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In The News

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.

2021-03-16 | New app to help researchers identify people through knuckle creases
Knuckle creases are an increasingly prevalent biometric used in forensic science and could have a significant impact in assisting police to link suspects to crimes from images of their hands alone.

2021-02-10 | Did Tennessee Execute an Innocent Man?
Many people on death row in the United States have gone to their death protesting their innocence. In at least a dozen and a half cases, strong evidence supports such a claim, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. But to date, no case has emerged in which DNA or other evidence has provided definitive proof that the state executed an innocent person. A case like that “could accelerate the end of the death penalty in America,” said Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project. Mr. Scheck teamed up last week with a prominent conservative litigator, Paul Clement, a former solicitor general for President George W. Bush, before the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals on behalf of the estate of a Tennessee man, Sedley Alley, who was executed for a 1985 murder.

2021-02-08 | Austin Officially Moves Forensics Lab Out From Under Police Department
In a move long advocated for by survivors of sexual assault, the Austin City Council voted Thursday to officially transfer its forensics bureau out from under the police department. It will now function as an independent entity.

2020-01-24 | FBI, federal prosecutors investigate District’s forensic firearms lab
Federal authorities are investigating the conduct and oversight of a firearms analyst for the District’s Department of Forensic Sciences, an agency that has come under scrutiny in two other instances for problems with its handling of crime scene evidence. The investigation involves an allegation that the examiner falsely indicated that his analysis of evidence had been verified by a colleague, when it actually had not undergone a required review, according to one person familiar with the investigation. When a complaint was made, a supervisor allegedly instructed the colleague — whose name had essentially been forged — to play down his concerns.

2019-11-11 | ‘The Nature of Life and Death’ spotlights pollen’s role in solving crimes
The combination of pollen and spores at a site can be as distinct as a fingerprint, especially when dealing with rare plants or fungi, or pollen that isn’t spread far and wide by the wind, Wiltshire explains. By studying the material, she has, for example, determined where and during which season crimes have occurred. In one murder case, Wiltshire used pollen and spores from a gardening tool, the tennis shoes of the murderer and the foot pedals of the victim’s car to identify the woodland locale in northern England where the victim’s body had been dumped.