistence on the existence of such a quality assurance process, Texas also now has an oversight mechanism in place.  

Texas deserves credit for creating this panel, which provides an extremely important additional check on the quality of forensic evidence. We anticipate that the commission, now functional, will help ensure that serious forensic negligence or misconduct is properly investigated; problems are addressed; and that where the errors may have tainted yet other cases, those cases are reviewed.  Doing so can not only right past wrongs, but can help ensure the integrity of forensic evidence in future cases – and restore Texas jurors’ ability to have faith in such evidence.  In the wake of significant forensic negligence or misconduct in any state, such assurances are critical to the performance of our justice system.

As posts on this blog over the last few weeks have shown, Texas is a state with a history of problematic forensics. Ronnie Taylor’s release in Houston earlier this month showed that those problems haven’t all been resolved, and that lab errors can send innocent people to prison. The Innocence Project has filed two requests with the Texas Forensic Science Commission (to investigate the cases of Brandon Lee Moon and Cameron Todd Willingham), and we’re hopeful that these investigations are undertaken by the newly funded panel. By tracing back wrongful convictions and determining why they happened in the first place, we can help prevent future injustice.

While federal law does not require creation of permanent commissions, Texas’s creation of an independent state body to oversee the quality of forensics represents a real commitment to the future of forensic analyses in that state, and is part of what seems to be a national trend. While the demand for forensic technologies continues to grow, state and local lab technicians are forced to juggle substantial caseloads and struggle for the funding, equipment and staffing they deserve. Some national organizations accredit and regularly inspect state and local forensic labs, but many states recognize that forensic labs can only provide the high quality work expected of them when they have an expert, independent entity ensuring the quality of work – and identifying the support they need to provide that quality, which is so critical to justice.

Just this year, Minnesota created a Forensic Laboratory Advisory Board “to ensure the quality and integrity” of the state’s labs and Missouri created a similar Crime Laboratory Review Commission. Maryland legislators empowered the state’s office of Health and Mental Hygiene to oversee that state’s forensic labs, bringing the same rigor with which that department manages the state’s clinical laboratories to its forensic labs as well.

For a host of reasons, we’re encouraged by the movement to ensure that forensic labs – a cornerstone of the criminal justice system – are provided the support and direction necessary to provide the quality forensic results that the system demands of them.  The Innocence Project knows well that by ensuring quality forensics, states can prevent future wrongful convictions from ever occurring.

Tags: Dispatches

 

California lab report finds no error, Neufeld calls findings “hopelessly compromised”

Posted: November 2, 2007 3:28 pm

Officials announced this week that an internal investigation of alleged errors at the Santa Clara County, California, crime lab has cleared a lab technician of wrongdoing. The district attorney’s internal report was sparked by the Northern California Innocence Project’s allegation that a lab analyst had testified falsely about chemical analysis in the case of Jeffrey Rodriguez, who spent five years in prison for a robbery he says he didn’t commit. Rodriguez was freed last year amid significant evidence of his innocence.

In an article in today’s San Jose Mercury News, Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld calls the district attorney’s report “hopelessly compromised,” because it was not an independent review by an outside agency. A federal program provides funding for forensic labs if they can show that they have a process in place to independently investigate allegations of serious negligence or misconduct. The Innocence Project has said that an internal investigation does not meet this standard.

The internal report, conducted by district attorney investigator Gil Vizzusi, appears to minimize Moriyama's errors - suggesting they were simply imprecise testimony - and states that Rodriguez's innocence "has not been established."

The attorney who succeeded in overturning Rodriguez's conviction, Irma Castillo, called the report "really troubling to me." …

(Innocence Project Co-Director) Peter Neufeld contended that Carr's office had a vested interest in upholding the science of the lab because (lab analyst Mark) Moriyama's examinations were used in scores of Santa Clara County cases.

Read the full story here. (San Jose Mercury News, 11/02/07)

More background:

The Santa Clara County Bar Association is hosting a special meeting today with local prosecutors and defense attorneys on the topic of forensic testing.

Innocence Project Research Analyst Gabriel S. Oberfield wrote an Innocence Blog post last week on crime lab oversight commissions and investigations.

Read more about crime lab oversight in our Fix the System section.

Editorial: Questions remain at California crime lab

Posted: November 9, 2007 12:19 pm

An editorial in today’s San Jose Mercury News calls for labs in the state to follow the intent of a federal law that requires independent investigations of allegations of forensic wrongdoing. A recent internal investigation at the Santa Clara County lab was “an inherent conflict,” the editorial says. Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld has called the lab’s internal investigation “hopelessly compromised.”

