SCANDAL TOUCHES EVEN ELITE LABS ; Flawed work, resistance to scrutiny
seen across U.S.
Series: TRIBUNE INVESTIGATIVE REPORT: FORENSICS UNDER
THE MICROSCOPE; [Chicago Final Edition]
Maurice Possley, Steve Mills and Flynn McRoberts, Tribune staff
reporters. Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Ill.: Oct 21, 2004. pg. 1
Abstract (Article Summary)
THE LAB DIRECTOR: [Paul Ferrara] "I'm
not going to admit error when there is none," he said of his lab's work
in the Earl Washington case. Virginia's governor has ordered an outside
review.
THE LAB: FINGERPRINTING A gun hangs in a glue-fuming chamber at
the Virginia state crime lab. Glue fumes stick to oils left by
fingerprints on the gun, leaving impressions for analysts.
THE LAB: DNA
TESTING An analyst performs DNA tests on samples at the Virginia state
crime lab. It was the first state lab to build a database to link
evidence from unsolved crimes to suspects through genetic profiles.
THE
ANALYST: [Joyce Gilchrist] The former analyst at the Oklahoma City crime
lab, shown in 2000, was accused of falsifying test results and
testimony. She has denied wrongdoing. Daily Oklahoman photo by Roger
Klock.
THE ANALYST: [Julie Long] Long, quality control director at the
Montana state crime lab, began working as an analyst under the lab's
founder, [Arnold Melnikoff]. Her work has drawn questions from critics,
who also have raised concerns over Melnikoff's impact on the lab's
staff.
THE ACCUSED: JIMMY RAY BROMGARD Bromgard, followed by his nephew,
leaves a Montana courthouse in 2002 after his release from prison. He is
one of three men convicted of rapes after crime lab founder Arnold
Melnikoff linked their hair to the crimes. DNA later cleared the three.
Billings Gazette photo by Larry Mayer. Arnold Melnikoff. [Bill Unger]
Unger. GRAPHIC: Crime lab scandals span the nation Failures at forensic
labs range from faulty blood analysis and fingerprinting errors to
flawed hair comparisons and the contamination of evidence used in DNA
testing. In addition to cases detailed in this series, problems have
occurred at the following labs: ARIZONA - Phoenix police crime lab
technicians used erroneous DNA calculations in nine cases. Prosecutors
had to drop murder charges against one man, although they would not say
DNA or lab errors were to blame. CALIFORNIA - An internal sting
videotaped a San Francisco police lab analyst faking drug tests. She
resigned. The local public defender contended that 900 cases were
affected. KENTUCKY - A state police lab analyst linked hairs found in a
stocking mask to a suspect. Convicted of sexual assault, the inmate
later was exonerated by DNA. MARYLAND - A Baltimore County police
chemist resigned shortly after admitting she did not understand the
basic blood typing science involved in her work. The analyst handled
about 480 cases, but police decided against a review. OKLAHOMA - An
Oklahoma City police chemist was fired in 2001 amid allegations that she
lied during testimony and doctored and destroyed evidence in several
cases. An FBI review of hundreds of her cases has yet to be completed.
PENNSYLVANIA - A state police serologist was accused of mishandling
evidence in hundreds of cases. She resigned in 2003. - A prisoner was
freed after serving 16 years of a life sentence. A state police chemist
had testified that semen from someone with type A blood found at the
scene could have been the inmate's, even though he has blood type B.
TEXAS - Questions have been raised about DNA, serology and ballistics in
several labs around the state. In Corpus Christi, an audit found
problems with evidence handling. In Ft. Worth, prosecutors last year
asked that the police crime lab stop doing serology and DNA testing
after an irregularity and questions about an analyst's qualifications.
