An Open Letter on Shaken Baby Syndrome and Courts: A False and Flawed Premise

Posted on February 6, 2015 by csidds

This article shows how much effort is necessary to bust through the courts’ plodding understanding of invalid forensics.

Phil Locke's avatarWrongful Convictions Blog

A group of 34 esteemed doctors, medical professionals, and international experts has jointly published a letter regarding the problem of how SBS is currently being prosecuted in the courts.

See the Argument & Critique website posting here.     Or acces a .pdf copy here: Open letter on SBS

This is a very big deal.

One excerpt from the letter: “It has to be said that there are powerful vested interests in suppressing any open discussion in, or outside, the courts about the viability of the SBS construct. The motives are financial and the preservation of reputations. One of the consequences has been the vilification of experts prepared to advance competing theories and the suppression of sensible debate.” (And if I may just interject – this is exactly what I have been saying on this blog for the last three years.)

It’s notable that Dr. A. Norman…

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Forensics: Costs of forensic expert witnesses in a murder trial with the defendant facing the death penalty.

Posted on February 5, 2015 by csidds

Costs of forensic expert witnesses in a murder trial with the defendant facing the death penalty. Pathologist = $300/hr. Psychiatrist = $500/hr. “Mitigation specialist” = $100/hr. All have caps on maximum amount allowed.

Ballistics: OC Crime Lab Goes 3D – Matching bullet groves to suspect weapons considered a reliable forensic “tool.” 

 Opinion: Reliability is a two way street in forensic reform: In the lab and the courtroom.

[excerpt] “That forensic science is in need of restructuring is hardly earth-shattering news. Six years ago, in 2009, the National Academy of Sciences published a revealing report, “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward,” which detailed the burdens facing forensic science.” Full article. 

Man wrongfully jailed for 2 months on sex crime freed after Denver police find lab tech made error

DENVER – Denver police and prosecutors say a man wrongfully jailed as a sexual assault suspect for two months was freed Wednesday after police found that a crime-lab technician had mistakenly linked the man’s DNA to the attack. Full article.

 

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Wednesday’s Quick Forensic and Crim Law Clicks…

Posted on February 4, 2015 by csidds

Continuing the topics of 1) impossible legal rules preventing exonerations, 2) China’s problem’s with wrongful convictions, 3) $$ for exoneration litigation (The Bronx Defenders can’t apply according to NYC mayor DeBlasio, 4) CA judges are upset with DAs lying. (AG Kamala Harris is running for US Senate. Her stance on exons has been anti exon), 5) Pick your state’s exon record from a map, 6) opine on 125 exons in 2014.

Some of mine:

Use of force: Shooting of unarmed motorist reaching back into his car for wallet settled for $$. 

Defense expert challenges crime scene conclusions in murder case. 

“I needed more information,” Billau testified. “The initial documentation from the scene concerning the crime scene was insufficient.”

There were several things that were not documented in the crime scene reports that Billau testified are important to have in making accurate conclusions during a death investigation.

It was apparent to Billau that several items in the Kent Lane home were moved both during the time paramedics were attending to Harry, as well as during the evidence collection process.

 

 

Mark Godsey's avatarWrongful Convictions Blog

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Forensic experts take on the NAS concerns about fingerprint examiners’ disagreement.

Posted on February 3, 2015 by csidds

Fingerprint Examiners Found to Have Very Low Error Rates {By a group of 109 government fingerprint experts

Investigations into the reliability of fingerprint matches continues. This news release from a NIJ funded project states a strong position for its reliability (in its essence, everyone agrees in this study). Following this is a link to what the National Academy of Sciences 2009 report outlined regarding their concerns. To be fair, the NAS stated multiple areas of necessary research should be done. Among them were quality control and minimum thresholds of detail necessary for a positive comparison to be achieved. This PR report is silent as to whether this study actually sought to investigate aspects of validity (prints are all unique/ no two prints are ever the same) and assumptions print experts still make in order get into court. The NIJ spokeperson’s quote about this study wrapping-up all of these in one research package is a bit of forensic puffery. But this is forensic science right? 

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2015/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A large-scale study of the accuracy and reliability of decisions made by latent fingerprint examiners found that examiners make extremely few errors. Even when examiners did not get an independent second opinion about the decisions, they were remarkably accurate. But when decisions were verified by an independent reviewer, examiners had a 0% false positive, or incorrect identification, rate and a 3% false negative, or missed identification, rate. The study was released today and funded by the Office of Justice Programs’ National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

“The results from the Miami-Dade team address the accuracy, reliability, and validity in the forensic science disciplines, a need that was identified in the 2009 National Academies report, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward.” Said Gerald LaPorte, Director of NIJ’s Office of Investigative and Forensic Sciences.