In a case involving the imprisonment of a man falsely convicted of armed robbery, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office took the convenient path by ordering its own investigators to review allegations of errors by the county crime lab. In turning the matter over to her own Bureau of Investigations, District Attorney Dolores Carr apparently met the letter of federal law. But her decision certainly ran counter to common-sense reading of Congress' intent and the spirit of the law. The county crime lab reports to Carr, and prosecutors and crime lab examiners work closely together, so there was an inherent conflict.

Read the full editorial here.

Problems persist at Houston crime lab

Posted: November 16, 2007 2:46 pm

Despite completion of a major audit this summer at the troubled Houston Police Department crime lab, along with the October release of Innocence Project client Ronnie Taylor and the ongoing review of past convictions based on questionable forensic tests, news reports yesterday allege that forensic misconduct continues at the lab.

"I see this slide back toward silence,” is what an analyst, who is on the job in the lab now, had to say. "Abuse of power, people being threatened, people afraid to stand up. Watching the morale dip to levels lower than ever before. Even before the last time."

"The fact that there are so many of these problems raises real concerns about the reliability of the evidence coming out of the crime lab once again,” said Dr. Bill Thompson, a nationally renowned DNA expert.

His work was pivotal five years ago in exposing the evidence of errors at the crime lab.

He says the huge increase in problems -- seven of the issues in a six-week period and four in seven days back in August -- is trouble.

“You would want to shut down the lab and review the procedures,” Thompson said. “That is a pretty bad week.”

Read the full story and watch video here. (KHOU, Houston, 11/14/2007)

North Carolina man is denied a new trial

Posted: February 11, 2008 11:11 am

Lee Wayne Hunt, who is serving two life sentences in North Carolina for a 1984 double murder he says he didn’t commit, was denied a new trial last week by the North Carolina Supreme Court.

Hunt’s case is at the center of an investigation in recent months into cases in which faulty bullet lead analysis by the FBI crime lab could have led to wrongful convictions. The Innocence Network is helping to ensure that cases of possible wrongful convictions are properly reviewed, after a CBS News / Washington Post investigation revealed that three decades of tests conducted by the FBI were based on flawed science.

Hunt has always maintained his innocence.His attorneys have said they have two new pieces of evidence to help exonerate Hunt, including the credibility of an FBI analysis that matched bullets found at the crime scene to those in a box Hunt owned. Last year, "60 Minutes" reported that scientists now believe that kind of analysis is misleading and should not be considered at trial.

It was the only physical evidence connecting Hunt to the deaths.

Read the full story and watch video with Hunt here. (WRAL, 02/08/08)

Two Mississippi men are cleared after 15 years

Posted: February 15, 2008 3:20 pm

At hearings this morning in a packed Mississippi courthouse, two Innocence Project clients convicted of separate child murders in the same small Mississippi town were cleared based on new evidence proving their innocence. This day comes after nearly 15 years behind bars for Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, who were joined in court this morning by more than 100 of their relatives.

Brewer, who served much of his time on death row, was fully exonerated today after all pending charges against him were dropped. He is the first person exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing in Mississippi and the 213th nationwide.

Brooks was released this morning after his conviction was vacated, and he will be fully exonerated when charges against him are dismissed, which we expect in the next few weeks.

Read today’s press release for more on these landmark cases.

Due to the gaps in forensic oversight revealed by these two cases, the Innocence Project has called for a top-to-bottom review of forensics in Mississippi. We have also called for an examination of the role of Steven Hayne, the widely discredited medical examiner who performed the autopsies in these two cases. Read the Innocence Project’s letter seeking the appointment of a State Medical Examiner.

Media coverage of Hayne’s role in the convictions of Brewer and Brooks:

Clarion-Ledger: Innocence Project letter blasts Steven Hayne's work

Reason Magazine Blog: President of Mississippi State Medical Association Denounces Dr. Hayne

Media Coverage of today’s releases:

Commerical Dispatch: Brewer goes free on 1992 child murder, rape charges

Clarion-Ledger: Brewer cleared of charges in child slaying

Jackson Free Press: Free at last

Hattiesburg American: DA’s having trouble keeping up with DNA

More Mississippi news:

Meanwhile, Mississippi legislators are considering a bill that would create a statewide task force on the handling of DNA evidence. A State Senate committee passed the bill earlier this week, citing Brwer and Brooks’ cases. Read more about that issue here. (Clarion-Ledger, 02/13/08)

Tags: Kennedy Brewer

 

Scandal and increasing burden slow progress at crime labs across U.S.

