NEWSFORENSIC SCIENCE

Last week, officials in North Carolina announced a crime lab analyst near the center of recent controversy was fired. Some began questioning just how meaningful the termination was and what other steps were being taken towards reform. But as soon as questions formed on their lips, Attorney General Roy Cooper held a press conference extolling the reported strides the state is making.

The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) Crime Labs has been in the local spotlight for over six months now after a scathing audit of the DNA unit brought numerous problems into the spotlight. After national media attention and overturned convictions, people have been pushing Cooper to make significant changes, though they've seemed to be very slow in coming.

Following the February 2010 exoneration of Greg Taylor, wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, Attorney General Roy Cooper ordered an audit of the state’s DNA crime lab. Taylor’s case indicated a culture of bad science at the lab, a place where it seemed commonplace for analysts to withhold blood evidence that could exonerate defendants. The audit would uncover more than 200 cases where the SBI withheld or distorted such evidence, 80 of which involved people still serving time for convictions that may have otherwise been avoided.

National headlines were made this past spring when it was uncovered that Debbie Madden, a now former San Francisco drug lab worker, was pocketing cocaine from the lab in which she worked to supply a personal habit. But while the nation was paying attention to the drug lab, which handles thousands upon thousands of cases every year, a quieter scandal was building within the city’s smaller but even more crucial DNA crime lab.

Evidence concealment, DNA switching and lax security are just a few of the issues uncovered in a remarkable report from SF Weekly released earlier this week. But with the San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris in the midst of the scandal and rising to her newly elected position as state Attorney General this coming year, one has to wonder where the complaints should go and what can be done.

In the wake of the Madden shakeup in the drug lab, eventually leading to the lab closing its doors, Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massulo found that Harris’ office had failed to live up to the requirement that prosecutor’s offices disclose potentially beneficial evidence to criminal defendants. She stated this constitutional obligation, as set forth in Brady v. Maryland, should be fulfilled with the prosecutor actively seeking such exculpatory information from the police rather than waiting for the police to disclose it. According to the SF Weekly report, this has not happened and the DA’s office, in fact, may have been purposefully hiding such evidence in an effort to cover their tracks.

The phrase "forensic science" may have a bland, neutral sound to it. But in recent years, some labs have started skewing test results and manipulating the processes behind it.

That's why the National Academy of Sciences is calling for the creation of an independent agency to monitor and set standards for forensic science used in our courts.

If you needed a reminder of how badly we need this reform, look no further than this excellent four-part series in the Raleigh News & Observer, which paints an ugly picture of how forensic analysts and officials have falsified results and tested selective evidence — all to get evidence that supports state prosecutors' theory of a crime. Thanks to the paper's work, officials across the state are calling for a shakeup of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.

And it's not just North Carolina. Similar controveries and lab closings have swept through countless state and city labs in recent years — from Houston to Boston to San Francisco.

And those are just the problems with forensic science that actually make the headlines. In reality, there are plenty of other issues simmering beneath the surface. 

Trying to figure out how much jail time a law enforcement officer should serve for planting evidence isn't easy.

But that's exactly the conundrum that faced the judge who this week sentenced a former Nebraska crime scene investigator for planting evidence that led two people to be charged for a murder they didn't commit. The former Douglas County investigator, David Kofoed, was convicted this March of planting blood evidence to bolster charges against two men, Matthew Livers and Nicholas Sampson, in a 2006 murder case. The two men were held in jail for about 10 months before evidence of their innocence surfaced and they were cleared. (Two Wisconsin teenagers would eventually plead guilty to the murders.)

Ultimately for his crime, Kofoed was sentenced to serve between 20 months and four years in prison. He could be eligible for parole after 10 months.

Two innocent men spent 10 months in jail, thanks to Kofoed's misconduct. And now, Kofoed will spend (at least) 10 months paying for his crime. Is this "poetic justice," as the man who prosecuted Kofoed called it? Or is it an excessive sentence for a perpetrator who has been sufficiently shamed? Or is it a slap on the wrist for someone caught abusing his powers?

