Junk Science

Texas. A state police crime lab scientist whose shoddy work may have tainted thousands of drug cases had been promoted despite a history of problems doing accurate and timely work, according a review by the Texas Forensic Science Commission. A little over 1/3 of his test results were wrong -- or plain faked -- but he still got raises.

Washington. Kevin Fortney, the manager of the state crime lab in Cheney, WA resigned after authorities determined he lied about performing work in several cases, the Washington State Patrol announced. His cheating shouldn't have been a surprise. In 2000, he was suspended for 2 days for surfing porn when he was supposed to be working. Once a liar, always a liar.

Illinois. A Chicago Tribune investigation finds that Chicago police have long ignored voluntary standards for polygraph exams, even as those methods and the examiners themselves have factored into cases costing the city millions of dollars in damages. Polygraphs and false confessions in Chicago.

Related: How the polygraph works.

Massachusetts. Add the name Annie Dookhan to the Forensic Hall of Shame that includes Fred Zain, Michael Malone and Joyce Gilchrist (to name just a few). Ms. Dookhan was a chemist with the state drug lab who thought it was her job to give the state what it needed for convictions, whether the evidence was there or not. About 1,100 inmates are currently in prison based on her findings. What is amazing is that Ms. Dookhan has been charged criminally. The state drug lab has been shut down, and the investigation is continuing. What else will they find?

Illinois (but coming soon to a courtroom near you!) When Cook County prosecutors brought Cleveland Barrett to trial in 2012 for the predatory criminal sexual assault of a 9-year-old girl, they presented the jury hearing the case testimony from the alleged victim plus the kind of evidence that long has won convictions with its scientific certainty: DNA. But this DNA was different. It was not from semen, as is often the case in rapes; instead it came from male cells found on the girl's lips. Fact is, the DNA profile from the cells on the victim's lips could have matched hundreds of thousands of men in the Chicago region. Tailored to fool juries, it's junk masquerading as science.

Washington, DC. Federal prosecutors have acknowledged errors in the "scientific" evidence that helped send a Washington man to prison for 28 years for murder and took the extraordinary step of agreeing to have his conviction overturned. U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. cited DNA evidence in also agreeing to drop the murder charge against Santae A. Tribble and never try him again. But even as the prosecutor said the evidence that convicted Tribble was flawed, Machen stopped short of declaring him innocent.

Washington. It seems disingenuous to single out the State of Washington, because the problems revealed with outright falsified certifications by the State Toxicology Lab, and the uncertainty of testing methods considered "accurate and reliable" occur in police labs around the country. Attorney Ted Vosk has examined these problems in depth in two articles published in The Champion, published by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL). (Both articles are in .pdf format. You need Adobe Acrobat Reader (free) to read them.)

DWI: Chaos Reigning
by Ted Vosk

DWI: Trial by Numbers
by Ted Vosk

Pennsylvania. In the 12 years he has been on Pennsylvania's death row, Daniel Dougherty has maintained that he did not set the fire that killed his two young sons in their Northeast Philadelphia home on Aug. 24, 1985. His fight to prove his innocence is now in a Common Pleas courtroom. His lawyers are trying to show that the lethal blaze was not arson but a tragic accident - and that Dougherty should be given a new trial. Junk science paving the way to Death Row.

Minnesota. Ramsey County is investigating the work of Dr. Michael McGee, who has served as the county's chief medical examiner for 26 years, after a Douglas County judge found he gave false testimony in a murder trial. McGee's testimony helped secure the conviction of Michael Hansen for the murder of his infant daughter in 2004. Douglas County Judge Peter Irvine found in July that McGee gave false testimony about infant skull fractures and about an accident that occurred six days before the baby died. Or was Dr. McGee just doing what was expected of him?

U.S. Army: For nearly three years, the military held the key to Roger House's exoneration and didn't tell him: A forensics examiner had botched a crucial lab test used in the Navy lieutenant's court-martial. In fact, the problem was bigger than just a lone analyst. While a McClatchy Newspapers investigation revealed that Mills' mistakes undermined hundreds of criminal cases brought against military personnel, it also found that the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory was lax in supervising Mills, slow to re-examine his work and slipshod about informing defendants. Officials appeared intent on containing the scandal that threatened to discredit the military's most important forensics facility, which handles more than 3,000 criminal cases a year. Hiding Egregious Errors.

USA: We've heard a lot about the "CSI effect," an alleged change in expectations of the power of forensic science among viewers of the wildly popular television series. Forensic Science Magazine takes a comparative look at the "CSI effect:" Fact or Fiction?

Ohio. After 20 years in prison, a woman convicted of murder might receive a new trial because a former Franklin County toxicologist lied about when he received his degree. Retired chief toxicologist James Ferguson, 63, of Johnstown, admitted he testified under oath that he received his biochemistry degree in 1972 when he actually received it in 1988, according to court records. But stay tuned: This is just the tip of the iceberg.

UPDATE: Virginia LeFever's conviction was reversed and she was released from prison based on James Ferguson's lies. He lied about his credentials, and he made up "scientific evidence" to back up the prosecution. Double lies.