Posted: February 21, 2008 2:45 pm

The director of the Washington State Crime Lab resigned last week after months of allegations of misconduct in the lab have cast a shadow on forensic analysis in thousands of cases. Problems were uncovered in Washington’s labs began last summer, when a whistleblower reported that quality checks on blood-alcohol tests had been fabricated. Reports have alleged that more corners were cut on the tests, rendering thousands of results unreliable.  The director’s resignation does not address systemic problems at the lab.

Regardless of how many cases were affected, the public's trust in the work performed by the lab has been eroded, said Kevin Curtis, president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"I think a change in leadership, at a minimum, is necessary as the first step to regaining and restoring that," he said.

Batiste said that is ultimately the goal.

"We're after complete credibility," Batiste said in an interview. "We are obviously pursuing the confidence of the judiciary as well as the citizens."

Read the full story here. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 02/14/2008) 

Read a Seattle Post-Intelligencer special report on problems at the Washington Crime Lab. 

The Innocence Project has proposed improvements in crime lab oversight and funding across the country to prevent mistakes and misconduct from occurring. Other labs across the country have suffered slowdowns and budget shortfalls as the demand for forensic testing has grown.

• Less than half of DNA testing in Idaho last year was completed on time
• The staff at Michigan’s state lab has grown by 1% since 2000 while testing requests have tripled

Learn more about the Innocence Project’s proposals for crime lab oversight reforms.

Tags: Idaho, Michigan, Washington

 

Analysts said Houston lab was "clearly out of control" before closing last month

Posted: February 22, 2008 4:45 pm

A new report on the Houston Police Department Crime Lab reveals testing errors and lost evidence at the long-troubled lab in the months leading up to the DNA lab’s closure in January. This new controversy comes after the Houston lab had apparently recovered from years of scandal. The lab’s DNA section was first closed in 2002, when evidence of misconduct and negligence was first revealed. A two-year independent audit of the lab found hundreds of cases with testing problems, raising questions for defendants who were convicted based on test results from the lab. Three wrongful convictions based on faulty test results have been overturned by DNA testing in recent years, and several more cases are currently in testing.

The DNA lab was closed in January after an investigation revealed that the DNA director had helped employees cheat on routine proficiency tests. The report released today uncovers additional allegations of misconduct. 

Contaminated samples and questionable procedures were among problems Vanessa Nelson relayed in September to investigators probing allegations of policy violations by the DNA division leader, which led to her resignation last month.
Nelson's comments were part of a 73-page investigative police report obtained by the Houston Chronicle for a story in its Friday editions. The internal probe was the latest problem for the crime lab, where issues over accuracy and shoddy work has cast doubt on thousands of cases.

"Analyst morale is at an all-time low, and I question whether or not the section should suspend testing until the entire issue is resolved," Nelson told investigators Sept. 8.

Read the full story here. (Houston Chronicle, 02/22/2008) 

 

Read more about problems at the Houston crime lab and the Innocence Project’s recommendations for crime lab oversight nationwide.

 

New Ohio coalition calls for criminal justice reform

Posted: February 25, 2008 3:42 pm

A report delivered to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland last week by leaders from across the state’s criminal justice system calls for lawmakers to address wrongful convictions with a package of reforms proven to prevent injustice. The report, delivered by the state’s head public defender, a former attorney general and the director of the Ohio Innocence Project, suggests statewide standards for evidence preservation, eyewitness identification procedures, recording of interrogations and crime lab oversight.

"We need to establish additional safeguards to make sure this stuff doesn't happen here," said former Attorney General Jim Petro, a Republican who while in office pushed for DNA testing that freed a man wrongfully convicted of rape and murder.

Ohio Public Defender Tim Young agreed. "Make a list of the worst things that can happen in life, and being locked in prison for a crime you didn't do is near the top of that list. We have a fundamental responsibility, especially with DNA evidence, to make sure justice was done."

