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In The News

2017-01-31 | Former Elkhart County police detective cleared in civil suit
A former Elkhart County Sheriff’s Department detective was cleared of any wrongdoing Friday after a lawsuit was filed against him claiming he withheld a lack of qualification to perform latent fingerprint analysis when he testified during a murder trial that ultimately led to the conviction of an Elkhart woman.

2017-01-27 | Voice Analysis Should Be Used with Caution in Court
But is the science behind voice identification sound? Several articles in the scientific literature have warned about the quality of one of its main applications: forensic phonetic expertise in courts. We have compiled two dozens judicial cases from around the world in which forensic phonetics were controversial. Recent figures published by INTERPOL indicate that half of forensic experts still use audio techniques that have been openly discredited.

2017-01-20 | ‘Tragic Legacy’ of Drug Analyst May Mean Tossing Thousands of Cases, Mass. Court Rules
The “tragic legacy” of Annie Dookhan, who served three years in prison for falsifying and “drylabbing” forensic results will prompt the state’s district attorneys to dismiss an appreciable number of the 24,000 cases on which she worked, according to a Wednesday ruling. It was, they ruled, a “laboratory scandal of unprecedented magnitude.” A new three-part review process will now require district attorneys to vacate and dismiss all cases which they could not reprosecute; provide notice to all defendants in the remaining Dookhan-handled cases; and assign a public defender to all defendants who ask for one.

2017-01-09 | Bad Grades, Lapses in Hiring Process Doomed Austin’s Crime Lab Leader
No one — not human resources staff, not an interview panel, not department brass — noticed or flagged a less-than-stellar college transcript Milne gave them with his application. Had they done so, they would have seen that Milne’s academic history was pockmarked with failing grades, including many courses directly related to his career, according to records obtained by the American-Statesman.

2017-01-08 | Another Forensic Science Debacle, Another Teaching Moment
I read with interest the article from the Austin American-Statesman, “Bad grades, lapses in hiring process doomed Austin’s crime lab leader.” The short version is, the Austin police department sought a new “chief forensics officer” to restore their currently closed DNA lab. Scott Milne, who appears to have a bachelor’s degree in forensic chemistry, was hired to do the job. (No, the fact that they hired someone who appears to only have a bachelor’s degree to reopen a forensic DNA lab was not the story!)

2016-12-15 | Some Austin Crime Lab Staff Disinvited From Training, DPS Says
However, after an initial training with all of the analysts, DPS lost confidence in some of the staff. Monday, DPS officials said they weren't certain they could work with the majority of the staff on board. In fact, in a letter obtained by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE, only two DNA specialists out of six were chosen to continue on with training in a "supportive environment." Brady Mill, deputy assistant director of the DPS crime lab, wrote about his concerns over the last four months in a letter to the Travis County District Attorney's office.

2016-12-14 | Former state police forensic scientist sentenced to 3 years in federal prison
A federal judge on Monday sentenced fired Oregon State Police crime lab scientist Nika Elise Larsen to three years in prison for stealing more than 700 pills seized in drug cases over more than two years. Larsen's crimes prompted prosecutors across the state to re-evaluate more than 2,500 cases. District attorneys have dismissed or dropped more than 150 convictions or charges because of Larsen.

2016-12-13 | Forensic Analyst Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison for Stealing Drugs from Evidence
Between January 2013 and August 2015, Larsen stole morphine, hydrocodone, diazepam, methamphetamine, oxycodone, and methadone in pill form. Overall, she took 700 controlled substances from more than 50 separate pieces of evidentiary items. Most of the thefts were perpetrated in Umatilla and Deschutes counties at the OSP’s Crime Laboratories in Pendleton and Bend.

2016-12-12 | The Science of Discerning the Real from the Fake
A picture is worth a thousand words. When Nicephore Niépce created the world’s first permanent photographic image in 1826, he set in motion what could only be described as a revolution of epic proportions, and though the art of photography has changed over the centuries, our fascination with the captured image never has.

2016-12-08 | Familial Searching, Used in 10 States and Counting, Solves the Unsolvable
Ohio just started using familial searching less than a month ago, issuing protocols on Nov. 9 in how it was to be used. Within weeks, they had matched the DNA from the crime scene to a ladder Christian had touched. “When I learned that a predator was breaking into homes to snatch children from their beds, I wanted to immediately launch this new testing in Ohio, which we had been studying and validating for some time,” said Mike DeWine, the state’s Attorney General. “This is a first for (the Bureau of Criminal Investigation) and a first for Ohio.”