The research team, from the Miami-Dade Police Department Forensic Services Bureau Fingerprint Identification Section, tested the accuracy of 109 fingerprint examiners from 76 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies from across the United States. Examiners were presented with a variety of comparison challenges with varying degrees of difficulty. The study also measured how often individual examiners repeated their own decisions and how often different examiners came to the same conclusion.

 National Academy of Science Report on Fingerprints (2009) stated the following about fingerprints: This starts on page 136.

Page 139 has a section stating the NAS concerns about subjective phases of fingerprint comparisons.

 The NAS wrote:

Note that the ACE-V method does not specify particular measurements or a standard test protocol, and examiners must make subjective assessments throughout. In the United States, the threshold for making a “source” (comment: i.e. the perpetrator or person of interest) identification is deliberately kept subjective, so that the examiner can take into account both the quantity and quality of comparable details. As a result, the outcome of a friction ridge analysis is not necessarily repeatable from examiner to examiner. In fact, recent research by Dror  has shown that experienced examiners do not necessarily agree with even their own past conclusions when the examination is presented in a different context some time later.

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Perjury Prosecution for Lying Prosecutors?

Posted on February 2, 2015 by csidds

Followup discussion on prosectors losing their moral compass in criminal courts. Its very rare for the courts to enforce penalties on District Attorneys. The Bar Associations certainly don’t care.

Phil Locke's avatarWrongful Convictions Blog

I am not an attorney, but in my layman’s, non-legal opinion this is potentially (and I say only potentially) huge.

The US Ninth Circuit has advocated criminal perjury prosecution for a prosecutor who lied to the court.  See our previous post about lying federal prosecutors here – in this case, the offending prosecutor got off with just a stern rebuke by the judge, which is sadly typical.

The Ninth Circuit has “recommended” perjury prosecution for a prosecutor who lied about benefits offered to a jailhouse snitch for his testimony.  Incentivizing testimony from snitches is nothing new.  It happens routinely.  But think about this.  If a defense attorney offered benefits to a witness for their testimony, it would be bribery, and the attorney could be prosecuted.  If a prosecutor offers benefits to a witness (snitch), it’s called “cooperation.”  What’s wrong with this picture?!

Now, here’s the “catch” about the…

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The personal dangers of protecting the innocent and underprivileged around the world : Similar issues exist in the US.

Posted on February 2, 2015 by csidds

Millions of DNA samples stored in warehouse worry privacy advocates in California. Medical researchers have found it useful. Citizens generally unaware. via csidds.com

http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-dna-privacy-20150202-story.html

csidds's avatarFORENSICS and LAW in FOCUS @ CSIDDS | News and Trends

Civil rights and humanitarian legal advocacy is “The most dangerous job in law.” Prison, exile and worse exists around the world for legal advocates.  These stories make the pushback in the US against forensic and judicial reform seem paltry in comparison. Unless you are a US victim of the same set of oppressive mistreatment (Michael Moore from Texas). More cases: here (Douglas Prade from Ohio and William Richards from California) and here (Gerard Richardson from New Jersey). Ray Krone (AZ) was on death row. 

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CA judges warn of an “epidemic” of prosecution misconduct.” I.E. lawyers lying.

This is terrible. NYC To Pay $5M To Kin Of Man Killed By Detectives Moonlighting As Hitmen.

This is the fear w/ understaffed forensic operations “Delayed DNA testing allowed alleged rapists 2 commit new crimes.” Almost one-half of the NY Innocence Project’s 315 exonerations have led authorities to the true criminal.

Strange case of…

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The personal dangers of protecting the innocent and underprivileged around the world : Similar issues exist in the US.

Posted on February 1, 2015 by csidds

Civil rights and humanitarian legal advocacy is “The most dangerous job in law.” Prison, exile and worse exists around the world for legal advocates.  These stories make the pushback in the US against forensic and judicial reform seem paltry in comparison. Unless you are a US victim of the same set of oppressive mistreatment (Michael Moore from Texas). More cases: here (Douglas Prade from Ohio and William Richards from California) and here (Gerard Richardson from New Jersey). Ray Krone (AZ) was on death row. 

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CA judges warn of an “epidemic” of prosecution misconduct.” I.E. lawyers lying.

This is terrible. NYC To Pay $5M To Kin Of Man Killed By Detectives Moonlighting As Hitmen.