Read the full article, and view maps of other reforms passed around the country to address and prevent wrongful convictions. (Columbus Dispatch, 02/24/2008)

Tags: Ohio, Innocence Commissions, False Confessions, Eyewitness Identification, Evidence Preservation, Access to DNA Testing

 

Allegations continue to grow against Mississippi pathologist

Posted: February 25, 2008 3:49 pm

In the wake of the Feb. 15 hearings that cleared two Innocence Project clients after a combined three decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, more allegations of misconduct have been raised against medical examiner Steven Hayne and forensic dentist Michael West. An attorney for a New York woman charged with manslaughter in the death of her daughter has asked for a state review of Hayne’s finding that the victim was suffocated. But since Mississippi has lacked a state medical examiner since the mid-1990s, there is not an official avenue to review Hayne’s findings. The Innocence Project sent a letter Feb. 14 to the commissioner of the Mississippi Dept. of Public Safety, asking him to appoint a State Medical Examiner immediately.

Read today’s article here. (Jackson Clarion-Ledger, 02/25/08)

And Reason Magazine Senior Editor Radley Balko has continued to report the results of his extensive investigations into Hayne’s conduct. Balko’s post Thursday on the Reason Magazine blog examined a Louisiana murder case in which Hayne and West testified regarding bite marks and sexual assault, leading Jimmie Christian Duncan to be sentenced to death. Duncan’s lawyers at the Louisiana Capital Post-Conviction Project have said there is evidence pointing to Duncan’s innocence and more misconduct by Hayne and West.

Read more here. (Reason, 02/21/2008)

Read Balko's post today on the "The Bite-Marks Men: Mississippi's criminal forensics disaster"

Watch television news coverage of Hayne’s controversial autopsies. (WLBT, Jackson, MS)

Tags: Bitemark Evidence

 

How much is Steven Hayne using state labs for his botched autopsies?

Posted: March 5, 2008 1:46 pm

The Innocence Project today sent formal requests to nearly two dozen Mississippi officials, requesting documents that will show how much Medical Examiner Steven Hayne has been using state labs for autopsies that are clearly erroneous.

Hayne’s forensic misconduct has come to light in recent weeks, following court hearings last month where two Innocence Project clients – Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks – were cleared after serving 15 years for murders they didn’t commit. Hayne’s faulty work contributed to both men’s convictions.

Read today’s Innocence Project press release on the new developments, and download the full content of the letter.

Learn more about the cases of Brewer and Brooks here.

Also today, a column in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal calls on Mississippi officials to reform forensic and legal practices to ensure that the innocent aren’t convicted of crimes they didn’t commit.

Aside from ending the personal injustices endured by Arthur Johnson, Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, The Innocence Project is also showing the state how it can do better.

For instance, the Legislature could add Mississippi to the 42 states that already provide post-conviction DNA testing where there's a claim of innocence.

Mississippi could modernize the Crime Lab, which is seeking a total of $9 million this year out of the state's nearly $6 billion general fund budget.

Mississippi could hire a medical examiner, who would be the first since the last one left in 1995.

Mississippi could expedite post-conviction hearings when new or additional evidence tends to show a jury has been misled, even if the evidence against a person was offered in good faith.

Read the full column here. (Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 03/05/08)

 
Read Radley Balko’s post on the Reason Magazine blog about today’s Innocence Project document requests.

 

Tags: Mississippi, Kennedy Brewer

 

U.S. Supreme Court will hear case on crime lab evidence

Posted: March 18, 2008 12:00 pm

DNA exonerations and other cases have questioned the reliability of evidence from crime labs across the country in recent years, and now a case regarding lab evidence has reached the nation’s highest court. The U.S. Supreme Court said yesterday it would hear a case this fall regarding whether a crime lab report can be entered as trial evidence without the testimony of a lab expert.

State and federal courts have come to different conclusions about whether recent Supreme Court decisions affirming the constitutional right of a defendant to confront his accusers extend to lab reports that are used in many drug and other cases.

The case the justices accepted, and will consider in the fall, comes from Massachusetts. Luis Melendez-Diaz was convicted of trafficking in cocaine partly on the basis of a crime lab analysis that confirmed that cocaine was in plastic bags found in the car in which Melendez-Diaz was riding.

Read the full story here. (Associated Press, 03/18/08)

The Innocence Project has long advocated for improved reliability from state crime labs. Learn about Innocence Project proposals for reforms to ensure proper crime lab oversight here.

 

"A cloud of doubt" over Washington crime labs

Posted: April 23, 2008 3:50 pm

Several reports in recent months have called the work of Washington state crime labs into question, and an independent panel says in a new review of the labs that false test results cast a “cloud of doubt” on forensic analysis in the state’s labs.