North Carolina. State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) agent Michael Deaver stands with a foot in each camp -- junk science and egregious police misconduct. He can take a great deal of credit for Greg Taylor's conviction for a crime he didn't commit, because Deaver selectively reported -- and testified to -- finding blood in Taylor's truck, when he knew that more sophisticated tests showed the substance wasn't blood at all. SBI Director Robin Pendergraft stands behind Deaver, but there is a growing call across the state: Re-examine Old Cases.

UPDATE - 3/5/10: Ex-FBI Officials to Probe NC Crime Lab Practices.

UPDATE - 8/19/10: Scathing audit of NC Crime Lab says 230 cases tainted by shoddy investigations. No rules, bad science.

UPDATE - 1/27/10: North Carolina crime lab withheld test results in more than 200 cases.

UPDATE - 12/15/11: Novelist Michael Peterson will get a new trial in the death of his wife because Michael Deaver, a key prosecution witness, misled jurors about the strength of bloodstain evidence.

UPDATE - 12/18/11: Deaver's 23-year pattern of pro-prosecution bias.

Oregon. The State of Oregon's case against Scott Cannon for the execution-style murders of three people in 1998 rested on now-discredited bullet lead analysis and the testimony of the victims' landlady, who told police Scott was the last person at the residence and the only one who could have committed the murders. The landlady has been implicated in the killing of her husband and the murder of her boyfriend, and is serving a prison sentence in the latter shooting death. The Legacy of Junk Science.

UPDATE: 8/14/09--Salem, Oregon prosecutors have decided not to try to defend bullet lead analysis in Scott Cannon's case. They have stipulated to reversal of his conviction. Scott Cannon to get a retrial.

UPDATE: 12/18/09--Prosecutors have dropped all charges against Scott Cannon, admitting that the State destroyed the evidence in the case. Note: The State does not say what this evidence was, since the little there was in the first place has been discredited, and a reasonable person must suspect the authorities are lying to save face. Meanwhile, Scott Cannon is Free.

Florida. William Dillon spent 27 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit based on fraudulent "evidence" from dog handler John Preston (discredited in 1984) and perjured "snitch" testimony from another jail inmate. Now that the snitch testified at a legislative hearing about how Brevard County detectives got him to lie under oath, the Brevard County Sheriff's Office reopened the homicide investigation. Isn't it a bit late?

FIVE TEXAS ARSON CASES UNDER SCRUTINY

Five men charged with crimes that never happened. Five men's lives ruined. Two men freed. One man executed. Two innocent men still locked up. This doesn't just happen in Texas. It happens everywhere. It can happen to anyone. It can happen to YOU.

Florida. Wolverine prosecutors travel in packs. Former prosecutor, now Broward County Circuit Court Judge Robert Carney's successor, Carolyn McCann, launched a full-court (no pun intended) effort to assault the credibility of Edward Blake and his lab, Forensic Science Associates. Why? Blake not only found DNA in the Anthony Caravella case, but his tests cleared Caravella of rape and murder charges. In 2001, the Broward County Sheriff's crime lab "couldn't find" any DNA evidence. They travel in the same pack. Seek the truth? No. Protect the conviction.

United States. A report from Israeli scientists that DNA evidence can be fabricated is the real thing, and the implications are terrifying. “You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.” We have seen, over and over, in cases from around the country, that police and prosecutors will plant evidence in order to win convictions. Victims of planted evidence include George Lee III, Nicholas Sampson and Matt Livers, Madison Hobley, Kevin Cooper and Kenneth Hudson, to name just a few. Fabricating a Win for the State.

United States. The U.S. Supreme Court dragged crime labs toward transparency in its June 25, 2009 opinion that crime lab reports used in drug and other cases can be introduced as evidence at trial only if defendants can cross-examine the forensic analysts who prepared them. One less rock for incompetence to hide behind.

Oklahoma. Former Oklahoma City DA Bob Macy and police chemist Joyce Gilchrist have settled with Curtis Edward McCarty, who spent 20 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit, thanks to the "convictions at all costs" efforts of Macy and Gilchrist. The settlement terms with Macy are sealed, but not the settlement with Gilchrist. The Oklahoma Gazette has peeled away the layers of "spin" to reveal inner workings in the DA's office and crime lab that are shocking. A scoop for the Oklahoma Gazette.

Texas. Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Deputy and bloodhound trainer Keith Pikett has been sued in federal court for the second time in less than a year over a scent line-up involving his dogs. The dogs were trumped by DNA in the most recent case, and by the guilty plea of a rapist/murderer in the earlier case. So why continue such blatantly bogus tactics? The dogs are generating income.

UPDATE: 9/27/09 - Curvis Bickham does not know for sure whether Pikett's dogs, used to connect him to a triple murder in southeast Houston last year, made a mistake, produced a false “hit” because their handler encouraged them or responded correctly to scent that was deliberately placed on items from the murder scene. All he knows is that he was accused of capital murder, a crime that could have cost him his life. Former Harris County prosecutor Vic Wisner, an assistant district attorney for more than 24 years, has a one-word summation of scent evidence: "Ludicrous."

