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Massachusetts crime lab crisis is echoed across the U.S.
Posted: July 18, 2007 1:17 pm
A report released this week said Massachusetts has one of the worst crime lab crises in the country, with evidence in more than 16,000 cases remaining untested and lab scandals leading to resignations and firings in recent months. But the state is not alone in facing major hurdles in forensic testing — backlogs and misconduct nationwide have slowed criminal justice investigations and contributed to wrongful convictions.
The Massachusetts report points to untested evidence in cases as far back as the 1980s, in which the statute of limitations for prosecuting crimes may have expired. Officials vowed that change was on the way, as analysts will focus first on evidence in unsolved cases and money will potentially be budgeted to outsource some testing.
A Boston Herald editorial yesterday calls the lab situation “an absolute travesty.”
The report skewers the lab’s handling of this potentially damning (or exculpatory) material. And while the state plans to process the evidence in cases that might still be prosecuted, you can’t unwind the clock. Expiring statutes of limitations mean justice, in many cases, will never be served.More coverage in Massachusetts:
Read the full editorial here. (Boston Herald, 7/17/07)
State officials will review old crimes (Boston Globe, 7/17/07)
Lab backlogs and misconduct continue to plague dozens of states:
Reports this week detailed cases in Maryland and Florida in which crucial evidence in rape trials has gone missing. When labs are overworked and underfunded, human error such as the inadvertent destruction of evidence can become more prevalent.
A Washington Post article on Sunday considered how the popularity of shows like "CSI" have led to increased jury demands for scientific evidence and may have contributed to lab backlogs nationwide.
Lab backlogs in Alabama have impeded justice in cases at trial and officials say they are making a “concerted effort” to remedy the problems.
Labs in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arizona and Wisconsin are all backlogged, according to recent news reports.
Tags: Alabama, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Wisconsin
Innocence Network files Supreme Court brief for right to challenge forensic evidence
Posted: June 24, 2008 12:18 pm
Arguing that the right of defendants to challenge forensic evidence is critical to prevent wrongful convictions, the Innocence Network filed a brief yesterday in a U.S. Supreme Court case to be heard later this year. In the case, Luis Melendez-Diaz is challenging his 2002 drug-related conviction in Massachusetts, arguing that he was denied the right to cross-examine a state analyst who prepared a report on forensic testing in the case. The Supreme Court has ruled that trial evidence is not admissible unless the defendant can cross-examine the witness. The Massachusetts high court said this doesn’t apply to a forensic expert’s lab report.
In its friend-of-the-court brief, the Innocence Network (an association of nonprofit legal clinics and criminal justice resource centers of which the Innocence Project is a founding member) argues that the Massachusetts Court’s position assumes that lab reports are fact and not subject to interpretation, saying this “rests entirely on a myth of infallibility – a myth that finds no basis in the reality of state forensic practices throughout the country.”
Read today’s Innocence Project press release on the case, download the full Amicus brief (PDF), or read more about Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts on the SCOTUS wiki.
Tags: Massachusetts
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
City of Boston Seeks to Remove Judge from Civil Suit
Posted: November 18, 2008 3:25 pm
Ulysses Rodriguez Charles, who was exonerated in 2001 after serving 17 years in Massachusetts prison for a rape he didn’t commit, is facing deportation by U.S. immigration authorities at the same time his wrongful conviction civil suit against the city of Boston is pending.
And now lawyers for the city want U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner to recuse herself from the case, saying that she showed “deep-seated favoritism and antagonism” in comments she made alleging that the city may have worked with immigration officials to deport Charles before his April civil trial.But Charles said last week that Gertner's comments were "extremely intuitive" and that the city is simply "judge shopping."
"I think they want it to be biased, and they see that she's fair," Charles, 58, said from his mother's house in the South End. "They thought they would get a judge who's pro-government because I'm suing the government. But she's extremely familiar with the underhanded tactics of the Boston Police Department."Read the full story here. (Boston Globe, 11/17/08)
Tags: Massachusetts, Ulysses Rodriguez Charles