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In The News

2016-03-18 | Fingerprints of World’s Most Wanted Terrorist Lifted in Belgium
In the aftermath of a police raid on a Brussels apartment that left one alleged terrorist dead, on Tuesday, authorities might have found some of the most significant evidence in the search to find one of the world’s most wanted terrorists. Authorities believe they have recovered fingerprints from fugitive Salah Abdeslam, a leader in the Paris attacks, last November, that killed 130 people. Belgian federal prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt confirmed the fingerprints to the AP, but it is not yet known whether Abdeslam was one of the men who fled the apartment during the raid Tuesday.

2016-03-09 | Post-Conviction DNA Testing Confirms Guilt for 1974 Rapist, Not Innocence
Post-conviction DNA testing has exonerated a growing list of the wrongfully convicted – some that have even spent time on death row – but, it only added to the evidence against one convicted man in a particular case in Virginia. The conviction of a man for a 1974 home invasion and rape appears to be confirmed from the most recent DNA testing that had been sought by the Innocence Project, according to multiple reports. But the order filed last month confirmed the samples of sperm from the rape kit were indeed Stevenson’s, according to the results from a private lab, Forensic Analytical Sciences, according to The Virginian-Pilot. At the time of the arguments for the additional testing last year, the Virginia Beach commonwealth’s attorney’s office argued against it – but the Innocence Project eventually won, based on arguments about the strength of the technology’s accuracy.

2016-03-09 | No need for UNMC crime lab, Sheriff’s Office says, but county attorney, mayor, police chief still support merger proposal
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office is pushing back on a plan to create a new, independent crime lab at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. But Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine, who has long advocated for a merger between Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and Omaha police crime analysis operations, said he wants to see the plan move forward. “We want the highest standards that we can have, and we’re not there right now,” Kleine said. “And it’s been too long. It hasn’t happened the way it should have.”

2016-03-07 | Reversing the legacy of junk science in the courtroom
The short answer, if you ask any statistician, is that he couldn’t. There was some unknown chance that a different gun struck a similar pattern. But for decades, forensic examiners have sometimes claimed in court that close but not identical ballistic markings could conclusively link evidence to a suspect—and judges and juries have trusted their expertise. Examiners have made similar statements for other forms of so-called pattern evidence, such as fingerprints, shoeprints, tire tracks, and bite marks.

2016-03-03 | Lab Tech Suspended after Allegedly 'Dry Labbing' Drug Evidence
A forensic scientist allegedly seen “dry labbing” a suspected marijuana sample in December has been suspended, as prosecutors and defense attorneys consider thousands of other cases in which he handled evidence. According to state documents, he wrote “test results” for suspected marijuana, without actually performing tests. The alleged problem was discovered on Dec. 10, 2015, authorities said.

2016-03-03 | Reviewing DNA-Mixture Convictions: Here We Go, Again
Recent developments in the Texas criminal justice system may point towards the necessity of, once again, looking back at convictions because of DNA. This time however, the issue is not the certainty which DNA can provide a jury that other evidence cannot. Rather, the issue centers around the recent changes in interpretation guidelines for mixtures, and the extent to which convictions based on the previous methods of calculating results were misleading to juries. This issue may be much more problematic for criminal justice systems to deal with then the first time DNA gave us reason to look backwards. But deal with it they must.

2016-03-01 | Flawed FBI Hair Analysis Leads to $13.2M Wrongful Conviction Lawsuit
A man who served more than 27 years in prison based on flawed FBI hair analysis has now been awarded $13.2 million in his wrongful conviction lawsuit. The multimillion-dollar award is just the latest in the nation’s capital – and is part of a wave of reconsidered convictions involving the repudiated hair analysis across the U.S.

2016-03-01 | FBI Can Use Dead Suspects' Fingerprints To Open iPhones -- It Might Be Cops' Best Bet
Marina Medvin, owner of Medvin Law, told me that though 4th Amendment privacy protections could cause an issue for a living person, ”once you are dead, you don’t have legal standing to assert a 4th Amendment privacy violation”. “Stated more simply: Your privacy wasn’t violated, because you are dead. And you can’t stand before the court to assert such a concept, because you are dead. And your family can’t assert it on your behalf because the 4th Amendment cannot be invoked on behalf of someone else; it’s a personal privacy protection,” Medvin added. The FBI would have to move fast to unlock the device, however. Any iPhone that hasn’t been opened with a fingerprint within 48 hours requires a passcode be entered. But as Medvin noted, it would be hard for anyone to contest a search of someone’s device when they’re deceased, so police could act swiftly without fear of a legal challenge.

2016-02-24 | Getting More from Trace DNA from Fingernails
Based on the results, a protocol was developed that was applied to scratchings, wherein females scratched male volunteers on the forearm using a set amount of force, and scratchings were processed using the most effective procedures. The prevalence of cell loss or cross contamination using certain nail processing techniques was also examined, as was cell loss and cross contamination during nail transport and the influence of nail polish. Overall, this study identified strengths and weaknesses in each step of fingernail evidence processing.

2016-02-24 | Bite-mark recommendation raises tougher questions
Their work — several studies that found the science behind bite-mark analysis unsound — helped lay the foundation for a landmark recommendation by the Texas Forensic Science Commission to ban the form of evidence from being used in the courtroom.