UPDATE: 9/23/10 - A man convicted of murder after three bloodhounds allegedly matched his scent to the victim should be set free because the evidence against him was not legally sufficient, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has ruled. The court acquitted Richard Winfrey Sr., reversing his 2007 conviction in the murder of high school janitor Murray Burr in the small town of Coldspring, about 60 miles north of Houston. He cannot be retried.

Illinois. When the U.S. government hired Michael Sheppo to help eliminate a crushing backlog in untested DNA evidence, he had all the right credentials. He's one of the federal officials responsible for eliminating the national backlog of 350,000 DNA samples in need of testing, and his claim to fame was that he had eliminated a 1,000 DNA specimen backlog in Illinois. But he didn't. Under Sheppo, the Illinois lab released false figures and fired two lab employees in retaliation for criticizing an ethically questionable contract. Sheppo knows how to make backlogs disappear.

Nebraska. David Kofoed, the commander of the Douglas County (Omaha) crime scene investigations unit is facing federal and state charges over accusations that he planted evidence in the car of two wrongly accused suspects in a Nebraska couple's murder. He was just making the evidence fit the coerced confession. Evidence tampering.

UPDATE: 3/23/10 - A judge on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 convicted a top crime scene investigator of evidence tampering, after prosecutors argued that the investigator planted blood from a slaying victim in a car linked to two innocent suspects to bolster the case against them. Cass County District Judge Randall Rehmeier said he didn't believe Douglas County CSI director David Kofoed's excuse that the victim's blood ended up in the car because of a sloppy mistake. Rehmeier said there was enough evidence to show that Kofoed intentionally planted fake evidence. Guilty.

UPDATE: 3/25/10 - CSI director David Kofoed had a reputation as a man who could find things others couldn't. That reputation was destroyed when the Douglas County CSI director was convicted of planting blood evidence during a murder investigation. The conviction throws into doubt the legitimacy of other cases on which he worked, and some of those he helped put behind bars are likely lining up to appeal. Flood of appeals expected.

UPDATE: 6/2/10 - Former CSI director David Kofoed was sentenced to between 20 months and 4 years in prison for tampering with evidence. He plans to appeal.

Texas. Gary Richard of Houston has spent the last 22 years in prison, thanks primarily to the lab work of Christy Kim -- an analyst who never lets the prosecution down. Kim said Richard was the man who abducted and raped a woman in 1987. The rapist was a non-secretor. Richard is a secretor, so he could not have been the rapist. Business as usual.

California. Arron Layton, a toxicologist who did lab work on criminal evidence in thousands of cases, has admitted to fraud, forgery and perjury. Riverside County authorities have ordered the review of 3,000 cases that were handled by toxicologist Arron Layton. It's believed Layton handled evidence for hundreds of cases in San Diego County, where District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis is "circling the wagons." Protecting convictions.

United States. A first-of-its-kind study has found that forensic experts produced flawed evidnece in the trials of 82 men wrongfully convicted of rape or murder in the 1980s. Brandon L. Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia, and Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project, examined 137 trials in which transcripts exist and forensic experts testified for the prosecution. In 60% of the cases, they gave testimony overstating the evidence.

California. The Santa Clara County district attorney has opened the door to the possibility of wrongful convictions by failing to objectively investigate crime lab errors, the national Innocence Project has charged. The group, in a national report, singled out the local prosecutor for failing to hire an outside agency to investigate a formal complaint that followed the 2007 discovery that Jeffrey Rodriguez had been wrongly convicted of robbery based on faulty testimony from a crime lab analyst concerning a stain found on the defendant's pants. The problem with investigating yourself ...

Mississippi. Radley Balko, senior editor at Reason Magazine, has taken an in-depth look at Mississippi's doctors of death, Steven Hayne and Michael West. They actually videotaped themselves using a cast of murder suspect Jimmie Duncan's teeth to create bite marks on the body of the child Duncan was accused of killing. Jimmie Duncan is on death row. Manufactured Guilt.

Wisconsin. In 1985, when Robert Lee Stinson of Milwaukee was 21 years old, he was convicted of the murder of a 63-year-old woman who had been savagely beaten to death the previous year. Robert's conviction was based on bite mark evidence that didn't even match--he had a tooth missing where the bite marks indicated a tooth, a fact that didn't bother the state's "experts" at all. DNA evidence rules him out conclusively. Junk bite mark evidence should be barred.

Michigan. The Detroit Police crime lab is so plagued with problems that it can't be trusted to help deliver justice in criminal cases, officials said on September 25, 2008 as they announced its immediate closure. 10% Error Rate in Ballistics.

Wisconsin. Attorney Jerome Buting has filed a complaint about some of the big errors that have been uncovered at the Wisconsin Crime Lab. For example, an employee at the Milwaukee bureau of the crime lab made up results. He "falsified the data" in a case by saying a finger print didn't match anyone in a database before he knew whether it did or not. In March of 2006, an employee at the Madison bureau of the lab was suspended for being "intoxicated" on the job. That happens to be around the time the lab was testing evidence in one of the most high profile cases in recent memory: the murder trial against Steven Avery. The AG's office says it will review the complaint. Plain English: Don't hold your breath.

UPDATE - 10/31/08: As predicted, the Wisconsin AG's office has investigated itself -- the Wisconsin Crime Lab is part of the AG's office -- and has cleared itself. Placating the public.