This is the fear w/ understaffed forensic operations “Delayed DNA testing allowed alleged rapists 2 commit new crimes.” Almost one-half of the NY Innocence Project’s 315 exonerations have led authorities to the true criminal.

Strange case of the either murdered or suicided female Argentine prosecutor.

‘I’d like to move on,’ Josue Ortiz says simply after 10 years’ wrongful incarceration

 Federal judge gets DOJ to change attitude about forensic testimony review by National Commision on Forensic Science

More on this here. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/30/us-rakoff-evidence-idUSKBN0L32B020150130

 

 

 

 

Posted in AAFS, costs of wrongful convictions, criminal justice, exoneration, forensic science reform, National FOrensic Science Commission, prosecutorial misconduct, Ray Krone bitemark case, William Richards Exoneration Case | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Full text of judge’s resignation letter to US forsci commission

Posted on January 30, 2015 by csidds

Read this. This plays to the politics behind the National Forensic Science Commission. The right to a fair trial and a fully informed defense takes another hit. The Commission is strongly composed of government employed forensic experts from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. In stark irony, the AAFS meeting on Feb 18 in Orlando FLA is themed “Cognitive Bias in The Forensic Sciences.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/full-text-judges-protest-resignation-letter/2015/01/29/41659da6-a7e1-11e4-a2b2-776095f393b2_story.html

Then the next day, the DOJ backs off.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/in-reversal-doj-lets-forensic-panel-suggest-trial-rule-changes-after-us-judge-protests/2015/01/30/2f031d9e-a89c-11e4-a2b2-776095f393b2_story.html

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News Break : National Commission on Forensic Science member quits due to DOJ

Posted on January 29, 2015 by csidds

Another addition to the growing list of questionable agenda and actions involving this Commission. Previous blogs at csidds.com talked  about how the bitemark sub-committee, its chairman and its dentist members, are all adherents to the “shaky” forensic science of bitemark identification.  And here. 

From  the WSJ

A Justice Department commission on forensic science has lost one of its most prominent members, Manhattan federal judge Jed Rakoff, who quit the advisory body in the wake of a decision not to let participants examine how forensic evidence is prepared for trial.

WSJ’s Devlin Barrett reports:

Judge Rakoff —a longtime jurist in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and a frequent critic of the Justice Department’s handling of financial misconduct cases—told colleagues of his decision in a letter Wednesday.

A copy of the letter, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, said Judge Rakoff was recently told by the No. 2 official the Justice Department that the National Commission on Forensic Science wouldn’t look at how scientific evidence is shared in the discovery phase of trial preparation. “Discovery’’ is a term for the sharing of evidence by both sides ahead of a trial, so that each side can prepare to counter with its own evidence or legal argument.

Judge Rakoff noted that currently, federal prosecutors have fewer discovery obligations when it comes to scientific evidence than do plaintiffs in civil lawsuits. Judge Rakoff didn’t spell out which scientific areas most concern him, but many lawyers and judges have raised questions about ballistics, arson science, and handwriting analysis, among others.

Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce said, “While the department is disappointed in Judge Rakoff’s decision, this was a basic disagreement about the scope of the commission’s work.’’ She said many of the suggestions concerning pretrial discovery have already been adopted by her office.

The National Commission on Forensic Science was set up in 2013 to improve the reliability of forensic science amid concerns that unreliable testimony from FBI experts and shaky science was being used to convict people.

Judge Rakoff, who serves on a number of panels related to how science is used in the courtroom, called the Justice Department’s decision “unsupportable.’’ The letter continued “I feel I have no choice’’ but to resign from the commission.

“If an adversary does not know in advance sufficient information about the forensic expert and the methodological and evidentiary bases for that expert’s opinions, the testimony of the expert is nothing more than trial by ambush,’’ Judge Rakoff argued in the letter to colleagues.

“Does the department have to be reminded of the many cases of grossly inaccurate forensic testimony that led to the creation of the Commission?” Judge Rakoff wrote.

 Article from the WSJ blog. 

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UK: Worries about forensic science capabilities elicits a response from police

Posted on January 29, 2015 by csidds

UK: Law enforcement tries to calm the public about below average forensic science capabilities.

In response to this news article about the threat to investigatory capabilities of police crime labs, this response just came out from South Wales police agency.

“This truly is a centre of excellence and we have a dedicated team of crime scene investigators and specialist staff who conduct detailed forensic examinations of crime scenes to gather evidence and the work we do here is of the highest standard — helping to support investigations and catch and convict offenders.”

Short statement is here. 

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Otzi the paleolithic ice-man from the Alps has more secrets to tell. 

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