WASHINGTON - A state patrol chemist pleaded guilty to taking and using
heroin that he was supposed to analyze. WEST VIRGINIA - The head of the
state police chemistry lab was discredited after it was discovered that
he had lied on the witness stand and faked test results, prompting a
state Supreme Court-ordered review of 180 cases. He was fired in 1993
from his next job, in Bexar County, Texas, after his work there was
found to be faulty. FBI CRIME LAB - A broad inquiry in the 1990s led to
the firing of several lab officials and the overhaul of protocols. - An
FBI scientist was convicted of perjury after she admitted she gave false
testimony in a West Virginia case, improperly linking bullet evidence to
a suspect in a 1994 sniper murder. - This year, the National Research
Council called for an overhaul in the FBI's process of determining the
chemical makeup of bullets. And another analyst admitted making false
statements in DNA analysis reports in more than 100 cases. Chicago Tribune
Full Text (5444 words)
(Copyright 2004 by the Chicago Tribune)
A decade ago, as Earl Washington Jr. neared his execution date, a
leading DNA expert first suggested an analyst in the vaunted Virginia
state crime lab might have erred in the case.
The lab's director, Paul Ferrara, rejected the criticism as unfounded.
In April, when a second expert hired by Washington's lawyers questioned
another round of tests, Ferrara dismissed him as a "hired gun" and
rebuffed calls for an outside review.
Several months later, three other experts--this time not paid by the
defense --reached the same conclusion. The lab's analyst, they said, had
misinterpreted the evidence, but Ferrara again balked at an outside review.
"I'm not going to admit error when there is none," Ferrara said in a
recent interview at the highly regarded Richmond facility, the first
state lab to build a database linking evidence from unsolved crimes to
suspects through their genetic profiles.
Within days of that statement, the lab experienced another first. On
Sept. 30, the governor of Virginia ordered an audit of the lab's work on
the Washington case.
That it took a governor's edict to force one of the nation's most-
respected labs to allow such a review illustrates the broader problems
undermining confidence in the nation's crime labs.
Revelations of shoddy work and poorly run facilities have shaken the
criminal justice system like never before, raising doubts about the
reputation of labs as unbiased advocates for scientific truth.
The far-reaching crime lab scandals roiling the courts are unlike other
flaws in the criminal justice system--the rogue prosecutor, the
incompetent defense attorney, the unscrupulous cop--because for years
the reputation of the labs had been unquestioned.
But the consequence of lab errors, whether due to incompetence,
imprecision or fraud, is frequently the same--an innocent person behind
bars.
A Tribune examination of the 200 DNA and Death Row exoneration cases
since 1986--including scores of interviews and a review of court
transcripts and appellate opinions--found that more than a quarter
involved faulty crime lab work or testimony.
In recent years, evidence of problems ranging from negligence to
outright deception has been uncovered at crime labs in at least 17
states. Among the failures were faulty blood analysis, fingerprinting
errors, flawed hair comparisons and the contamination of evidence used
in DNA testing.
Scandal also has hit the FBI crime lab, long considered the nation's top
forensic facility.
In the mid-1990s, a lab whistle-blower touched off a broad inquiry over
allegations of improper handling of evidence. It led to the firing of
several lab officials and the overhaul of protocols and procedures.
In May of this year, an FBI analyst, Jacqueline Blake, pleaded guilty to
a misdemeanor charge of making false statements about following protocol
in some 100 DNA analysis reports.
Though the FBI said its review found no wrongful convictions resulting
from her work, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded that
the lab's failure to detect her misconduct "has damaged intangibly the
credibility of the FBI laboratory."
Blake was dismissed from the lab and last month was placed on 2 years of
probation.
Veteran lab directors around the country contend the exposure of such
scandals is evidence that labs are policing themselves.
In most cases, however, lab problems have come to light only after
defendants have challenged their convictions.
"Virtually every major lab scandal has been broken by a post- conviction
DNA exoneration," said Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project,
a non-profit legal clinic that has helped exonerate dozens of inmates.
Given the sheer volume of cases that labs handle, the discovery of even
a single flawed analysis raises the prospect of re- examining hundreds,
if not thousands, of cases.
In many jurisdictions, the task of re-evaluating that many cases is so
daunting that authorities have declined to conduct broad audits, despite
evidence that analysts have committed errors or engaged in fraudulent
practices.
One of their well-placed fears: that uncovering additional problems in a
lab would spawn lawsuits or unravel an untold number of convictions.