Maryland. Baltimore crime analysts have been contaminating evidence with their own DNA -- a revelation that led to the dismissal of the city Police Department's crime lab director and prompted questions from defense attorneys and forensic experts about the professionalism of the state's biggest and busiest crime lab. Baltimore police are talking out of both sides of their mouths, saying, 'Oh, it's not a problem at all,' and on the other hand they have fired the crime lab director. How did this lab get accreditation?

California. In Bakersfield, the crime lab is part of the DA's office. There is no "firewall" between the prosecution side and the science side of the office. This creates a conflict that recently moved prosecutor Nick Lackie to tell a jury, "So what?" This conflict issue has come to a head in a recent case in which a lawyer, Daniel Willsey, stands charged with causing the death of Joe Hudnall, a local deputy by driving under the influence of methamphetamine and causing Hudnall to crash. Defense attorneys have learned that testing of the defendant's blood was conducted by a lab analyst who is a close friend of the dead deputy's family. Cops in lab coats.

But wait -- there's more. When Daniel Willsey's defense attorneys went back to court to argue motions related to mishandling evidence by the DA office's crime lab, everyone got a big surprise. The crime lab had "inadvertently" destroyed the sample of Willsey's blood that the lab claimed tested positive for methamphetamines. Gosh, it's not like the DA wanted to make sure Willsey's defense attorneys can't have a private lab test the sample. Ooops -- Butterfingers.

Wisconsin, Washington and South Dakota -- So Far. Saami Shaibani often testified for the prosecution in big murder cases, taking the stand as an expert in what he called "injury mechanism analysis" — a combination of physics, trauma medicine and engineering that he used to determine whether, say, a woman fell down the stairs or was beaten. But after years of helping lock up killers, Shaibani could be the one in trouble. The physicist lied under oath about his credentials, and now some of the convictions he helped secure are in jeopardy. At least one has been overturned so far. Resume-Padding comes home to roost.

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Eighty-six years after Colin Ross of Melbourne, Australia was hanged for the rape and murder of 12-year-old Alma Tirtschke, he has been officially pardoned. The pseudo-science of microscopic hair comparison put Colin on the gallows, despite his protestations of innocence. Recent tests show that the hairs found at Colin's home, said to be from young Alma, weren't even from the same head. Bad science, irrevocable results.

Pennsylvania: Emerson McCauley is anything but a sympathetic figure. A thief and forger, he told Pennsylvania police that he witnessed two men rape a woman and throw her off a 44-foot-high Juniata County bridge in 1977. He was looking for a break for himself by making up lies to frame others, and it backfired. Emerson was charged with the murder, and former star junk scientist, police chemist Janice Roadcap, clinched the conviction when she testified that a "uniquely shaped" hair on the victim's leg came from Emerson's chest. But DNA has cleared Emerson, who appears to be what he has said all along that he is -- innocent of murder. Roadcap Redux

California: A judge has dismissed charges against Cynthia Sommer, who was convicted of killing her Marine husband with arsenic, after new tests showed no traces of poison. Prosecutors who were preparing for a second trial found that previously untested samples of Marine Sgt. Todd Sommer's tissue showed no arsenic. A recently retained government expert speculated that the earlier samples were contaminated, prosecutors wrote in a motion filed in San Diego Superior Court. The expert said he found the initial results "very puzzling" and "physiologically improbable." Contaminated Conviction.

Canada - but relevant in US: As part of a probe into autopsy errors by pediatric pathologist Charles Smith that precipitated wrongful charges and convictions, the Goudge Commission is focusing on the role of experts in the court system. The inquiry has been told that judges allow experts too much latitude.

Texas: On January 24, 2008, the Houston Police Crime lab DNA Section was shut down for the second time due to incompetence, cheating and mismanagement. A 73-page report details just how bad the "reformed" lab was.

Lest anyone forget how bad the lab was before the fictional rehabilitation took place, we have moved the links to earlier reports to this section, so you don't have to search for them.

Houston Police Crime Lab

The HPD Crime Lab is back in the news, not because it cleaned up its act, but because it continues its tradition of sloppy testing and perjured testimony.

Doubt Cast on Lawrence Napper Molestation Conviction
Lawyer Questions Truth of Lab Scientist's Testimony
HPD Chief Promises Review of George Rodriguez Case
Officials Urge Special Probe of Crime Lab
UPDATE: George Rodriguez, exonerated by DNA, wonders "Why am I Still in Prison?"
UPDATE: HPD has discovered 280 boxes of evidence "lost" in its property room. Time for Probe?
UPDATE: Tests Find Christy Kim's Analysis Just Plain Wrong in Yet Another Case
UPDATE: HPD Admits It Failed to Review Suspect Work

Few people listened when Ronald Gene Taylor declared himself innocent of a rape charge 14 years ago. But the Harris County District Attorney's Office finally agreed with him on October 3, 2007, acknowledging that the scandal-plagued Houston Police Department crime lab was responsible for sending yet another wrong person to prison. The crime lab said there was no semen on a sheet taken from the rape scene. New tests yielded the DNA profile of another man, a sex offender currently in prison, who looks very much like Taylor. Another Blow to Lab.

