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In The News

2022-02-10 | DC public defenders seek wider review into fingerprints, firearms evidence
In a Jan. 24 letter, officials with the Federal Public Defender Service and D.C.’s Public Defender Service, said the review of cases involving fingerprints and firearms should go back to at least 1995, which predates the creation of the independent crime lab. At that time, forensic examiners with the D.C. police department handled fingerprints and firearms cases.

2022-01-12 | Scientists ID Genes That Make Your ?Fingerprints
For the study, published Jan. 6 in the journal Cell, the investigators scanned the DNA of more than 23,000 people across ethnic groups. They found that at least 43 regions on the genome are associated with fingerprint patterns. One of the most influential regions appeared to be regulating the expression of a gene called EVI1. This gene is known for its role in embryonic limb development.

2022-01-02 | 21 years served for crime not committed
Video on a case that is a possible insurance scam with no physical evidence linking the suspect.

2021-12-14 | Sweeping report urges DC to review every case handled by firearms, fingerprint units at troubled crime lab
The 157-page report, dated Dec. 8 and completed by forensic consulting firm SNA International, calls for a wholesale restructuring of agency management. The report points to a series of failures across the lab, as well as a deficient quality-management system that failed to fix recurring high-risk problems, and a culture where employees felt they couldn’t speak up about problems.

2021-12-13 | D.C. commits to sweeping post-conviction review after report uncovers breakdowns in city’s forensics arm
The enormous undertaking, which D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced in an order Monday evening, will include cases involving the D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences’ firearms examination, latent fingerprint and the digital evidence units. Chris Geldart, deputy mayor for public safety and justice, said he hopes to meet with representatives from the D.C. Public Defender Service, the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia and the D.C. attorney general’s office, among others, within 10 days.

2021-12-08 | DC Department of Forensic Sciences Laboratory Assessment Report
On April 2, 2021, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) National Accreditation Board (ANAB) suspended the Washington, D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences (DFS) International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission(ISO/IEC) 17025:2017, AR 3125 forensic testing accreditation. ANAB cited findings resulting from an investigation into purported errors made by the DFS Firearms Examination Unit and the DFS Management’s alleged lack of disclosure reported by the United States Attorney’s Office District of Columbia (USAO) as the cause for the suspension. On May 2, 2021, one month after the initial suspension, the ANAB withdrew the accreditation of all five of the Forensic Science Laboratory’s forensic disciplines: Firearms Examination Unit, Forensic Biology Unit, Forensic Chemistry Unit, Latent Fingerprint Unit, and the Digital Evidence Unit. The DFS immediately discontinued forensic casework operations.

2021-10-08 | Opinion: Another victim of America’s greatest forensics fraudster has been exonerated
Brown was convicted mostly because of the notorious forensics charlatan Michael West, who claimed to have matched a mark on Brown’s skin to the teeth of one of the murder victims. In the mid-1980s, West, a folksy, oddly charismatic dentist from Hattiesburg, Miss., began pitching himself as a forensics wizard, claiming he could find evidence no one else could see, and match it to the culprit when no one else could.

2021-05-20 | Director of D.C.’s troubled crime lab resigns after scathing audit report
The head of the District’s troubled Department of Forensic Sciences has resigned after reports of technical errors and management lapses at the crime lab caused its accreditation to be suspended, officials said Wednesday. Jenifer Smith, a chemist and former FBI agent, was appointed DFS director in July 2015 by D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D). In announcing Smith’s resignation, Chris Geldart, the acting deputy mayor for public safety, made no mention of the problems at the lab.

2021-05-11 | NEW CSAFE STUDY ANALYZES REAL-WORLD LATENT PRINT COMPARISON CASEWORK
Latent print research has mainly focused on estimating error rates and identifying potential areas of concern within latent print conclusions made in artificial, controlled environments. Brett Gardner, a Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence (CSAFE) researcher and co-author of the study, said almost no research has examined actual latent print casework to determine typical analysis procedures and outcomes.

2021-03-25 | First on WTOP: DC forensic lab under criminal investigation over firearms case
The D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences is under criminal investigation amid allegations that managers at the independent lab pressured analysts to change their conclusions, and then potentially misrepresented findings to its accrediting body, all in an attempt to essentially paper-over a years-old error that mistakenly linked two killings to the same gun.