Two of the nation's highest profile crime-lab scandals-- involving
analysts Fred Zain in West Virginia and Joyce Gilchrist in
Oklahoma--resulted in the exonerations of at least 10 defendants,
millions of dollars in settlements and broad reviews of hundreds of
their cases. Both were accused of falsifying test results and giving
false testimony; both denied any wrongdoing.
Earlier this year, in response to the DNA exoneration of a man who
served 13 years in prison for rape, the city of Cleveland appointed an
independent special master to review all the casework and, if necessary,
retest the evidence handled by one analyst, and conduct a random audit
of others in the lab.
But such a response has been uncommon.
In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry has rejected a plea from Houston's police
chief to halt executions of inmates convicted in Harris County until the
scope of problems at the police crime lab can be determined.
Two inmates from Harris County have been executed in recent weeks since
Chief Harold Hurtt announced the discovery of 280 boxes of evidence from
at least 8,000 Houston cases spanning 25 years. The boxes contained
everything from clothing and weapons to a fetus.
Even before the latest crisis, revelations of incompetent analysts in
the police lab's DNA section forced Houston authorities to shutter it.
The new questions cover everything from firearm identification to blood
typing in a jurisdiction that has sent 75 people to the death chamber,
more than most states.
Earlier this year, Boston police admitted that two fingerprint examiners
had linked Stephan Cowans to the 1997 shooting of a police sergeant,
even though a later review found that the comparison, in the words of
Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Thomas Reilly, "wasn't even close."
An outside consultant then conducted a broader examination of thousands
of prints in the Boston police fingerprint unit, "and the only error he
found was in the Cowans case," said police spokeswoman Beverly Ford.
Last week, the department turned over all fingerprint examinations to
the state police until it can get its own lab accredited.
In Montana, the state Supreme Court narrowly voted last month to dismiss
a petition seeking an independent audit and retesting of evidence in
hundreds of cases handled by a former state crime lab examiner whose
erroneous hair-comparison testimony contributed to three wrongful
convictions.
Among other revelations, the scandals have exposed the lack of
independent oversight and the often-ineffective standards governing the
labs that analyze forensic evidence.
Lab directors contend that the American Society of Crime Laboratory
Directors' accreditation board, which will review Virginia's work in the
Washington case, are sticklers for quality and accuracy. But even some
tough-on-crime politicians question the effectiveness of the board's
review teams.
"Everyone boasts that their labs are certified by them," said James
Durkin, a former Cook County prosecutor and former Republican state
representative. "I believe they are more of a fraternal organization
than an authoritative scientific body."
Reputation under fire
Walking through the Virginia state crime lab in Richmond--the
centerpiece of the state's four-lab system--Paul Ferrara is visibly
proud of its accomplishments.
It has long been a leader in DNA testing. In June, the lab, which is not
affiliated with a law-enforcement agency, passed a crime- solving
benchmark: its 2,000th "cold hit," linking unsolved crimes to suspects
through its DNA database. Last month, a newspaper clip touting the
achievement still sat on a table in Ferrara's office.
But the Washington saga and criticism of the lab's testing in other
cases have threatened to undermine the lab's reputation.
"They're very protective of the reputation that they're the gold
standard for crime labs," said Betty Layne DesPortes, a Richmond defense
attorney and jurisprudence section chair of the American Academy of
Forensic Sciences.
Of the 200 DNA and Death Row exonerations in the U.S. since the
mid-1980s, few have loomed larger or have been as controversial as the
case of Earl Washington Jr.
It began in 1982, when Rebecca Williams was found stabbed 38 times in
her Culpeper, Va., apartment. Authorities claimed Washington confessed,
though his attorneys said police took advantage of the mildly mentally
retarded farmhand to get a false confession.
At trial, Washington maintained his innocence, but he was convicted and
sentenced to death.
Doubts about his guilt persisted. In 1993, as Washington faced execution
and as DNA testing began to gain wider acceptance in forensic labs,
then-Gov. Douglas Wilder ordered testing to help resolve the question.
