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In The News

2017-07-26 | Court Says Man Wrongly Imprisoned After Witness's Sneaker ID Can Seek Compensation
The July 20 appeals court ruling said authorities violated Lemons’ rights by not telling the defense that police identified Lemons as a suspect using shoes not publicly available when the slaying occurred. Lemons, who has always maintained his innocence, requested a new trial in 2008 and learned through a public records request that an eyewitness identification of him hinged on the pair of white and Carolina blue Nike Air Jordan sneakers he wore in a physical line up. The witness had passed over Lemons in a photo lineup but told police she identified Lemons in the physical lineup because he was wearing the same sneakers as the man she saw the night of the shooting. Her ID was the only piece of evidence linking Lemons to the crime.

2017-07-25 | Testing of Kentucky Rape Kit Backlog Linked Convicted Serial Rapist to Additional Attack, Police Say
“It's what we envisioned, it's what other states have experienced, that you end up solving a lot of crimes, rape crimes and old homicide crimes,” said Gretchen Hunt, head of the Office of Victim’s Advocacy in Kentucky’s Office of the Attorney General. “But the other thing it underscores for us is the severity of the crime of rape. In this particular indictment, you see a long history of serial offenses of rape, and you know, we see serial offenders even in cases of campus sexual assault and other crimes.” Miller is awaiting trial on two rape charges with similar circumstances. Both rapes occurred in 2015 and involve victims who were offered rides, only to be taken to area cemeteries and raped.

2017-07-21 | AAAS Report Points Out Flaws in Forensic Fire Science, Offers Suggestions for Improvement
A recent report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science examines some of the shortcomings of current forensic fire investigation practices, both on the scene and in the lab in cases which may include suspected arson, and offers several suggestions for bridging the gaps that have led to wrongful convictions, and possibly some overlooked cases of intentional arson. One major finding of the report, published last week, was the unreliability of fire investigators to determine the origin of a fire in rooms where the fire had reached flashover—a point at which extreme temperatures of about 500-600 degrees Celsius (932-1112 degrees Fahrenheit) cause every ignitable surface in a room to immediately burst into flames. The report describes this as the point at which “a fire in a room becomes a room on fire.”

2017-07-21 | Police, sheriffs must soon pay to use state crime labs
The Texas Department of Public Safety is notifying local law enforcement agencies across the state Thursday afternoon that it will begin charging for forensic analysis at its crime labs in six weeks, a service that has long been provided for free. Local law enforcement will now have to pay for testing done on controlled substances, toxicology, DNA evidence, and biological specimens to determine the presence of alcohol. DNA testing will cost cities and counties $550 per test. Toxicology tests, such as for DWI enforcement and homicide cases, will cost $150. Alcohol and controlled substance analysis will cost $75 per test. The fees are expected to generate $11,540,852 for the state.

2017-07-20 | How an ex-FBI profiler helped put an innocent man behind bars
There were no fingerprints left behind, no murder weapon. But clues from the crime scene caught the profiler’s attention. The driver’s-side window of the victim’s car had been lowered several inches, suggesting to the profiler that the teen had rolled it down when someone who looked trustworthy approached. And her tube top was askew — a sign, the profiler said, of a botched sexual assault.

2017-07-19 | NYC Official Seeks State Panel to Probe Wrongful Convictions
Former New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman established a wrongful commission task force in 2009. The group ultimately recommended ideas the state has approved, including expanding defendants’ access to DNA testing to fight convictions, videotaping many police interrogations, and conducting photo lineups so that the officers administering them don’t know which picture is the suspect’s. Still, the now-retired Lippman said the state needs to “find out what the pattern is” in wrongful-conviction cases as he joined Adams to call for a new commission.

2017-07-10 | Forensic Scientists Recover Human DNA from Mosquitoes
By examining DNA in blood digested by two different species of mosquito over a range of times after feeding, the team was able to trace back blood samples to individual volunteers, even after two days of digesting in the mosquito. After roughly three days the mosquitos completely digested the blood.

2017-07-04 | Lawsuit: North Charleston man sat in jail for 2 years despite evidence that would set him free
Wright was freed in May 2016. His charge was formally dropped in December. Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said the evidence "necessitated the dismissal" and prompted her to forward the new case to the Attorney General's Office for prosecution. The baby sitter, Clara Jean Ellis, now 57, faces the same charge. She remains in jail. Wright, meanwhile, continues to struggle with being labeled a "liar" and a "child killer," Toporek said.

2017-07-04 | Forensic Experts Granted ‘Qualified Immunity’ for 1990s Bite Marks Testimony
Two men were separately convicted in the 1990s of raping and killing 3-year-old girls who lived several miles apart in Noxubee County, Mississippi. One was sentenced to die. Both convictions featured bite mark evidence which was later discredited, due to DNA evidence that pointed to a single killer who later confessed to the crimes. The two convicted men, Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, were released from Mississippi prisons in 2008, and filed federal lawsuits against the death investigators who had testified about the alleged bite marks on the bodies of the little girls that had led to the convictions.

2017-07-01 | Misidentification Defense – The 100% Method
In the criminal context misidentification is a phenomenon where victims or witnesses of criminal activity mistakenly identify one person as the perpetrator of the crime. When this happens the people making the identification become convinced that the person they identified is the person who they saw committing the crime. There are many reasons why this happens and we will not get into them here. But if you’re interested in the basic principles and causes of misidentification you can read this.