In 1998, a rape victim identified Josiah Sutton as one of her assailants when she saw him on the street, and the Houston, Texas crime lab claimed DNA tests implicated him. The crime lab has been shut down because of the poor quality of its work, and new DNA tests have excluded Josiah. 4 1/2 Years in Prison -- for Nothing

Christy Kim, the Houston Police Department Crime Lab DNA analyst whose faulty work sent Josiah Sutton to prison for rape, has been fired, 9 months after new tests exonerated Josiah and led to his release. It's About Time

Never mind. A city panel has reinstated Christy Kim, adopting the theory that individual lab analysts who testify as expert witnesses have no personal responsibility for their work. Meanwhile, Josiah Sutton is still waiting for a pardon. Another Free Pass

Small wonder the DNA analysts at the Houston Police Crime Lab did such a poor job. None of them were qualified by education and training to do their jobs. The founder of the DNA lab, James Bolding, retired rather than be fired. Among other things, he failed both algebra and geometry in college, though he later passed both, and he never took statistics. Interim update on Houston Police Crime Lab.

New DNA tests on evidence from four cases originally processed by the Houston Police Department's troubled crime lab have found significantly weaker links between the evidence and the defendants than the first results. Crime Lab 'Just Way Off' in Calvin Jermany Case

No indictments were returned, but a Harris County grand jury completing its investigation of the Houston Police Department crime lab Friday criticized how officials dealt with the problem that shook public confidence in the criminal justice system. Plato was Right - Science without Virtue is Immoral Science

Two grand juries investigating problems in Houston's police crime laboratory have widened their inquiry to include local prosecutors, asking about their potential culpability for winning convictions with Tainted Evidence .

The head of the DNA division of the Houston Police Department's crime lab has offered testimony in at least three cases that has later turned out to be wrong, according to court transcripts. "They intentionally mislead," said Dr. Elizabeth Johnson, the former head of the DNA lab at the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office who now often works as a consultant for criminal defense teams. "And in all the cases I've been involved in, they always mislead in favor of a conviction." Houston Democratic state Rep. Harold Dutton says, "We have a name for that in Texas, and that is Perjury ."

When handled, analyzed and interpreted correctly, DNA evidence works to exclude the innocent and convict the guilty. But when the same evidence is handled and analyzed in shoddy lab conditions and by incompetent lab staff, the consequences can be dire. One consequence is that the innocent are convicted. But another consequence is that the real perpetrators go free and continue to commit crimes. Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld tell the Houston Police crime lab: End This DNA Debacle

"There were two different problems in the crime lab — scientific incompetence and corruption," Law Professor David Dow of the University of Houston said. "That's a deadly combination. Once you have corruption, there is no reason to think that this is limited to DNA cases or cases where there is scientific evidence of any sort." The Houston Police Crime Lab

Mississippi: The Innocence Project has asked the state to fill the long-vacant position of State Medical Examiner, and to stop using state pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne. Dr. Hayne's work lies at the heart of the wrongful convictions of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. His credentials and the results of his work have been solidly discredited for several years, but he is under no oversight because the State Medical Examiner position has been vacant for more than a decade. How many more wrongful convictions before the state acts responsibly?

But Dr. Steven Hayne is only half of the despicable duo. Forensic odontologist Dr. Michael West found "bite marks" no one else could see on the bodies of the little victims in both cases, and in both cases, testified that Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks were each guilty. "If you fabricate evidence in a capital murder case, where you know that if the person's convicted they are going to be executed -- as far as I'm concerned that's the crime of attempted murder,'' says Peter Neufeld. "He's a criminal."

West Virginia: The murder case against Jeffrey Galford of Elkins, WV for the death of an infant in his care has been dismissed. The child died in 2003. State Medical Examiner Dr. James Frost conducted an autopsy and ruled the death homicide as the result of shaken baby syndrome. The report, however, was not sent to the prosecutor until 2006, and Galford was indicted in 2007. In early 2008, just before trial was scheduled to begin, Dr. Frost reviewed the child's full medical history -- something he had made no effort to do before declaring the death a homicide or in the years thereafter. The baby's complex medical history led Dr. Frost to conclude no intentional act against the child could be proven. Why the 5-year wait to review the baby's medical history?

Mississippi: Kennedy Brewer of Macon, Mississippi, a mildly retarded, Black defendant, was convicted of raping and killing a 3-year-old girl and sentenced to death in 1992. In 2002, he was cleared by DNA, but he wasn't released. He has spent the past 5 years in the local jail, awaiting retrial. Because you can bet, the local authorities plan to get another conviction and another death sentence. The Sheriff says he can't look for a DNA match because Mississippi doesn't have a DNA database -- which is news to the state's crime lab director. The prosecutor will bring back his star witness, dentist Dr. Michael West, whose bite mark testimony has been disproven by DNA in other cases, and who resigned from professional forensic dentistry groups to avoid expulsion. Prosecutors are so sure they're right about Kennedy's guilt that they're Willing to Bet His Life on It.

UPDATE: 2/9/08 - Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, both convicted of killing 3-year-old girls in Noxubee County, Mississippi, and both cleared by DNA, are slated to be released. What did it take to reach this point? Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood had to take the prosecutions of these murders away from the Noxubee County DA, something almost unheard of in the state's history. The Attorney General has charged Albert Johnson with the murders of both children.

