Its great to know that university people are looking to improve imaging for impression evidence. This time its shoe prints. Too bad the experimenter thinks that “gait” leads to a “somewhat distinctive” pattern which then begs the question about false positive results or exaggeration. I still remember the shoes OJ owned were “somewhat distinctive.” And “they fit.” (this last is from the FBI expert in 1997).
Tampered drug evidence in Oregon crime lab investigation continues. So far, 7 cases will be dismissed. More work will be needed for DA to finish hundreds of case reviews. Defense attorneys probably will run big objections to cases not dismissed by the DA’s task force.
Def Atty candidate for Lake County Ill. DA spot talks about “confusion” of Republican incumbent’s record and lack of a full-time Conviction Integrity Unit. Lake Co has had a handful of very expenses exonerations. The public’s interest seems lackluster.
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I think Dr. Lee’s quote (after the Court TV re-cap from 2007) indicates he’s curious about how all this could contrast with his own testimony from the original trial. He was an OJ forensic science expert and confabulated most of us by saying two perps “could have been” at the crime scene. This certainly put him on the 5 Star list for the media. His work centered on shoe imprints and some general statements about DNA testing reliability from 1995.
Here’s some of his court comments archived by Court TV.
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(Court TV) — Developments in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson from August 28-September 1, 1995
AUGUST 28
Prosecutors tried to minimize the impact of the testimony of Dr. Henry Lee, whose testimony solidified several aspects of the defense theory of the case.
Lee conceded that he was unable to determine with certainty whether some of the imprint patterns he observed were actually footprints.
After Prosecutor Hank Goldberg showed a videotape of policemen walking through the walkway at Nicole Brown Simpson’s home on June 13, 1994, Lee conceded that two police officers’ shoes could not be eliminated as the source of suspicious prints at the murder scene. But the witness said it was an unlikely scenario.
“I don’t think these two officers deposited these shoe prints,” Lee said of marks on the bloodstained tiles. “I don’t think their shoes are parallel design.” But when asked if he could eliminate the chance that the officers deposited some imprints, Lee said, “I cannot eliminate.”
Lee told jurors earlier that he examined photos taken by police but also went to the crime scene two weeks after the killings and did his own investigating. He said that was when he discovered extra “imprints” with a parallel design on the walkway that could be consistent with shoes.
Using a giant magnifying glass to look at photos, Lee showed jurors the extra imprints. Prosecution experts saw only one set of prints from a Bruno Magli shoe that prosecutors have tried to link to Simpson.
Lee’s imprint testimony is crucial to the defense hypothesis that more than one attacker was involved in the murders. Lee also has told jurors he saw extra imprints in police pictures of Ronald Goldman’s jeans, a bloodstained envelope and a piece of paper found near the bodies.
On re-direct examination, defense attorney Barry Scheck pointed out that the envelope, paper and jeans all were collected by police on June 13. Lee testified that the prints he saw on the items could not have been made by police officers who walked on the Bundy walkway afterwards.
In other testimony, Lee conceded that his laboratory uses a type of DNA testing that another defense scientist challenged as unreliable.
At another point in his testimony, Lee appeared to contradict another defense expert by testifying that he uses the DNA analysis test known as PCR in his crime lab. Microbiologist John Gerdes previously testified that PCR works well in sterile environments but could falter with evidence collected at messy crime scenes.
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There’s no legal recourse for prosecutors regarding Simpson’s not guilty status. But, the jury’s suspicion and nullification of the crime scene DNA could be strongly contradicted by new testing results. This is all speculative but interesting.
Legal expert Laurie Levenson gives short shrift to ideas that any of this OJ clamor has any value. “They should have found it 20 years ago.”
Having just returned from the forensic science AAFS annual meeting, all I heard from the DNA people was that their conference was quiet and rather boring. They seemed to prefer sitting in the odontology bitemark session which was SRO. We all heard more of the “baby out with the bath water” pleadings which were predicted in last week’s from post. Boringgg.
This “touch” DNA controversy is entirely another matter. This is not boring.
“The Invincible Prosecutor”
This is not about prosecutors being harassed for doing an ethical job protecting our society. Its about outrageous absolute immunity currently upheld by a notorious SCOTUS decision in 2011 that protected beyond dubious prosecutorial misconduct as revealed in Connick v. Thompson.
Article on a wishful hope for future SCOTUS review on how consequences for egregious cases of lying, cheating, and unethical prosecutors could improve the quality and fairness of criminal justice in the US.
A UK jurist (President of the UK Supreme Court in London) asks for documents consolidating “science” facts for use in courts to “save time” confusion and “needless disputes.” He mentions patent law as an area which gives judges a treatise on certain established principles settled and not in dispute. He lays the job to the forensic science communities. This is almost the same as having court-appointed science panels oversight expert testimony before its admission in court. This is one optimistic judge.
More on forensics follows below:
Distance determination in gunshot testimony. Plus a jumbled comment about “stove-piping” in this murder trial.
Italian student underwent 7 days of torture.
Marijuana DNA looked at to determine origins of the plant. I am sure someone is archiving this info into a database.
Typical defense arguments about why police did not expand DNA and fingerprint crime scene collection beyond the identification of the defendant. DNA from owner’s gun indicated two people had contact, but the sample was not good enough for profiling.
The ninth NCFS meeting is March 21 and 22, 2016 They promise to have their copious work product available sometime soon. I hope. Keep looking for it at:
Written comment acceptance starts on March 7, 2016. www.regulations.gov
Written comments acceptance ends on April 5, 2016.
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Hair is gone, lead in bullets is out, bitemarks as “fingerprints” has died, graphology disappeared, so what’s next?
Alot.
Last fall I had pleasant conversation with Professor (Yale) Jo Handelsman from the White House Office of Sci and Tech. We conversed a bit on the process of what “forensic reform” meant to various stakeholders and gatekeepers who play within the criminal justice industry. I was assured that the WH has been reverse engineering most forensic sciences which led to wrongful convictions and had a broad plan to make effect change within the time limits of President Obama’s presidential term.
Here is a good example of the WH’s planning being highlighted in this next step of scrutiny.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/justice-dept-stress-test-fbi-forensic-sciences-37175025
FORENSICS and LAW in FOCUS @ CSIDDS | News and Trends 