The work was done by Jeff Ban, a top DNA analyst in the lab and now a
member of a panel of scientists that sets national DNA standards. Ban
performed tests on a vaginal swab taken during the autopsy on Williams
and on a semen stain on a blue blanket recovered from her apartment.
Ban reported that Washington was excluded as the source of the semen
stain on the blanket but said the result of his analysis on the vaginal
swab was less clear. He said that while he had found a genetic trait
that did not belong to Washington, the victim or the victim's husband,
he could not eliminate Washington as a potential source of semen.
On Jan. 14, 1994, nine days before the state was scheduled to execute
Washington, Wilder commuted Washington's sentence to life in prison,
saying the test results raised a "substantial question" about
Washington's guilt.
Wilder, who was leaving office, declined to pardon Washington altogether
because the DNA test that failed to exclude him did not erase all doubt
about his involvement in the crime.
Henry Erlich, a developer of the DNA test that Ban used, then examined
Ban's work at the request of Washington's defense lawyers. He said that
Ban had misinterpreted the results--and that Washington should have been
excluded.
Six years later, prompted by the still-lingering doubts over
Washington's guilt and continued advances in DNA testing, then-Gov.
James Gilmore ordered the lab to conduct another series of tests on the
evidence.
Again, Ban did the work. Again, his tests sparked debate.
According to Ban's report, the tests revealed a genetic profile on the
blanket that did not belong to Washington.
The unknown profile was plugged into the state's DNA database. It linked
to Kenneth M. Tinsley, who previously had been convicted of rape in
Illinois and whose genetic profile had been added to the Virginia
database after he was convicted of a rape there and sentenced to life in
prison, according to authorities.
Ban further reported that he was unable to obtain a genetic profile from
a slide made from the vaginal swab--although at Washington's trial, a
medical examiner had testified there was an abundance of sperm on the slide.
Even more puzzling were the results of his tests on a second, similar
slide. Not only did Ban exclude Washington, but he excluded Tinsley and,
according to his report, turned up two additional unidentified genetic
profiles.
The exclusion of Washington was enough for Gilmore to grant him a
pardon--just as Ban's earlier test was enough to prompt Wilder to
commute his death sentence. After 17 years in prison, more than nine of
them on Death Row, he was set free.
That did not settle the matter, though.
Tinsley's DNA was detected by the lab on the blanket. But because Ban
said he did not find it on the slides, authorities did not prosecute
Tinsley, leaving the case open. The test results prompted some police
officers to continue saying they believed Washington was involved.
Duplicate slides were sent to Dr. Ed Blake, a DNA expert, who was
working for Washington's attorneys. His tests isolated only Tinsley's
genetic profile, he said, and conclusively eliminated Washington.
In his report, Blake called Ban's work "logically incoherent. ... The
result is so nonsensical and so covered with red flags that it should
never be published."
Blake's assessment gave new ammunition for Washington's lawyers,
including Peter Neufeld of the Innocence Project, who are suing police
in federal court. Neufeld called for an audit of Ban's work and, more
broadly, all of the lab's DNA work.
Ferrara stood behind Ban, dismissing Blake because he was hired by the
defense and because he believed Blake's analysis had no merit.
Three other DNA experts, at the request of a Virginia newspaper,
reviewed Ban's reports. They all agreed that his work was troubling and
warranted further scrutiny.
Again, Neufeld called for an independent audit of Ban's work.
Ferrara again refused.
In an interview with the Tribune, Ferrara said it is possible for two
scientists to come up with different test results because no two samples
are alike--although Ban and Blake tested slides created from the same swab.
"As far as we're concerned, there is no error at all except in the minds
of [critics]...," Ferrara said. "When you're on the top of the heap you
are going to have someone trying to knock you down."
The accreditation board requires that when a lab identifies an analytic
error, it must do a review and recommend corrective action, with the
possibility of a broader review of either a single analyst or a
particular section.
But the requirement is triggered only when a lab admits error.
And Ferrara said in the interview that he had no intention of doing so.
Soon after, though, Gov. Mark Warner stepped in and ordered him to seek
a review.