The Washington Forensic Investigations Council issued six recommendations for cleaning up state crime labs after a rash of scandals – involving bullet tests, blood-alcohol tests and other analyses – surfaced in the last year. Among the council’s recommendations were increases in staffing and oversight at the state’s eight labs.

Doubts about the accuracy of the lab's breath-test results surfaced last summer, when toxicology lab manager Ann Marie Gordon was accused of signing off on scientific tests in cases she hadn't actually done.

Another employee, Evan Thompson, made technical errors and violated lab procedures when analyzing a bullet's trajectory.

Both have since resigned.

Read the full story here. (The Olympian, 04/23/08)

Last fall, the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers urged the council to examine problems at the lab. Read more here.

Read about the Innocence Project’s work to improve crime lab oversight.

 

Innocence news from around the country

Posted: May 23, 2008 3:45 pm

Our Friday roundup of news and views that didn’t make into the blog this week.

Another editorial in favor of a Texas innocence commission, from the Lufkin News

Nature magazine examines the issue of eyewitness identification

Alternet asks: Walter Swift is finally released. But is he really free?

The Road to Abolition: A new book on how New Jersey Abolished the Death Penalty by Sen. Raymond J. Lesniak

Judge to allow dead witness's testimony in Texas case

Massachusetts Governor says state crime lab is improving

 

The 'CSI effect' on both sides of the courtroom

Posted: June 20, 2008 3:28 pm

The increased reliance on forensic science in courtrooms over the last decades has been a positive development in many ways. DNA testing has freed 218 innocent people, prevented countless wrongful convictions and helped apprehend the actual perpetrators in thousands of cases that may have not been solved otherwise. DNA evidence has also revealed vulnerabilities of traditional investigation techniques, like eyewitness identification procedures and admissions of guilt. The hard science of DNA testing has also led the way in creating momentum to standardize forensic science, finally banishing misleading and unreliable practices from the courtroom and bringing more reliability to criminal trials.

But improved forensic science has also caused a dilemma for prosecutors, defense attorneys and defendants. Prosecutors complain about a ‘CSI effect,’ resulting from the popular – and seemingly omnipresent – television crime dramas. In the TV show, lab technicians identify a suspect through analysis that isn’t – or shouldn’t be – possible in the real world. They match bullets to guns to gun owners, they track footprints and fingerprints in unlikely places, they match fibers from the crime scene to a car or piece of clothing. These unreliable methods usually aren’t available, and when they are they’ve led to wrongful convictions. Prosecutors are right to tell a jury that there’s no forensic evidence rather than stretching to make a connection that isn’t there (as the scientists in CSI might). But then they say juries are skeptical of a case without fancy forensics.

"The 'CSI' effect is a real phenomenon in the courtroom," Anchorage District Attorney Adrienne Bachman told the Anchorage Daily News this week . "(A jury's) expectations might be too high in a given case -- that's certainly a possibility -- but that's something that prosecutors have to face head-on. We can't ignore it or avoid it."

On the other side of the courtroom, defense attorneys find it hard to challenge scientific evidence when prosecutors take pseudo-scientific findings too far. If a prosecutor claims that scientific methods have “matched” a fiber to a suspect’s sweater, jurors tend to believe it, because they’ve seen it on TV.

"Juries are so impressed with scientific evidence," said Rex Butler, a prominent Anchorage defense attorney. "And, of course, scientific evidence is so much harder to challenge than the statements of witnesses and things of that nature."

Read the full Anchorage Daily News article here. (06/15/08)

A major facet of the Innocence Project’s mission is to apply the lessons of DNA exonerations to bring about reform in the criminal justice system. One reform we’re actively seeking is to standardize the forensic science in American courtrooms. Many forensic practices, such as bite mark analysis and fiber comparison, operate outside of any set of regulations. The Innocence Project is working  – often in conjunction with mainstream forensic science leaders and law enforcement – to bring about strong oversight standards in this critical area.

The weekly roundup

Posted: July 3, 2008 8:30 am

Here are some of the stories we were following this week, but just didn’t get around to blogging about.

The Innocence Project filed for DNA testing in the case of client Robert Conway, who has served nearly two decades in Pennsylvania prison for a murder he says he didn’t commit.

