Dr. Mike Bowers is a retired dentist in Ventura, CA. Dr. Bowers is a clinical associate professor at the University of Southern California. In addition, he is a licensed attorney and has assisted the Innocence Project Network in cases where forensic science has erroneously convicted innocent defendants throughout the US. His latest book is “Forensic Testimony: Science, Law and Expert Evidence” and “Forensic Dental Evd” available at Amazon.com.
Click on book image to order from Amazon
FORENSICS and LAW in FOCUS @ CSIDDS | News and Trends 
Forget Police Sketches: Researchers Perfectly Reconstruct Faces by Reading Brainwaves:
This Screams Junk Science!
https://singularityhub.com/2017/06/14/forget-police-sketches-researchers-perfectly-reconstruct-faces-by-reading-brainwaves/
Dutch-Russian cyber crime case reveals how the police tap the internet:
http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2017/06/dutch-russian-cyber-crime-case-reveals.html
The US Criminal “Justice System” is Devoid of Justice:
In America only the innocent go to prison.
Americans do not understand this. They have been deceived by “law and order conservatives” that liberal judges always let the criminals off and that any criminals that somehow are sent to prison despite the liberal judges are rescued from jail by liberal parole boards.
The fact of the matter is that only 3% of felony cases go to trial, and in these cases prosecutors are able to bribe and to pay witnesses for false testimony against the accused and to withhold exculpatory evidence that would clear the defendant of the charges. In other words, conviction regardless of the evidence is almost always obtained.
In the other 97% of the cases, the defendant’s attorney negotiates with the prosecutor a fictitious charge to which the accused will plead guilty in exchange for dropping the more serious charge for which the accused was arrested. The attorney knows that to defend against even a false charge is unlikely to be successful and that the accused will draw a longer sentence from going to trial than from agreeing to a lesser charge in a plea bargain. Both prosecutor and judge are grateful, because it saves both from days, even weeks, of court time, thus keeping the judge’s case load lighter and permitting the prosecutor many more convictions with which to embellish his record. A week of plea bargains can produce many times the convictions of a week in court dealing with one case. The fewer cases the judge has to study and to apply his understanding of the law, the better for the judge.
https://www.opednews.com/articles/The-US-Criminal-Justice-S-by-Paul-Craig-Roberts-Convictions_Criminally-Complict_Justice-Denied_Siegelman-170623-847.html
Junk Science Warning: ATF Van That Can Allegedly Track Shell Casings Coming to a City Near You:
The van, which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) first rolled out in May, makes it possible to immediately test guns and shell casings at a crime scene. It’s aimed at “helping police departments around the country,” an ATF spokesperson told Mother Jones.
The plan is for the ATF van to move from city to city and spend a few weeks in each one. Before coming to Chicago, the van spent May in Baltimore, another city Trump has chided in the past. Despite the tech upgrade, in the three weeks that the van has spent in the Windy City, it hasn’t helped police make any arrests, according to the department Superintendent Eddie Johnson. Nonetheless, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) says that he’s “glad the feds have arrived” and that the city “needs the van full time.”
http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2017/06/the-feds-have-come-to-chicago-with-a-van-that-tracks-guns/
Man Jailed For 90 Days After Police Mistake Drywall Powder For Cocaine:
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2017/06/27/drywall-powder-mistaken-for-cocaine/
Dr. Death and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Corruption and Injustice in the American South:
“At the heart of the first is Dr. Steven Hayne, a doctor the State of Mississippi employed as its de facto medical examiner for two decades. Beginning in the late 1980s, he performed anywhere from 1,200 to 1,800 autopsies per year, five times more than is recommended, performed at night in the basement of a local funeral home. Autopsy reports claimed organs had been observed and weighed when, in reality, they had been surgically removed from the body years before. But Hayne was the only game in town. He also often brought in local dentist and self-styled “bite mark specialist” Dr. Michael West, who would discover marks on victim’s bodies, at times invisible to the naked eye, and then match those marks-“indeed and without doubt”-to law enforcement’s lead suspect.”
