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Author Archives: csidds
Here we go again. Police Chief takes on problems in his Forensics DNA lab
Chief Hank Stawinski (above) is getting outside auditing help for his county crime lab. This article seems to say that an employee of his had previously been working at the Austin TX crime lab that was shut down last year. … Continue reading
Dubai Forensic meeting starts with a news article about semi-reliable certainties
This meeting in the UAE sounds interesting. It is named “Spotlight on Forensic Science.” I’m sure some important US forensic folks are attending. Barry Fisher of the AAFS is second speaker on the subject of “admissibility of pattern evidence” and … Continue reading
Progressive DAs get backlash from their “lock-em-up” peers like Michael Ramos
Originally posted on FORENSICS and LAW in FOCUS @ CSIDDS | News and Trends:
District Attorney Aramis D. Ayala of Orlando, FL is getting targeted for realizing that the death penalty is only in play in 0.01% of her criminal cases and…
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Left for Dead: DNA lab closes its doors for Missing and Unknown cases. No $$
Program to identify dead and missing across US put on hold Another example of the inequality towards forensic science (“..in the middle of an upheaval”) being merely a blip on the funding radar of the prancing ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric … Continue reading
Overreaching judge bans autopsy report on subject of police restraint Cause of Death
Here’s a rather strange ruling that short-stops criminal investigators looking into the manner (homicide, accidental or natural?) of an adult females’s death while in police custody. I’m assuming the legal theory on excluding a medical examiner’s report is that it … Continue reading
These 8 serial executions in Arkansas are sickening.
The death penalty is broken, but that isn’t stopping Arkansas. The state plans to execute 8 people in 10 days so it can use up nearly-expired – and dangerous – execution drugs. Arkansas’s planned assembly line of executions is irresponsible, … Continue reading
Progressive DAs get backlash from their “lock-em-up” peers like Michael Ramos
District Attorney Aramis D. Ayala of Orlando, FL is getting targeted for realizing that the death penalty is only in play in 0.01% of her criminal cases and is much too expensive to pursue. Elected Senior Prosecutors and police chiefs … Continue reading
Leading Australian state DNA analyst seems to be in a bit of a pickle
This one article ( from a large collection) about a very senior Western Australia DNA prosecutorial lab DNA scientist raises a bunch of questions on his decades long case work. Here are some key comments: State’s leading DNA expert sacked. … Continue reading
Forensics: Archaic and scientifically bogus TX mental disability statute ruled unconstitutional
SCOTUS Rejects Texas’s Death Penalty Standards for Disabled Inmates – This could be huge for other states to follow suit regarding mental competence and the death penalty. Texas’s standards for evaluating mentally disabled death row inmates are unconstitutional, the Supreme … Continue reading
Proactive DA takes on issue of 600 cases involving chemist with drug addiction
This DA doing the right thing quickly. “From various parts of the country over the years have come stories about prosecutors and courts reluctant to overturn convictions even when defendants’ rights have been violated or when key evidence subsequently proved … Continue reading
FORENSICS and LAW in FOCUS @ CSIDDS | News and Trends 