A bill in the state of South Carolina will take death examiners back to the middle ages.
“Don’t dumb down coroner pool.”
Amen to that. A 40 hour ‘training’ for death investigation? Here’s some CSI talk about coroners.
Interesting look at the application of full body virtopsy scans as either a replacement or adjunct for conventional dissection forensic protocols. The writer considers the options and discusses the need for coroner/ME people being trained to read the CT and MRI scans. She opines that certain micro and tissue evidence is still necessary.
I have heard similar regarding dental autopsies where radiographs in some California jurisdictions are being substituted for actual full dental examinations done by odontologists. The same caveats apply as many dental restorations in this era of ‘holistic’ and cosmetic dentistry are very similar in material density as actual dental tissues. Take a close look at the pic at the top.
Just saying…….
Waney Squier, the neuropathologist got ‘delisted’ on a complaint from the coppers about lying ( aka ‘misleading’) the court.
Shirley McKie, a SPA fingerprint expert, got charged for ‘perjury’ (again in court) by the coppers, tried for perjury , acquitted, twice sued for damages , reinstated by a court and then last week locked out by her own police agency.
Plus here’s something about the colleague (male) who accused the SPA of purposely distorting fingerprint evidence used against her. He got canned too.
Somewhere in the McKie dust-up, a Scot high court judge opined that experts should be immune from prosecution for their courtroom testimony. I think he was pondering the chilling effect of prosecutors going after experts they don’t like (aka malicious prosecution).
Here is a bunch of Scot cases talking about immunity for experts during trials.
Is there a common source for these prints?
Shirley McKie was and maybe still is, a fingerprint detective with a Scottish police agency. In the late 90’s she was part of a murder investigation that centered on identifying the man later convicted but released years later. The fingerprint of defendant Asbury was found on a tin at the murder scene. Collection of other unknown prints brought up detective McKie’s on a door frame, according to staff examiners. During criminal proceedings, McKie denied having been at the crime scene. That brought into question the integrity of the crime scene processing (the OJ defense) which led to Asbury’s overturned conviction.
Some very upset prosecutors put the detective on trial for perjury in 1998. She was acquitted in 1999.
She got canned.
She sued. More than once. Political inquiries then abounded.
“Furthermore, a member of the Scottish Parliament somewhat unusually invited fingerprint experts from around the world to examine the prints. 171 experts from numerous countries all reached the same conclusion – that the two latent prints [ errata: McKie’s archived 10 print and the door frame evidence ] did not match.”
The four in-house Scot print examiners later were cobbled up in this mess and most retired.
Two compensation packages were awarded. The first was for L750,000. The most recent amounted to L300,000 for back pay since 2007. Plus a court order to be reinstated at her job at the Scottish Police Authority.
That last part didn’t happen, as after 10 years being off the job, the cops locked her out this week when she arrived for her shift.
One determined lady. Kudos.
Forensic Failures: The Shirley McKie Fingerprint Scandal (2015).
The story up to 2011 that is on Wikipedia. (caveat emptor).
I haven’t run across any evidence that the April 22 March for Science national event has hit the radar of major US forensic organizations. The fact is that most members are local, state or federal employees. Certainly many call themselves ‘scientists.’ Maybe some are feeling ‘chilled’ like NOAA, EPA, FDA staffers are about their Trump era budget cuts. Academics devoted to any forensic research also have their government funding to be concerned about.
Yorkshire police and cohabiting private forensic lab talk about their successes since FSS shutdown. Its all about ‘saving’ money, although they allude that ‘most testing’ stays in house. They nabbed a murderer by profiling attacker’s DNA from the victim’s false teeth.
Online survey of 217 Red and Blue ppl reveals forensics considered top in reliability and astrophysics along with evolution at the bottom. (??) “People have no idea which sciences are robust.” Ars Technica
A UK police crime lab reminisces about the history of their using DNA profiling.
$30 million award to two men imprisoned 32 years by junk science. (arson).
Opening words at the American Academy of Forensic Science 2017 meeting.
The NYPD, FBI and the NY Medical Examiner’s office can’t seem to get their stories straight on this case. Its about a (duh da duh)…… dead Russian diplomat.
Irish Catholic home for infants and unwed mothers buried 800 bodies in recently discovered unmarked gravesites on its’ property.
‘Fauxrensics’ looks at some myths about DNA and its role in solving crimes. Short vids on many areas of criminal investigation.
Chemical and bacterial analysis from hydrogel (captured living cells) infused gloves taking shape at MIT.