UK terror informants will face lie detector tests:
“Questions have been raised over the reliability of MI5 and police intelligence following a spate of terrorist attacks in the UK that left 36 people dead over the last four months.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/terrorism-lie-detector-polygraph-tests-informants-scotland-yard-metropolitan-police-al-qaeda-isis-a7831531.html
Forensic experts can’t be sued for giving ‘grossly negligent’ testimony that put two innocent men in prison:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/06/29/federal-court-despite-grossly-negligent-testimony-that-put-two-innocent-men-in-prison-forensic-experts-cant-be-sued
Google could soon get access to hundreds of thousands of patients’ genetic data:
Edward Hockings a researcher at the University of the West of Scotland, explains the risks of letting a private company gain access to sensitive genetic data.
In Google’s case, he says, it could allow them to target users with personalised advertising based on their preferences and health risks.
It could also create profiles of people based on their DNA data, which may provide details such as their risk of becoming a criminal.
He says genomic data is ‘the oil of the digital era’ and there is nothing stopping it from be captured, bought and sold in the future.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4665214/Google-soon-access-genetic-patient-data.html
Houston Police End Use of Drug Tests That Helped Produce Wrongful Convictions:
https://www.propublica.org/article/houston-police-end-drug-tests-that-helped-produce-wrongful-convictions
Los Alamos Study Claims Airport Scanners Can Rip Apart & Alter DNA:
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/02/19/los-alamos-study-finds-airport-scanners-can-rip-apart-alter-dna/
Kentucky Police Dept. Accused of Fabricating Blood and Hair DNA, Polygraph Results and Eyewitness Testimony:
http://www.courthousenews.com/inmates-wrongfully-convicted-satanic-killing-say-cops-fabricated-evidence/
A Rogues’ Gallery of Bad Forensics Labs:
http://reason.com/archives/2017/07/18/a-rogues-gallery-of-bad-forens
Revising State Post-Conviction Relief Statutes to Cover Convictions Resting on Subsequently Invalidated Expert Testimony:
“Over 300 prisoners have already been exonerated by postconviction DNA testing. In many of these cases, the subsequent DNA testing demonstrated the invalidity of expert testimony that had been relied on as the basis for the prior conviction. Given the disturbing revelations of the weaknesses in many traditional types of forensic science, in the future there will probably be many more requests for postconviction relief on the ground that later scientific research has eroded confidence in the expert testimony that served as the basis for an earlier conviction.”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2998345
A DNA App Store Is Here, but Proceed with Caution:
Helix will sequence your genes for $80 and lure app developers to sell you access to different parts of it.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608313/a-dna-app-store-is-here-but-proceed-with-caution/?set=608329
Bogus Fentanyl Drug Warning: Touching small amounts of drugs could be lethal to officers:
https://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2017/07/bogus-fentanyl-drug-warning-touching.html
Researchers claim they can identify what you look like and who you are by listening to your voice:
“From something as simple as the sound of your breath, Rita Singh, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University’s Language Technologies Institute , can pull information about what you look like and the room from where you are calling.”
“Every person’s voice is unique, just like your fingerprint and DNA, so we are on our way to converting voice to kind of like a barcode to identify every human,” said Singh, who has been studying voice for decades. “Basically, we are trying to sketch the entire persona of a human and their environment.”
US Coast Guard Considers Using It To Identify Hoax Callers…
http://triblive.com/business/technology/12530883-74/carnegie-mellon-researcher-helps-coast-guard-with-hoax-calls
Federal Appeals Court Castigates Kansas Cops for Pot Raid Triggered by Tea:
Appeals Court judge notes that police raided a family’s home “based on nothing more than junk science, an incompetent investigation, and a publicity stunt.”
http://reason.com/blog/2017/07/25/appeals-court-rebukes-kansas-cops-for-po
Scientists Still Seek A Reliable DUI Test For Marijuana:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/07/30/523004450/scientists-still-seek-a-reliable-dui-test-for-marijuana
Junk Science Warning: New optical device could help detect drugs, bomb-making chemicals and more
http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2017/07/036.html
George Mason University-Led Consortium to Manage DHS-Funded Criminal Network Analysis CoE::
“The CINA CoE will also conduct research on criminal network analysis, criminal activity patterns, criminal investigative processes and forensics.”
http://www.executivegov.com/2017/08/george-mason-university-to-manage-new-dhs-coe-on-criminal-investigations-and-network-analysis/
George Mason’s new Center of Excellence for Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis:
“The Center’s research will focus on criminal network analysis, dynamic patterns of criminal activity, forensics, and criminal investigative processes. CINA will work with DHS components and other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to develop strategies and solutions for on-the-ground use by agents and officers to predict, thwart, and prosecute crimes. CINA will also contribute to the education and development of both university students and professionals working in the realms of prevention, prediction, investigation and prosecution.”
