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In The News

2015-02-25 | The path forward on bite mark matching — and the rearview mirror
Reform, of course, is a long process, but in the field of bite mark matching — which again was the forensics specialty the NAS report singled out for some of its harshest criticism — the “path forward” looks to be obstructed. That’s probably because with bite mark matching, the debate isn’t just about adopting better standards or practices, but also about whether the field should exist at all. “Most people in forensic odontology are practicing dentists, or academics. They don’t make their living doing bite mark analysis,” says Michael Saks, an Arizona State University law professor who studies the role of science in criminal law. “They do it on the side. Many of these cases involve sex crimes and crimes against children. So they see themselves as avenging angels. They’re protecting the weak. They’re putting away the bad guys. Then along come critics like Michael Bowers or the Bushes, calling their good work into question. You can see why they’d be angry, even though Bowers and the Bushes are right.”

2015-02-24 | Battling Bias: AAFS Panel Discusses Cognitive Bias
Treating all criminal cases fairly in the face of cognitive bias was at the forefront of the “Human Factors in Forensic Science” discussion at this year’s AAFS Plenary Session. The discussion featured some of the top academics and practitioners in the field, and highlighted the importance and difficulty of recognizing cognitive bias, and the necessity to diminish its effects.

2015-02-23 | While some rape kits sat untested, suspects committed more assaults
As Houston officials Monday trumpeted the completion of DNA testing on a three-decade backlog of sexual assault kits, they also acknowledged that while the DNA of some alleged rapists went untested, the suspects committed other sexual crimes.

2015-02-22 | Berman: The saga of rapist Joseph Blackmer’s DNA
The Blackmer case demonstrates how decisively DNA evidence changed the crime-solving process, and reinforces Worthy’s decision to test “every one” of the rape kits she located in a Detroit Police Department storage area in 2011. The appeals court decision bolsters the argument for analyzing even old cases.

2015-02-20 | It literally started with a witch hunt: A history of bite mark evidence
And yet the court was wrong. Stinson spent 23 years in prison before DNA testing exonerated him. Stinson never bit the victim. All of the argumentation about set-back incisors, flared teeth and the arch of the mouth, all of that evidence that screamed guilt — to a moral certainty no less — it was all nonsense. Yet the court never made any effort to correct its mistake. As Fabricant and Carrington point out in their article, State v. Stinson is still the controlling precedent for bite mark evidence in Wisconsin. That the man whose name appears in the case was actually innocent doesn’t seem to matter.

2015-02-20 | How the flawed ‘science’ of bite mark analysis has sent innocent people to prison
Burke was held in jail for 41 days. He was released when DNA testing on saliva recovered from the bite mark excluded him. Five years later, DNA from the saliva around bite mark hit a match in the FBI’s Combined Index DNA System (CODIS). The match was to a man already convicted of murder. Prosecutor William Keating, who took office after Burke’s arrest, told the Chicago Tribune he had “no question” that Burke was innocent.

2015-02-20 | New DNA tool OK in trial
Wakefield's attorney, Frederick Rench, had called the new science "voodoo" and hoped to have it blocked from the trial. He argued the new DNA abandoned the human element in analysis and fell below the thresholds that are standard in DNA labs. This will be the first time the technology is to be used in a New York court. "Here, there is a plethora of evidence in favor of Cybergenetics True Allele Casework, and there is no significant evidence to the contrary," Coccoma wrote, calling it "relevant, reliable and accurate." The judge wrote that principles used by Cybergenetics True Allele Casework are "superior to current methods."

2015-02-20 | Attack of the bite mark matchers
There were red flags that bite mark analysis was flawed even as the first cases in the 1970s secured its use in the courtroom. For example, a 1975 study asked bite mark analysts to match bite marks made in pig skins under optimal laboratory conditions to the teeth that were used to make the marks. The error rate was 24 percent. When the analysts were asked to make their matches from photos of the marks taken 24 hours later — as is often done in criminal cases — they were wrong nine out of 10 times.

2015-02-19 | The Tyranny of the Police Org Chart
The occupant of the lower box may feel it is out-of-place to offer an idea or suggestion up the chain-of-command. The upper echelon box holders may also feel it is out-of-place for the lower level to do this as well, and quiet sets in. Throw in an insecure upper-level member who is intimidated by the new kids on the block and chances of innovation and improvement drop dramatically. Positional authority, legitimate power, is abused.

2015-02-19 | Family faced with digging up body after GBI mix-up
The GBI Crime Lab mixed up the bodies and sent a local funeral home the body of a Clayton County man by mistake. "It is the GBI's mistake. And, I wish they would hurry up and have these remains of this other person moved where I could get my brother buried here," said Lowe. Richmond County Coroner Mark Bowen is rarely speechless, but the mix up has him searching for words. Unfortunately, he says the mix up seems to be a symptom of a more widespread problem with overload at the state crime lab. The Augusta GBI Crime Lab has been without a medical examiner since 2013, so every autopsy has to be done in Atlanta.