The application of measurement (metrology) science is well established in the basic sciences. In essence it is the collection of physical data and the study of best methods to improve precision of methods. This paper has a well known fingerprint practitioner and defense attorney giving line-by-line explanations about what the NAS and the PCAST studies meant to be eventually adopted but instead got ham-fisted rejection from high-brow district attorneys and police supported organizations.
Here is an excerpt about forensic “research gaps” and “suitability” of the forensic community being capable of filling those gaps. Some discerning advocates for “science in forensics” think it won’t happen as long as police control the purse strings. These 2 say the necessary science for all the pattern people lays outside the crime labs of the world.
……….the forensic science community has critical research gaps that need to be filled. The forensic science community [3], [12] recognized this; however, the forensic science community is not necessarily best positioned to address these issues [2]. Aside from extraordinary backlogs and significant funding constraints, these issues are most appropriately addressed by independent research entities with specialized knowledge in science, metrology, and statistics. To this end, the forensic science community is in a state of despondency and is reliant on researchers and metrologists, most of whom are unaware of these issues, to invest time and resources to contribute to solving this extremely important problem – a problem that has practical consequences that impact life and liberty within the criminal justice system.
metrology-applied-to-forensic-science-a-call-for-more-forensic-science-metrology-principles-swofford-a (5 pages). A publication of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Magazine
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I recently attended a two day training seminar sponsored by CA DOJ’s Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit (MUPS) hosted at the Westmister CA police department and was able to do a bit of presenting as well. Many dentists with forensic training are involved with this valuable state agency.
MUPS is the state repository and clearinghouse for missing and unknown person information. Its nine person staff provides an incredible collection of services for law enforcement agencies both at the national an international levels that cover:
MUPS contacts. Phone: (916) 210-3119, FAX: (916) 227-3270 EMAIL: missing.persons@doj.ca.gov
From the archives. Smithsonian talks about the career of a very reclusive founding father of scientific approaches to trace evidence analysis who worked from 1929 to 1954. Some called him “Detective X.” Somehow he determined the ransom notes in the Lindberg kidnapping case was from a German ex-con.
Another US crime labber hits the skids. Deputy lab director accused of faking (i.e. ‘altering’) lab reports. The US Atty General should investigate the rising crime rate within police run crime labs. He posits against facts that the US crime rate is ‘out of control’ and pot is destroying the fabric of American society.
Ex police chief gets his city owned cell phone cracked for over 2000 messages. He’s on trial for a host of improprieties. It cost $5000 for the recovery. That’s a bit less than what the FBI allegedly paid to hack an iPhone of its mass shooter in San Bernardino last year. Try $1,000,000.
Fingerprinting for background checks fail a test for effectiveness. National Academy of Science. But, what do they know about forensics? The US prosecutors (@ndaa) say the NAS is just a bunch of academic “elites.” Here is an excerpt from ‘The Hill:’
“Instead of “beacons of change,” prosecutors remain obstinately mired in the unscientific and error-prone past. Their stubborn unwillingness to improve our justice system by repetitively refusing to adopt recommended scientific reforms will result in additional murky criminal convictions marred by faulty forensic evidence.”
The Florida gators ( not the football team) will get some tasty morsels with that state’s new ‘body farm.’
From the NY Legal Aid Blog: @LegalAidNYC
Florida police use a new biometric fingerprint software to identify and arrest a man for 1992 sexual assault that their old system could not identify (Tampa Bay Times)
Scientists develop a forensic hair analysis method using amino acids and peptides found in hair to identify people (CBS News)
Texas Forensic Science Commission has determined that the complaint against the Austin police crime lab for improperly drawing blood samples in DWI cases is unfounded and will not be investigated (Austin American-Statesman)
Related: Austin Chronicle
The strange outcome of Nazi Josef Mengele’s remains puts him in the middle of forensic training in South America. After WWII, and decades of being hunted by Israel, his hide-out in Brazil was discovered in the early 80’s. These 1985 stock photos show that the skull recovered in Brazil has full upper and partial lower dentures. It is interesting that these dentures were not lost, as I’ve seen drowning victims who lose false teeth during their terminal event.
His remains were exhumed years after Mengele was reported to have drowned. A team of US forensic types showed to make international news reports. The attending dentist became a super star although dentures seldom have identifying features. The pre-DNA identification of Mengele heavily hung on photo superimposition of Mengele images and the skull. Short video. 1992 had Sir Alec Jeffreys bring the final answer to the ID with a 10 allele concordance using DNA from Mengele’s son and the skeleton. He calculated the random match chance to be 1 in 1800.
Better story about Mengele’s days in Brazil.
End note: Human rights seem to be of little concern for #45. “Human Rights Watch lists Trump as threat to human rights.”
FORENSICS and LAW in FOCUS @ CSIDDS | News and Trends 