New evidence surfaced in Texas, suggesting that Lester Leroy Bower is on death row for a crime he didn’t commit, but he hasn’t been able to get DNA testing approved in the case. He is scheduled to be executed this summer, and the blog Grits for Breakfast asked how prosecutors “could even consider opposing DNA testing of old evidence before they put a defendant to death this summer who's claiming actual innocence.”

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice issued a report calling the state’s administration of the death penalty "dysfunctional" and "close to collapse." Read media coverage here and download the full report here.

Funding was approved for a new state crime lab in Missouri, an upstate New York county planned a new $30 million crime lab, and Massachusetts children got a hands-on experience with forensics when a state lab investigator visited a local library.

Tags: Innocence Commissions, Death Penalty

 

Op-eds: Fairness in forensics

Posted: August 14, 2008 5:40 pm

In an article Slate.com this week, forensic expert Roger Koppl and Reason Magazine editor Radley Balko lay out a list of reforms needed to improve the fairness of forensic science in American courtrooms.

And an op-ed in the Olympia, WA Olympian by Koppl and forensic expert Dan Krane argues that defendants should have the right  – and funding – to hire their own forensic experts to analyze evidence used in their trials.

In today's "CSI" world, forensic scientists, like the television character Gil Grissom, may have overtaken lawyers as the most influential players in courtroom dramas. The evidence they analyze and present as part of the prosecution team is often the deciding factor in whether a defendant is found guilty or innocent.

But research indicates that forensic evidence is often flawed. So, in fairness, defendants should have a right to forensic expertise, just as they have a right to an attorney.… The right to forensic expertise also would create the kind of checks and balances that will improve forensics. Here is how: In most criminal cases one side or the other will want the forensic evidence reviewed. That side will have an incentive to document forensic science's shortcomings and bring them to the attention of the court whenever it is strategically appropriate. Slowly, case by case, the system will improve.

Read the full op-ed here. (Olympian, 08/12/08)

Read more about forensic oversight here.

Friday roundup – crime labs in the news

Posted: August 29, 2008 3:26 pm

Plenty of forensic issues are making news around the country this week.

•  The longtime director of the Baltimore crime lab was fired this week after officials learned that crime scene evidence had been contaminated with the DNA profiles of lab analysts. Defense attorneys and forensic experts said this news could call thousands of cases that had been tested in the lab into question.

•  Prosecutors and Sheriffs in South Georgia said the proposed closure of two crime labs would hurt both crime victims and defendants. Meanwhile, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is eliminating its staff forensic anthropologist.

•  Officials planned to destroy piles of evidence from a Texas courthouse in September unless defense attorneys or prosecutors claimed the evidence and stored it themselves.

•  Arizona lawmakers expressed concern this week that a proposal to require police departments to pay lab costs would strain law enforcement budgets and underfund the labs.

•  Indianapolis lab analysts are experimenting with DNA collection from guns.

•  A California state crime lab was criticized for losing evidence in a murder case.

Tags: Crime Lab Backlogs

 

Friday roundup

Posted: September 5, 2008 3:07 pm

New projects and investigations launched this week by innocence organizations, law schools, prosecutors and attorneys general across the country show the momentum nationwide to overturn wrongful convictions and address the root causes of wrongful conviction to prevent future injustice. Here’s this week’s roundup:

Questions were raised about standards of DNA collection and preservation in Massachusetts after improper procedures were revealed in a high-profile case. Mass. is one of 25 states without a DNA preservation law.

The Mississippi Attorney General said this week that the state is underfunding DNA tests and DNA collection and a new task force is examining the state problem.

San Jose opened California’s largest crime lab, training began in Maryland before a new law expanding the state’s database took effect and cutbacks in Georgia led to furloughs for prosecutors and could cause lab closings.

The Midwest Innocence Project this week launched an investigation into a 1988 fire that killed six Kansas City firemen and led to the conviction of five people who say they’re innocent. The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, a first-of-its-kind panel dedicated to investigating cases of possible wrongful conviction, finished reviewing its first case, deciding that there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn the conviction of Henry A. Reeves. And  Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins asked county officials to allow filming in his offices in coming months for a Discovery Channel documentary.

Some of the best policy analysis and research to help improve our criminal justice system comes, of course, from our nation’s law schools – and now many of those schools have blogs. Marquette University Law School launched a new faculty law blog, and a post by Keith Sharfman finds that “blogging’s potential as a medium for serious legal discourse can no longer be doubted.” 

A column on Law.com asks: “Is the future of legal scholarship in the blogosphere?”