Massachusetts Crime Lab Neglected 16,000 Cases. Evidence samples from thousands of crime scenes across Massachusetts, including nearly 1,000 homicides and other deaths and 6,500 sexual assaults, were never analyzed by the State Police crime lab, according to an investigation of the lab ordered by the state. The lab's failure to process potentially crucial DNA evidence from 16,000 cases means that killers and rapists could be walking free, while innocent people remain imprisoned.

Victims of Faulty Diagnoses by Dr. Charles Smith
Toronto, Ontario (Canada)

CNN Presents:

Reasonable Doubt: Can Crime Labs be Trusted?

A joint investigation by CNN and the Center for Investigative Reporting examines the lack of standards, quality controls and training at many of the nation's forensic laboratories and raises serious doubts about some forensic scientists.

Key Cases

The Labs

GSR -- or BSR?
A New Scientist investigation has found that someone who has never fired a gun could be contaminated by someone who has, and that different criminal investigators use contradictory standards. What's more, particles that are supposedly unique to GSR can be produced in other ways.

UPDATE
GSR Lacks Scientific Credibility. A Minnesota judge has thrown out gunshot residue evidence police say solved the pool hall murders of two people. Judge Sharon Hall ruled that GSR has no scientific backing and does not belong in a courtroom.

It's a Crime When Science Gets it Wrong . An analysis was done of 86 criminal convictions that DNA evidence later found to be wrong. F ully 63 percent of the cases featured errors of forensic science. What's more, in 27 percent of the cases forensic scientists gave false or misleading testimony.

Army Launches Probe of DNA Tests The Army is investigating accusations that a civilian forensic examiner at the Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory at Fort Gillem, Ga., falsified DNA test results. The accusations, if true, would throw into doubt hundreds of criminal cases dating back at least 10 years.

Justice Under the Microscope DNA is only as reliable as the humans testing it. Virginia's once highly touted crime lab has starkly demonstrated this in an error-ridden death-row case that was propped up repeatedly by botched DNA studies from the state's supposed experts.

CSI Effect? The argument that "C.S.I." and similar shows are actually raising the number of acquittals is a staggering claim, and the remarkable thing is that, speaking forensically, there is not a shred of evidence to back it up. There is a robust field of research on jury decision-making but no study finding any "C.S.I. effect."

Utterly Junk Science Microscopic comparison of carpet fibers -- utterly junk science -- convicted Wayne Williams of two of the Atlanta child murders that terrorized the city in 1981, and police blamed Williams for 27 other uncharged killings. The newly ensconced Dekalb County police chief who was never convinced of Wayne Williams' guilt has reopened five of the 1981 "Atlanta Child Murder" cases. Families of many of the murdered children have been unconvinced all these years, too. Williams says he is imprisoned with at least four relatives of his alleged victims, and that even they believe in his innocence.

UPDATE: DNA Testing Sought. Lawyers for Wayne Williams, blamed for the murders of two dozen children and young men in the late 1970s and early '80s, have asked to perform DNA testing on dog hair, human hair and blood.

Sloppy Pathology A three-member panel from the state Board of Medical Examiners has so far substantiated 18 violations stemming from the long-running inquiry into the practice of Dr. Charles Harlan, a pathologist who spent three decades performing autopsies throughout Tennessee.

BS Bullet Matching Eighteen years ago, three Boston-area men were convicted of fatally shooting a Lynnfield couple in the basement of their Main Street home as their two young children slept upstairs, a brazen crime that sent shock waves through the quiet, prosperous suburb. Richard Costa, Dennis Daye, and Michael DeNictolis are each serving two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for the 1985 slaying of Robert Paglia and his wife, Patricia, in a robbery at the couple's house. But now a retired FBI agent says in an affidavit that a former colleague gave false and misleading forensic testimony -- deemed crucial to the prosecution's case -- at the trial.

More BS Bullet Matching A New Jersey appeals court overturned the 1997 murder conviction of Michael S. Behn on March 7, 2005, ruling that an FBI crime lab technique that prosecutors relied on to link the fatal bullets to the defendant was based on "erroneous scientific foundations."

UPDATE: The FBI has announced that it has discontinued the use of bullet-lead matching, a forensic technique used for at least 25 years that had been heavily criticized as inaccurate and misleading. Nonetheless, FBI Laboratory Director Dwight E. Adams said, "we stand by the results of the reports we have already issued." Never Admit Error

UPDATE: The Kentucky Supreme Court has reversed Shane Ragland's murder conviction, which was based on comparative bullet lead analysis (CBLA). When Ragland was tried in 2002, CBLA was all the rage at the FBI Lab. By 2005, CBLA had been discredited as junk science. No Choice But to Reverse Conviction

UPDATE: Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found. Silent Injustice.