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20170802-george-mason-s-new-center-of-excellence-for-criminal-investigations-and-network-analysis
“We must use forensic analysis carefully, but we must continue to use it,” he said, according to prepared remarks. “We should not exclude reliable forensic analysis — or any reliable expert testimony — simply because it is based on human judgment” said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
http://triblive.com/politics/politicalheadlines/12596510-74/justice-department-tries-to-shore-up-forensic-science-testimony
DHS’s disturbing “extreme vetting” program will target people based on their ideology:
Man Convicted Of Murder Through Hypnotism Is Freed After 38 Years In Prison:
“Lisa Kavanaugh, director of the Committee for Public Counsel Services Innocence Program and Clay’s attorney, said the witnesses confirmed her client’s identity only after being hypnotized, an identification method that new research has largely debunked.”
http://www.wbur.org/news/2017/08/08/frederick-clay.
Subway shop sues Utah police after employee cleared of drugging officer’s drink:
Police officials at the time said that after the officer had become sick, a special drug-scanning ”ion test” later conducted on the drink showed the presence of the drugs. The lawsuit says the test has a ”known high false positive rate.” Indeed, state crime lab results later showed that there was nothing illicit in the lemonade..
http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/08/09/owners-of-a-subway-shop-in-utah-sue-for-defamation-in-what-police-once-said-was-a-soda-drugging-case/
Horse Abuse Investigators Claim Showing The Faces Of Horses Might Put Investigation In Jeopardy ( I just can’t believe their reasoning, are they using facial recognition?)
“Portage County APL investigators asked that we not show the horses faces, fearing they may be recognizable, possibly putting their investigation in jeopardy.”
http://fox8.com/2017/08/08/horses-rescued-after-being-found-neglected-and-malnourished-in-portage-county/
Portland’s Precrime Experiment and the Limits of Algorithms:
The competition asked entrants to make place-based predictions for crimes occurring in Portland Oregon over the three month period beginning March 1, 2017. These predictions were to cover different criminal offense types (e.g., burglary and motor vehicle theft) over a variety of timeframes (i.e., one week, two weeks, one month, two months, and three months).
https://lawyerist.com/precrime-in-portland-a-canary-in-the-data-mine/
Real-Time Crime Forecasting Challenge:
https://nij.gov/funding/Pages/fy16-crime-forecasting-challenge.aspx
DNA collected at arrest often not removed from crime databases for those not convicted:
Ohio is among more than 30 states in recent years that have expanded their reach to collect DNA samples from people when they are arrested, rather than convicted, of serious crimes.
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/08/dna_collected_at_arrest_often_not_removed_from_crime_databases_for_those_not_convicted.html
Has Jeff Sessions Rendered Crime Scene Science Useless?
http://citywatchla.com/index.php/important-reads/13774-has-jeff-sessions-rendered-crime-scene-science-useless
Controversial medical examiner backs off ‘shaken baby’ claim in death penalty case:
http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2017/08/14/pathologist-says-no-sexual-abuse-despite-death-penalty-conviction/563830001/
Behind The Scenes Look At Controversial Police Interrogation Method:
http://iowawatch.org/2017/08/07/podcast-behind-the-scenes-report-about-controversial-police-interrogation-method/
The Reid Interrogation Technique and False Confessions: A Time for Change:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3002338
Innocent Man Awarded $2.3 Million After Police And The DA Hid DNA Results:
Federal appeals judges unanimously reinstated a $2.3 million award to a Baltimore man mistaken for the “Charles Village Rapist” and held in solitary confinement for more than a year beginning in 2008.
Marlow Humbert sued the Baltimore Police Department in 2011, saying detectives had DNA results within about a month of his arrest that exonerated him, but continued to hold him on the rape charge. He was homeless when arrested.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-humbert-award-reinstated-20170808-story.html
The FBI evidence lab, a cesspool:
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/08/22/the-fbi-evidence-lab-a-cesspool/
Missouri governor stays execution of convicted killer amid new DNA evidence:
The execution of Marcellus Williams, 48, had been scheduled for Tuesday evening.
His attorneys said that DNA evidence unavailable during his 2001 trial proved his innocence.
However, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office had argued the execution should be carried out, saying the DNA evidence doesn’t overcome non-DNA evidence that connects the inmate to the crime.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/22/us/execution-missouri-marcellus-williams/index.html
Court Strips Immunity From Bite Mark Experts Who Put Wrong Man In Jail For 23 Years:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170820/09535138046/court-strips-immunity-bite-mark-experts-who-put-wrong-man-jail-23-years.shtml
DNA sequencing tools lack robust protections against cybersecurity risks:
“So far, the researchers stress, there’s no evidence of malicious attacks on DNA synthesizing, sequencing and processing services. But their analysis of software used throughout that pipeline found known security gaps that could allow unauthorized parties to gain control of computer systems — potentially giving them access to personal information or even the ability to manipulate DNA results.”
http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/08/10/dna-sequencing-tools-lack-robust-protections-against-cybersecurity-risks/
Woman Sues Cops After Court Overturns Shaken-Baby Conviction:
https://www.courthousenews.com/woman-sues-cops-court-overturns-shaken-baby-conviction/
Law enforcement can now scan your DNA in 90 minutes, but should they?
“It’s dangerous to have massive DNA databases with the scope of collection expanding rapidly, when we are far behind on proper policies governing its use,” said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Should we draw the line at arrest? Should I be able to erase my DNA records if the arrest was wrongful or I wasn’t convicted? Should we draw the line at conviction? Why not put everybody’s DNA in the FBI’s database?”
How Taser inserts itself into investigations involving its own weapons:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-taser-experts/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=twitter
DA complains to judge about the Innocence Project’s bite mark story:
DA Richard A. Consiglio said attorneys for the Innocence Project, M. Chris Fabricant and Dana Delger, were attempting “to try the case in public.”
He called the remarks about Kopriva’s March 8 ruling “outrageous,” contending that they could affect the jury pool.
“We don’t know who’s looking at the website,” he said.
http://www.altoonamirror.com/news/local-news/2017/08/da-blasts-defense-blog-in-ross-case/
UK Police Test Facial Recognition Tech At Carnival, Rack Up 35 Bogus ‘Hits’ And One Wrongful Arrest:
Silkie Carlo, the technology policy officer for human rights group Liberty, observed the trial and described it as a “worryingly inaccurate and painfully crude facial recognition operation”.
Ms Carlo explained that the erroneously arrested individual was flagged up as being wanted on warrant for a rioting offense.
http://news.sky.com/story/police-facial-recognition-trial-led-to-erroneous-arrest-11013418
DHS Blows $5 Million on Bogus Polygraphs for “Unsuitable” Job Applicants Who Admit Criminal Acts, Drug Use
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2017/08/dhs-blows-5-mil-polygraphs-unsuitable-job-applicants-admit-criminal-acts-drug-use/
Doping in sports: Official tests fail to pick up majority of cases:
“Overall, this study suggests that biological tests of blood and urine greatly underestimate the true prevalence of doping,” emphasizes Pope, who is also a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “As we note in the paper, this is probably due to the fact that athletes have found various ways to beat the tests.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170829090950.htm
International Forensic Science Error Management Symposium:
https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/2017/07/2017-international-forensic-science-error-management-symposium
Speaking of Error in Forensic Science:
http://www.imperialvalleynews.com/index.php/8-news/12053-speaking-of-error-in-forensic-science.html
Two men convicted of the same murder finally cleared by DNA 20 years later:
“Sometimes innocent people are locked away for crimes they didn’t commit. Less widely understood is just how reluctant the system is to righting those wrongs.”
“No one tracks how often the wrongly convicted are pressured to accept plea deals in lieu of exonerations.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/what-does-an-innocent-man-have-to-do-alford-plea-guilty
Mass. Man Sues State For $.5.7Million Over Crack Using Drug Chemist:
A critical issue for state prosecutors was the timeline of Farak’s drug use, which they initially estimated at four months — but, in fact, it began as early as 2004. She worked at the lab until her arrest in 2013. Her admissions and conviction have tainted “countless” drug cases, according to Penate’s lawsuit.
Penate’s attorney, Luke Ryan, argues in his complaint that an email from a state trooper to state prosecutors compiling evidence for post-conviction motions in the Farak case concealed a “smoking gun” in the form of mental health diaries in which the chemist self-reported drug use on the job to a treatment center.
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/09/drug_defendant_released_after.html
Man freed after 31 years won’t face second trial for fatal arson:
http://www.newenglandinnocence.org/innocence-blog/2017/5/11/a-step-closer-to-justice-for-victor-rosario