Here at the Innocence Project, we read law school blogs everyday. Among our favorites are Crim Prof Blog and Evidence Prof Blog

New York University Law School has formed a new Center on the Administration of Criminal Law, which will seek to promote “good government practices in criminal matters.”

Tags: California, North Carolina, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Texas, Innocence Commissions, Evidence Preservation, Access to DNA Testing, DNA Databases

 

From gold standard to fool's gold?

Posted: September 9, 2008 1:55 pm

As DNA is used in more criminal cases and crime lab budgets are stretched thin, will DNA testing become a less-reliable form of evidence?

A defense attorney told the Washington Post this week that he’s worried false matches and plea bargains will increase in the next era of DNA testing, raising the possibility of wrongful conviction.

Laura Chase, a deputy state's attorney (in Maryland), said defense lawyers have feared challenging DNA evidence before a jury. As DNA evidence moves to less-violent crimes, she said, "I think it will encourage pleas. It always has encouraged pleas, and that will make the system more efficient."

Defense lawyers, the article says, fear that innocent defendants will be persuaded to plead guilty when confronted with DNA evidence – even if that evidence doesn’t necessarily connect the defendant to the crime scene. And as law enforcement agencies call for DNA testing in more minor cases – like burglaries and robberies – crime lab budgets could be stretched too far, increasing the possibility of mistakes.

"It runs the risk of turning the gold standard of evidence into fool's gold," said Stephen Mercer, a Montgomery lawyer.

Read the full article here. (Washington Post, 09/08/08)

The Innocence Project supports the establishment of  state forensic oversight commissions and advisory boards to ensure that crime labs are properly managed and funded. When analysts are overburdened, underpaid or poorly trained, the risk of forensic error – and wrongful conviction – are increased.

Read more about forensic oversight here.

 

Sunday on “60 Minutes”: faulty forensics in FBI lab

Posted: September 11, 2008 3:55 pm

For more than four decades, experts from the FBI crime lab testified in court to a form of bullet analysis that has now been shown to be completely unreliable. They testified in thousands of cases, and sometimes provided the only evidence linking a defendant to a crime. A report scheduled to air Sunday on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” will provide an update on this issue, which was revealed in a joint investigation by the Washington Post and “60 Minutes” in late 2007.

Watch the full “60 Minutes” segment online here.

The FBI announced in 2007 that its lab had suspended bullet lead analysis testing, which was previously used to match bullets to a specific manufacturer and even to a specific batch of bullets. The FBI said these tests were unreliable, and took steps to begin identifying possible wrongful convictions caused by faulty bullet lead analysis. The Innocence Network and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers joined together to form a task force to ensure that the FBI’s review of possible wrongful convictions was properly conducted.

Read a press release from the Innocence Network and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Learn more about forensic oversight measures recommended by the Innocence Project to prevent wrongful convictions caused by faulty science.

Friday links: the week behind and the weekend ahead

Posted: September 12, 2008 10:45 am

Crime labs and forensic science continued to make news this week.

The Baltimore Sun ran a comprehensive story on the reliability of forensic science and the process of accreditation and oversight across the country.

The Innocence Project and the Mississippi Innocence Project are reviewing hundreds of cases for potential forensic fraud and wrongful conviction, and the Jackson Clarion-Ledger profiled two death row cases in Forrest County involving testimony by discredited medical examiner Steven Hayne and forensic dentist Michael West.


CBS News’ “60 Minutes” Sunday night will provide an update on an investigation it aired in late 2007 about nearly four decades of faulty ballistic testimony by FBI analysts. Watch the full “60 Minutes” segment here.

A letter to the editor from a candidate for Attorney General of Vermont responded to an editorial in the paper that criticized a bill in the state that would impose mandatory minimums on convicted sex offenders without improving crime lab funding and standards.

And Chicago officials are seeking to begin collecting DNA profiles from police officers to eliminate them when testing samples they may have touched, but the police union is opposing the measure.

Report reveals forensic flaws in LA labs

Posted: October 22, 2008 4:10 pm

Reports over the last week have revealed problems with DNA testing and fingerprinting in the Los Angeles Police Department crime lab. An investigation into the department’s fingerprint unit has revealed that faulty analysis led to the arrests of at least two innocent people, and the extent of the problems is still unclear. Another audit found a backlog of 7,000 untested rape kits in the lab.  LA Times columnist Tim Rutten wrote that the city has compromised its justice system by failing to fund badly needed forensic improvements:

Public safety begins with justice, and the LAPD's continuing inability to guarantee the integrity of its scientific evidence fundamentally undermines the criminal justice system. That's clear, but the problem won't be resolved until the department makes correcting this failure a high priority and the council realizes that, in the 21st century, it's just as important to put white coats in the crime labs as it is to put blue shirts on the street.