UPDATE: Lee Wayne Hunt of Smithfield, NC vividly remembers the day 21 years ago when an FBI scientist walked into a North Carolina courthouse and told jurors that he was able to match the lead content of bullets found at the crime scene to that of bullets in a box connected to Hunt's co-defendant. The testimony provided the sole forensic evidence to corroborate the prosecution's circumstantial case. In 2005, the bureau ended its bullet-lead-matching technique after experts concluded that the very type of testimony given in Hunt's case -- matching a crime-scene bullet to those in a suspect's box -- was scientifically invalid. They threw out the science -- but haven't lifted a finger to help the wrongly convicted put into prison by it. Still in Prison

UPDATE: In 1998, when teacher Jimmy Ates of Crestview, Florida was convicted -- 7 years after the crime -- of murdering his wife, the only evidence prosecutors had against him was the FBI test that concluded the lead in the bullets that killed Norma Ates matched the lead in bullets Jimmy owned. The bullet lead test was discredited in 2005. Now Jimmy's conviction has been reversed and he has been given a new trial. Invalid Evidence

Officially Sanctioned Abuse The Darke County, Ohio prosecutor has said he is closing the homicide investigation into the death of 5-year-old Daniel Crow Jr. because a rare genetic disease may be the cause of the boy's death, not abuse. It's too late for the rest of the family. Their other children were seized by the state and adopted by other families.

Bite Mark Baloney Cook County, Illinois prosecutors have dropped murder charges against Dan Young, Jr. and Harold Hill, who have spent more than 12 years behind bars, after DNA test results undermined their confessions and testimony from a dentist who implicated the two through a bite mark and a hickey.

More Bite Mark Baloney Jeffrey Moldowan, who spent 12 years in prison before winning a retrial and acquittal in a Warren rape case, has sued the victim, the police, a trial witness and Macomb County prosecutors. The witness is Dr. Alan Warnick, whose bogus bite mark testimony railroaded an innocent man.

Gunshot Residue This evidence, used for years in thousands of investigations, is not as clear-cut as it has often been portrayed in court, or in the television crime dramas that have made forensics popular. Across the country it is under increasing scrutiny as defense attorneys, prosecutors and police officials evaluate how easily suspects' hands can be contaminated by other items already covered in gunshot residue: handcuffs, car seats, even police officers themselves.

Gunshot Residue Ricochet The Baltimore state's attorney's office said that it has found about half a dozen convictions in cases that may have involved the controversial identification of gunshot residue evidence. The preliminary review of shooting and weapons cases from the past five years came after a Circuit Court judge decided to exclude a two-element particle of gunshot residue evidence from a trial. He said a particle containing three elements -- lead, barium and antimony -- is required to meet the scientific community's threshold for establishing that a substance is gunshot residue.

Digital Fingerprint Identification The Chicago Tribune has found that the same digital technology that has allowed the FBI to speed fingerprint checks so dramatically has created a new risk -- in an already subjective and non-scientific field -- of accusing the innocent.

SBS: Dubious Diagnosis In the UK, a review of nearly 300 cases in which parents were convicted of killing their young children has identified 28 where there was "sufficient cause for concern to warrant further consideration", the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, has told Parliament. A further 89 cases of "shaken baby syndrome" will be reconsidered in the light of a judgment from the Court of Appeal expected in 2005, Lord Goldsmith promised. Three pending prosecutions have already been abandoned "on the grounds that it was not safe to proceed".

UPDATE: In what experts say is the first such ruling in the nation, a Greenup (Kentucky) Circuit Court judge has barred the prosecution from introducing expert testimony that a baby was injured by shaking, unless there is other evidence of abuse. Issuing identical rulings in two cases, Judge Lewis Nichols cited biomechanical studies that have concluded it's impossible for an adult to shake an infant hard enough to cause the injuries used to diagnose the syndrome -- hemorrhaging behind both retinas and hematomas, or pools of blood, in the membranes of the brain. Not Letting Doctors Diagnose Legal Conclusions

Forensic scientist Charles Vaughan, whose testimony helped wrongfully convict two young men of murder in Oregon, has been working for the Washington State Patrol crime lab since the case unraveled nine years ago. Landing on His Feet .

Read the Seattle Post-Intelligencer series that "outed" Charles Vaughn

Back in 1988, Texas Department of Public Safety serologist Glen Adams testified that Brandon Moon was among "15% of the population" who could have contributed semen in a 1987 rape. Relying on that overstated testimony, an El Paso jury convicted Moon and he was sentenced to 75 years in prison. It was another win for junk science. In 2004, DNA Cleared Brandon Moon .

Todd Willingham - Executed for an Accidental Fire

Strapped to a gurney in Texas' death chamber in February, 2004, just moments from his execution for setting a fire that killed his three daughters, Cameron Todd Willingham declared his innocence one last time. " I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not commit," Willingham said angrily. "I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do." Four fire cause and origin experts -- Gerald Hurst, John Lentini, John DeHaan and Kendall Ryland -- agree. "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire," said Hurst, a Cambridge University-educated chemist who has investigated scores of fires in his career. "It was just a fire."