"The governor believes that an outside investigation will help maintain
the lab's reputation," a Warner spokeswoman said, "and help maintain
confidence in our criminal justice system."
Lost evidence
Any crime lab scandal raises serious concerns. But nowhere are the
stakes higher than in Harris County, Texas, because of how many people
it sends to the state's busy execution chamber.
So the recent news that police had found 280 boxes of evidence in a
police property room shook the legal community in Houston, the county
seat. Defense attorneys want to know what evidence is in the boxes and
if it can help their clients on appeal.
In belatedly announcing the discovery, Hurtt, Houston's new police
chief, urged Gov. Perry to halt all executions of inmates from Harris
County until the evidence could be reviewed. The chief plans to ask the
Houston City Council to appoint a special investigator to conduct a review.
"We don't believe in our heart that this is going to jeopardize any
case. We are hopeful, anyway," said Hurtt's spokesman, Alvin Wright.
"But we want to make sure justice is served correctly."
Beyond the lost evidence and faulty DNA analysis, the Houston lab has
seen its firearm analysis come under scrutiny.
In the case of Nanon Williams, convicted of a 1992 drug-related murder,
a Houston firearms examiner testified the victim was shot with a
.25-caliber bullet.
That was the same caliber of Williams' gun.
Six years later, the same firearms examiner reviewed the case again and
determined that the bullet was a .22-caliber from a co- defendant's gun.
The firearms examiner acknowledged that he had never tested that weapon.
The same firearm examiner testified against Johnnie Bernal, who was
sentenced to death for a 1994 murder. At trial, the examiner said the
bullet in the murder came from a gun that police seized from Bernal when
they arrested him.
But the examiner conceded he cleaned the gun barrel and fired it 25
times before he could declare a match. Firearms examiners typically fire
a weapon two or three times before they declare matches.
The lawyer for Dominique Green is citing concerns about testing at the
lab in seeking a delay in his execution, which is scheduled for next week.
Green was convicted for his role in the October 1992 murder of a Houston
man during an armed robbery. Two other men implicated in the crime
testified against Green and received sentences of 10 and 30 years.
Prosecutors charged that Green was the gunman, saying a semiautomatic
handgun believed to have been used in the murder was found in a car
Green had been riding in. A veteran Houston firearms examiner, Ray
Klein, was the prosecution's last witness and provided key testimony.
Klein testified that he test-fired the gun, then examined the fired
bullet under a microscope to tell if the unique markings left on the
bullet as it traveled through the barrel matched those from the bullet
taken from the victim.
Green, while admitting he took part in the robbery, denies firing the
fatal shots, said his lawyer, David Dow, a law professor and the
director of the Texas Innocence Network. Dow said a review of Klein's
comparison could settle the question of whether the gun found in the car
was used in the murder.
"Our concern is that it's the same lab. It's the same technique. And
it's proved to be unsound in other Harris County death penalty cases,"
Dow said.
Roe Wilson, an assistant Harris County district attorney, said she was
confident in the lab's work and dismissed the defense's attempt to delay
the execution. "They're basically trying to use the problems that have
arisen in the Houston crime lab," Wilson said. "And those problems don't
apply in this case."
A legacy of questions
It is unlikely that anyone had more influence on the Montana state crime
laboratory than founder Arnold Melnikoff. The question is whether that
influence has tainted the lab's work.
Director of the lab for nearly two decades, Melnikoff left in 1989 to
become an analyst for the Washington state police crime lab. But 15
years after his departure, questions have been raised not only about his
work on specific cases, but also about his legacy as a lab director.
Three Montana men he helped convict of rape have been exonerated by DNA,
and Melnikoff's testimony in those cases has been discredited. His new
employer, the Washington state lab, fired him in March after an audit of
his toxicology work there criticized his lab procedures and accused him
of inflating his testimony to help prosecutors.
The question looming over the Montana crime lab was framed this year in
a petition filed with that state's Supreme Court seeking a broad review
of the more than 200 cases Melnikoff had handled.
The petition, filed by the Innocence Project and joined by five former
Montana Supreme Court justices, urged the review not only because of
Melnikoff's errors, but also because of his influence on the lab.