I tend to think 'poetic justice' is a good way of putting it: the sentence equals the time served by the innocent men wrongfully charged, and it accomplishes its goal of punishment and deterrence. A short sentence sends a sufficient message that Kofoed's actions were unacceptable, and that law enforcement abuses of power will not be overlooked. A longer sentence — like the 150 years given to Bernie Madoff — simply makes a mockery of sentencing and perpetuates a system that throws lives away too easily.

The old-fashioned suspect sketch used to be hand-drawn, based on eyewitness descriptions. But today, researchers around the world are developing forensic tests than can draw pictures of perpetrators based on crime scene evidence. Sounds pretty cool, right? In fact, the methods are far from perfect, and police should proceed with extreme caution.

As I've previously written, police in the U.K. are already using an "ethnic inference" test to track perpetrators of unsolved rapes and murders. Likewise, Louisiana police apprehended an alleged serial killer after DNA tests suggested correctly that he was black — after witnesses had said he was white.

Right now, as an article in this month's issue of Scientific American describes, the cutting-edge research in the field is focused on how to determine eye and hair color from DNA. But researchers also see the potential for officials to build composite sketches (like the one at left) based on DNA tests within a decade.

Using imperfect tests to project someone's racial background or eye color raises a host of questions. Will investigators focus on unreliable facial indicators and miss other forms of evidence? Will juries put undue weight on a DNA-based composite when weighing guilt or innocence?

A new forensic test devised by a British student can detect extremely tiny traces of cocaine — and will probably further corroborate what we already knew: cocaine is everywhere. But are ultra-sensitive lab tests helping us find evidence or making that evidence harder to decipher?

Sonica Devi, a 22-year-old Derby University student, found a method that can detect cocaine down to one trillionth of a gram. When she tested it out on pay phones in London, she found coke on one in six coin slots. Her discovery adds more ammunition to a story that's been floating around for years — that four out of five American dollar bills has traces of cocaine. (Which is true, by the way — once one bill is used to snort cocaine, the powder floats like dust through ATMs, cash drawers and counting machines).

These discoveries should do more than create an OMG! headline for irresponsible, sensationalist bloggers (like, um, me). The ubiquitous presence and rapidly advancing technology should remind us that criminal cases shouldn't simply turn on what a forensic test finds — it takes experts to interpret the evidence, and a critical eye from jurors and attorneys to determine what the evidence proves.

For example: if I'm suspected of dealing cocaine, and a police lab finds coke on bills in my wallet, I'd better hope that my attorney points to the evidence that cocaine is in plenty of innocent wallets. This holds true for all forms of forensics: the real world isn't like CSI, and it takes a critical eye to determine exactly what a shiny forensic test actually shows.

Blood on a carpet? Without DNA analysis, it could be from anything.

Fibers matching a perpetrator's clothes found in a store after a robbery? How rare are the fibers? How clean was the store?

Was the New York Post's exclusive story earlier this week quality reporting or tabloid journalism?

According to the Post's scoop, "maybe thousands" of criminal convictions could be thrown into question by allegations of falsification of drug-test results by a technician in the NYPD's forensics laboratory.

Pretty hot stuff. Over the past few days, dozens of media outlets (examples here and here) have picked up the story, and the underlying plot has thickened. But now, a little criminal justice media criticism is in order.

In the original May 11 story, the Post cited unnamed sources stating that veteran NYPD forensics lab technician Mariem Megalla has been suspended, and that a Bronx drug trial was halted last week because she was supposed to testify. The NYPD apparently sent out an emergency e-mail last week to the city's district attorneys, warning them about the potential evidence disaster, and telling them to re-test all evidence in cases in which Megalla had done work. According to an anonymous source, this all prompted a "panicked meeting" on Monday between cops and DAs on how to deal with the "maybe thousands of cases that need to be looked at because of how long she's been in the department."

Sounds horrible, right? But having raised the specter of thousands of wrongful drug convictions, the story lost some of its raw sensationalism once the allegations against Megalla were actually detailed.