UPDATE

Innocence Project Asks Texas to Review Willingham and Willis Arson Convictions

(In pdf format - Includes Report and Supporting Documentation)

UPDATE - August 15, 2008
Texas Panel to Probe Findings That Led to Willingham's Execution

UPDATE - September 14, 2010
Reconstituted Texas Panel Set to Whitewash Willingham Execution

UPDATE - January 8, 2011
Panel Finally Hears Arson Experts

UPDATE - April 15, 2011
Panel Recommends Revisiting Old Arson Cases

UPDATE - September 9, 2011
Panel Not Allowed to Issue Opinion on Willingham, But Old Arson Cases May Be Reviewed

Link:

An Exclusive Excerpt from "Incendiary"

by Evan Smith, The Texas Tribune
December 29, 2010

An exclusive excerpt from "Incendiary," a forthcoming documentary about the Cameron Todd Willingham case.

Thelma Younkin used an oxygen tube to help her breathe. Her killer used it as a murder weapon. In November 1991, the frail, 65-year-old Younkin was strangled with the tube, bitten and raped in her room at the Post Park Motel along a grim stretch of Yuma, Arizona. A fellow resident of the low-budget motel, Bobby Lee Tankersley, was convicted and sent to Arizona's Death Row for the attack, based largely on the testimony of a forensic dentist who said he had matched Tankersley's teeth to bite marks on Younkin's body. But on December 6, 2004, the same judge who sentenced Tankersley to death will hold a hearing that promises to showcase the problems of forensic science in America's courts, from the legacy of discredited experts to new DNA tests exposing the questionable science behind many other disciplines, including bite-mark comparison. Bite Mark Verdict Faces New Scrutiny

UPDATE: Bobby Lee Tankersley has been granted a new sentencing hearing. Bogus Bite Mark Evidence Cited .

Should medical experts who give fraudulent testimony be subject to discipline for unprofessional conduct? The Federation of State Medical Boards thinks so. FSMB Guidelines

Los Angeles County officials scrambled to review at least 27 -- and possibly dozens -- of pending criminal cases to determine whether critical evidence was tainted or falsified during analysis by the nation's largest private DNA lab. Cellmark found the problems through its own audits, and said the testing protocols were not followed and that the analyst substituted results and changed computer records. All It Takes is One Bad Apple

Computer Voice Stress Analysis (CVSA) is promoted by police who use it as a reliable lie detector. Even the manufacturer the National Institute for Truth Verification, "acknowledges that the CVSA is not capable of lie detection and specifically cautions its users regarding the proper use of the device." But it works well for getting gullible suspects to confess -- especially when they are innocent. More Junk

Saying the autopsy report was wrong, Winchester, TN District Attorney Mike Taylor dismissed a murder charge against Margaret Mignano, accused of killing her severely disabled daughter with an overdose of medication. The murder charge was based on the autopsy report of Dr. Charles Harlan of Nashville, a forensic pathologist who is defending his medical license against state charges of misdiagnosing causes of death in other cases and destroying evidence in criminal investigations. No Overdose

Post Mortem Drug Test Errors A technique for inferring how much of a drug a patient has taken may be putting innocent people behind bars. The problem seems to be that doctors are incorrectly applying the method to corpses, in a bid to establish how much of a drug a deceased person took, or was given, before their death. That error can result in vastly inflated readings.

Independent Crime Labs The risk of deceptive forensic practices is heightened by the strong institutional kinship between the technicians who analyze forensic evidence and the law enforcement agencies that investigate and prosecute criminals. Virtually all crime laboratories have direct affiliations with law enforcement agencies. Locke Bowman and Rob Warden make a strong case for independent crime labs in Illinois. Actually, we need independent crime labs throughout the country.

A Remarkable Series from the Chicago Tribune

Forensic Science Under the Microscope
Critics Say: Show Us the Science
Arson Myths Fuel Errors
Bite Marks: From the Start, a Faulty Science
When Labs Falter, Defendants Pay
Scandal Touches Even Elite Labs

* * *

Internationally known dog handler Sandra Anderson dazzled police in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Michigan and Panama with the ability of her dog, Eagle, to find evidence that eluded everyone else. Of course Eagle could find it -- Anderson planted the evidence. Anderson has pled guilty to federal evidence tampering charges. How Many Cases did She Taint?

Paul Gregory House

Recently discovered DNA evidence proves that House did not rape Carolyn Muncey immediately before she was killed in 1985 in Union County, north of Knoxville, Tennessee. Other evidence has surfaced that might show that House did not rape or kill Muncey. While Tennessee's judiciary argues over how many jurors can dance on the head of a pin, Paul Gregory House remains on death row.

UPDATE - 5/12/09: Charges dropped against former TN death row inmate

Criminal Science: The Paul House Case
[pdf format - use Acrobat Reader]

Can we rely on forensic science as the arbiter of truth in the courtroom? In his latest investigation for Seed Magazine , writer Simon Cooper exposes a case of corrupted science at the heart of our justice system -- and the forensic failures that put a man on Tennessee's death row.

Ken Marsh

Ken Marsh spent 21 years in California prisons for a crime that never happened. He was convicted in 1984 of murdering 2-year-old Kenneth Buell based on testimony of treating physicians -- with no independent corroboration -- who were seeking to protect themselves from malpractice claims. His conviction was reversed without an evidentiary hearing based on insufficiency of the medical expert evidence.

Ken Marsh and his attorney, Tracy Emblem, have generously made available extensive forensic resources utilized in his case for the benefit of other innocent people facing similar charges. Visit Free Ken Marsh