"If 'juicing' the testimony, offering unprofessional statements, and
making scientifically unsupportable claims was his gold standard, we
must infer that this is the standard of practice that he conveyed to his
employees," the petition asserted. "Many of these staff now hold
supervisor positions at the lab."
The lab's current administrators say Melnikoff trained none of their
present lab employees. Whether he nonetheless shaped the culture of the
lab may remain unknown: The petition was dismissed days after it was
filed. The Supreme Court said it did not have jurisdiction to order the
review.
With a bachelor's degree in biology from Northern Illinois University
and a master's degree in chemistry from the University of Montana,
Melnikoff established the state's first crime laboratory, in Missoula,
in 1970.
He began by handling chemistry and toxicology tests and gradually
expanded into other disciplines such as blood typing and hair and fiber
analysis. He analyzed samples of suspected drugs and substances in
suspected arson cases, according to the petition.
He guided the lab through the first two decades after it was started in
a building that once housed a vaudeville theater.
Over the years, Melnikoff developed a unique manner of testifying about
hair evidence, using a statistical analysis he said was based on his own
examinations. He said he had analyzed hair in 500 to 700 cases and found
matches between unrelated people only a few times.
Based on that analysis, Melnikoff testified that the odds of a person
other than a particular defendant having the same hair were 1 in 100. In
some cases, he extended his analysis further--using odds of 1 in 10,000.
Melnikoff used his statistical estimation in the prosecution of Chester
Bauer in 1983, Jimmy Ray Bromgard in 1987 and Paul Kordonowy in 1989.
All were convicted. All have since been exonerated.
In the wake of the exonerations, a panel of forensic scientists was
organized by the Innocence Project; they unanimously criticized
Melnikoff's statistical analyses as scientifically unfounded and wrong.
Through his lawyer, Melnikoff declined to comment for this article. He
is appealing his dismissal.
After Kordonowy was exonerated last year, the Innocence Project sought
an independent audit and retesting of every hair case in which Melnikoff
was involved.
In response, Montana Atty. Gen. Mike McGrath ordered a review of 270
prosecutions in which Melnikoff testified. Officials read through trial
transcripts and case files, but McGrath declined to order retesting of
any evidence or reopen any cases. The state crime lab's advisory board
concurred.
Challenging those decisions, the project and former judges filed their
petition with the Supreme Court in August, seeking an independent
examination and retesting of those cases.
Bill Unger, director of the lab, said in an interview that lab officials
did not urge McGrath to retest the evidence in part because the cases
were so old and in part because there is a backlog of pending cases
waiting to be analyzed.
"Timeliness was part of the reason," he said. "My biggest nightmare is
workload. If the legislature would give us a couple of positions, it
would be fine."
Though Unger said no current lab employees were trained by Melnikoff,
the petition alleged that the problems go beyond him and involve other
lab analysts who "have followed Melnikoff's lead."
Specifically, the petition focused on Julie Long, an analyst at the
Montana lab since 1980.
In a 2002 case, the lab was asked to analyze the underwear of a Bozeman
woman who said she had been sexually assaulted. Lab personnel reported
that "no indications of seminal fluid were detected."
But when defense attorneys hired Blake to examine the evidence, he found
semen and sperm. Blake called the crime lab's failure to find the
genetic evidence "mind-boggling."
Long, who was the lab's head of quality assurance and control, said the
evidence was missed because no microscopic examination was conducted--a
practice that has long been standard at most labs in the country.
"It wasn't in our protocol," she said. "We have since changed that."
The defendant, Joshua Stephen Warren, was acquitted after more than 500
days in jail.
'We're the white hats'
Many crime lab officials contend the scandals that have unfolded around
the nation demonstrate how tough they check themselves.
"We hold ourselves to a much higher standard. ...," said Don Plautz, who
worked for 24 years as a lab director and in other posts with the
Illinois State Police crime labs before retiring in 2002. "The bulk of
problems I've dealt with in forensic science have been identified by the
fellow forensic scientists."