Across the United States, it's estimated there are over 40,000 remains currently languishing without identification in coroner or medical examiner's offices. And if they're not identified, they won't stay there for long: Space is limited, so some of these John and Jane Doe's end up buried or cremated without ever being recognized.

Until recently, the only way for families and friends of missing persons to potentially claim a body was for them to call each and every office across the country. Now, though, as we've written here, a free federal database exists to help them. The problem? The database is only being used by an estimated 6.5% of law enforcement agencies -- a shockingly low number, given the successes it's had so far in helping solve cases.

There's a solution, though: Billy's Law, a bill pending in the Senate that could make it more feasible for law enforcement agencies to invest resources into the system -- and easier for friends and family to get some closure. Created in 2005 and launched in July 2009, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) gives local, state and federal law enforcement the ability to coordinate their information on missing or unidentified persons cases. Since it launched last year, NamUs has resolved 16 cases. Given the dismal rates of law enforcement participation, it's certain this number -- already impressive -- could be even higher. Show the Senate that you support helping law enforcement use the NamUs database by signing the petition below.

In 2007 the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that 4,400 unidentified remains are discovered each year. After one year, 1,000 of these will still go unidentified -- a tragedy that's multi-fold. For families unable to locate missing loved ones, emotional scars remain open. For law enforcement, cases likewise remain open -- funneling money and resources into missing person cases when they may have already been located (if not recognized) in other jurisdictions.

Case-in-point: Paula Beverly Davis. Davis was reported missing in 1987 at age 17, when she disappeared from her home in Kansas City. She left behind a young son and a family wracked with questions and grief. Although Davis' body was found only two days after her disappearance -- in Ohio -- her family would not get closure until she was identified in October 2009, thanks to NamUs. Using her sister's description, Stephanie Clack managed to find details about her sister in NamUs, entered by Ohio law enforcement who'd located Davis's body over 20 years earlier.

So what's keeping the other 93% of law enforcement agencies from using NamUs

Did the state of Texas execute an innocent man in 2004? And if that's the case, could the same situation be playing out across the country?

The chances are good, considering the total absence of a nationally accepted scientific standard used in forensic criminal investigations. Consider the fact that in 50% of DNA exonerations, poorly executed or unproven forensic science played a role in the conviction (and that DNA evidence makes up only a small portion of the forensic science used in cases).

To stop future cases like Cameron Todd Willingham's, it's crucial that the U.S. establish an independent national entity with the authority to set standards for forensic science used in criminal cases -- and discontinue the use of unreliable forensic methods. Numerous activists, attorneys and scientific organizations are pushing Congress to establish a federal body that does just that, and anyone who cares about the pursuit of criminal justice reform in our country should do the same.

Please take a moment to sign the petition below, and show your support for an agency that can stop the junk science and poor practices that fuel wrongful convictions.

For those of you who weren't following the case, on February 2, 2004,  Read More »

Two excellent criminal justice stories were just honored with Polk Awards for 2009's best reporting, in a further testimonial to all the important reporting that's been done on the issue -- and all that's still needed.

The local news award went to an incredible series about solitary confinement and mental illness in Illinois' troubled Tamms Supermax prison. The series, by George Pawlaczyk and Beth Hundsdorfer of the Belleville News-Democrat, brought about immediate change in the facility. (Previously, I wrote about conditions in Tamms here.)

And David Grann won the prestigious Polk magazine award for his classic "Trial by Fire" in the New Yorker, in a compelling indictment of the wrongful 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas. The article not only provided the most convincing proof yet that an innocent person had been executed, it also called into question thousands of arson convictions across the country based on bad science.

Still, though, it appears little has changed in Texas after the Willingham article. Right now, the state is gearing up to execute Hank Skinner next Tuesday, despite available DNA testing that hasn't been conducted and could provide strong proof of his innocence. Why hasn't Gov. Rick Perry learned the lesson of the Willingham case? Join more than 4,300 Change.org community members in urging Texas to stop Skinner's execution and review the evidence. There are just five days before it's too late.

Another interesting Polk Award to note: the judges honored an anonymous sour