Read the full column here. (LA Times, 10/18/08)

Tags: California, Crime Lab Backlogs

 

California DA could get partial control of crime lab

Posted: October 23, 2008 4:25 pm

According to documents obtained by the Orange County Register, a DNA task force in Orange County, California, is recommending that a panel including the District Attorney would take control of managing the county forensic labs. This is the latest news in a dispute over control of the lab between the sheriff and the district attorney. The current crime lab director has said that the prosecutor would have a conflict of interest in managing the lab and pointed to reports that county prosecutors asked the lab to change test results in the James Ochoa case.

Innocence Project Policy Director Stephen Saloom said prosecutors should not oversee forensic labs.

"Just like we wouldn't want a defense attorney to call the shots in a lab, we wouldn't want a prosecutor," Saloom said. "The prosecution's presence on the oversight board, combined with the inherently political nature of crime policy, could create some pressure that may result in politics taking precedence over science."

Read the full article here. (OC Register, 10/21/08)

Detroit Prosecutor Calls Crime Lab Findings 'Appalling'

Posted: October 30, 2008 4:03 pm

After an audit last month found a 10% error rate on gun testing in the Detroit Police Department crime lab, city officials shut down the entire lab so problems could be investigated. With the lab still closed, the Detroit City Council held hearings on the lab yesterday. County Prosecutor Kym Worthy told council members that she was not happy with the lab’s performance.

"I cannot have anybody convicted based on this kind of evidence that's inaccurate," said Worthy, who received the report Wednesday. "An error rate of zero is the only acceptable rate."

Council members called for an independent audit of the entire lab and five years of cases, a review that Worthy said would cost $800,000. And a Detroit police commander said the problems found in the ballistics section were “indicative of a systemic problem.”

Read the full story here. (Detroit Free Press, 10/30/08)

A Forensic Case Ignites the Blawgosphere

Posted: November 12, 2008 5:05 pm

Bloggers around the world are focused on forensics this week, after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument Monday in the case of Melendez-Diaz vs. Massachusetts. The case turns on whether criminal defendants have a Constitutional right to cross-examine lab analysts that conducted forensic testing in their case.

During oral arguments on Monday, Justice Stephen Breyer cited the friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Innocence Network, which argued that denying defendants the chance to challenge forensic evidence against them raised the chance of a wrongful conviction. Read more case details, and download the Innocence Network brief, here.
 
Here’s a sample of what bloggers are saying:

Lyle Denniston writes at the SCOTUS Blog that this case, like so many others, could swing on the vote of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy:

The case, at its core, is simple: is a crime lab report a form of testimony, so that the prosecution may not use it at trial to buttress its case unless the technician or chemist who prepared it is at the trial to defend the test results under cross-examination?

Kennedy initially saw a potential problem if the Court were to answer yes to that question.  He foresaw ”a very substantial burden” on the prosecution and on the courts, and told counsel advocating for confrontation that he was significantly underestimating the impact.  But, as the hearing moved along, Kennedy saw as “a very important point” that California has not experienced such a burden and “gets along all right” with summoning lab analysts to the stand with some frequency. He faulted the two lawyers arguing against confrontation for lacking a rationale that would keep the prosecution’s use of unexamined lab reports in check.

The 6th Amendment protects the right of criminal defendants to confront their accusers. It's obvious that an eyewitness who will testify he saw you commit the crime is an accuser as is the police officer who found the baggie of white powder in your coat pocket. But what about the lab tech who tested that white powder and decided it was cocaine? Well, isn't the person who says the stuff you had is illegal just as much of an accuser as the person who says you had it? Like I said, it seems pretty obvious to me.

Justice Scalia was the most ardent champion of requiring confrontation, reports Denniston, while the main concerns were pragmatic: Would the requirement overburden crime labs that in most cases (as in Texas) already experience significant backlogs? Even so, Scalia agreed with the argument put forward by Melendez-Diaz's attorney, as quoted in USA Today:

"Introducing forensic laboratory reports (without live witnesses) is the modern equivalent of trial by affidavit," said Stanford University law professor Jeffrey Fisher, representing Luis Melendez-Diaz