But many crime labs are fiercely resistant to letting outsiders check to
make sure that is true.
Janine Arvizu knows her way around a lab. She once ran the Navy's
program to audit the commercial and government laboratories that the
Navy uses, and she managed an analytical lab for the Department of
Energy in Idaho.
When she started her own consulting firm and began working with defense
attorneys in recent years to check the quality of crime labs, she was
stunned.
"Their attitude, you don't encounter elsewhere: We work for the good
guys. We're the white hats," Arvizu said. "They're very uncomfortable
with this idea of independent oversight, which is a fundamental precept
of laboratory quality assurance."
She has audited written records and other data from dozens of forensic
labs across the country. Only one of those labs allowed her inside its
doors--and only because a judge ordered the lab to let her in.
A fundamental principle of quality assurance is that the higher the
stakes--in health and safety--the more checks and controls a lab should
have. So Arvizu puzzled for a long time about why the standards seemed
so relatively low for crime labs, given that people's liberty is at stake.
She concluded there is little natural constituency, at least not outside
the walls of American prisons.
"There's no upswelling of people who feel they're at risk from failures
by crime labs," Arvizu said. "It will take the son of a federal judge to
be wrongfully convicted on the basis of flawed forensics to make the
kind of quantum improvement in forensic quality standards that needs to
happen."
Not all crime labs have been defiant in the face of questions about
their work. One possible model for dealing with lab scandal is
developing in Cleveland.
In 2001, Michael Green was released after spending 13 years in prison
for a rape that DNA tests proved he did not commit. Another man has
since confessed to the crime.
At issue in Green's prosecution were blood-typing tests conducted by
Cleveland police lab technician Joseph Serowik. This year, Cleveland
officials acknowledged that Serowik's lab work was flawed.
In settling a wrongful-conviction lawsuit filed by Green, the city
agreed to pay him $1.6 million. More important, perhaps, officials
agreed to the appointment of independent experts to review more than 100
of Serowik's cases dating to 1987.
"If there are other Michael Greens out there, we want to know who they
are," said Subodh Chandra, a former federal prosecutor who is the city's
law director.
"As a public official, you can view this simply as an issue of financial
liability and trying to avoid embarrassment," Chandra added, "or you can
view it as trying to improve the criminal justice process."
Scheck, who also is president of the National Association of Criminal
Defense Lawyers, sees progress in Cleveland's response and in recent
legislation passed by Congress.
One measure, the Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grant
Program, would legally obligate crime labs seeking the grants to have an
independent auditor in place to conduct "investigations into allegations
of serious negligence or misconduct substantially affecting the
integrity" of lab analysis. Grant amounts for each state could range
from tens of thousands of dollars to $800,000.
The provision would mean some labs that have not done audits after
allegations of errors would be barred from receiving the money.
"Certainly that's our intent," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R- Ala.), chief
sponsor of the Coverdell Act. "If you get this money, you do have to
have an accountability process."
In Baltimore County, for instance, officials pledged a review of analyst
Concepcion Bacasnot's cases after DNA tests in 2003 exonerated an inmate
whom her work helped convict of rape. In another case, she said she did
not understand the science involved in her work. She later resigned
saying it was for personal reasons.
Baltimore officials identified nearly 500 cases that Bacasnot was
involved in. But saying they didn't have the money or staffing for it,
they decided against a review, leaving it up to defendants and their
lawyers to investigate cases themselves.
Most of the attention and tens of millions of federal dollars, though,
have gone toward easing the backlogs of unanalyzed DNA samples that have
overwhelmed many crime labs. Last week, Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced
Illinois' share of that money, more than $3.2 million.
Earlier this month, when Congress passed the Innocence Protection Act,
it included a provision allowing states to spend funds on forensic
analysis other than DNA testing--but only when there is no DNA backlog.
"Fingerprints, fiber tests, ballistic tests on bullets and cartridges,
chemical and drug analysis and others are far more frequent and often
just as important to justice in a particular case as DNA," said
Sessions, who argued for the amendment.
"Clearly," he added, "we need to be working hard to improve our entire
forensic science system, not just one small aspect of it."
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