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In The News

2018-09-26 | NIST Details Plans for Reviewing the Scientific Foundations of Forensic Methods
NIST foundation reviews will evaluate the current state of a discipline's scientific foundations, which the report defines as, "the trusted and established knowledge that supports and underpins," its methods. These reviews will increase trust in forensic methods that have a strong scientific foundation. In cases where the foundation would benefit from further strengthening, the reviews might provide strategic direction for future research.

2018-09-25 | Chicago Murder Prosecution Falters When Expert Fails to Stay Within His Lane
The situation that arose during the testimony of Mark Messick illustrates that dangers that lurk when an expert witness testifies beyond his/her area of expertise. In an earlier article posted to this website entitled “Stay Within Your Lane!: The Importance of Knowing Your Boundaries as an Expert Witness”, I set out the pitfalls of an expert witness exceeding stated qualifications in testimony. I recommend reading that article to put the Chicago case in context.

2018-09-20 | Cotton vs. Nylon DNA Swabs: Efficiency Depends on Experience
“In summary, cotton swabs can be as efficient at recovering trace DNA as nylon-flocked swabs, but the rate of recovery appears to depend on practitioner experience and/or the substrate type,” they write. “This, along with the variable recovery efficiency of mini-tapes, is being investigated further.” The nylon-flocked swabs (COPAN FLOQSwabs) yielded efficiency of roughly 85 percent from the control seeded directly with DNA solution, while the cotton swabs (SceneSafe) yielded about 55 percent, they write. However, the disparity disappeared with application on non-porous surfaces. Roughly 55 percent of the DNA was recovered from plastic knife handles. Cotton showed several better efficiency rates on plastic piping, firearm metal, and glass, they report. But this was still just a fraction of the DNA that had been planted there (all less than 20 percent), they add.

2018-09-20 | Framed By Your Own Cells: How DNA Evidence Imprisons The Innocent
Modern technologies can now detect and analyze DNA from samples comprised of only 16 cells. But due to the touch-transfer properties of DNA, determining how those cells reached the surface on which they were found is impossible. Tiny amounts of touch-transferred DNA have placed people at locations they had never visited and implicated people for crimes they did not commit.

2018-09-19 | Suspect-centric Bias in DNA Mixture Interpretation
Bias abounds in criminal justice. Predictive policing can bake bias into software, reflecting and reinforcing prior beliefs. Bail-risk computer programs may entrench pre-trial detention disparity. Human judgment pervades the process. Prosecutor and defender alike passionately argue their client’s case, drawing opposite conclusions from identical facts. Science is above the fray. Objective data suggest forensic match between crime scene and suspect. Statistical data analysis yields incontrovertible numbers for the strength of match. Cold DNA facts are presented as confirmed theories in court.

2018-09-18 | DNA Advances in the Limelight
The advances in collecting invisible traces of genetic material from crime scenes, pulling them from decayed remains, and finding a way to interpret and identify degraded samples have been a revolution in criminalistics. But limitations remain, and ongoing research projects and case studies continue to push boundaries—making the impossible DNA cases of the present solvable in the very near future.

2018-09-18 | Consultant uncovers host of problems at Wisconsin crime labs
The center’s 24-page report ticked off a host of problems, most notably that employee turnover has become such an issue that the labs are in a constant state of training, which pulls trainers off casework. That forces other analysts to take on the trainers’ work, pulling them off casework, too. A number of factors are playing into turnover, the center found. Entry-level analysts are making more than senior and advanced analysts because the market rate for their positions is outpacing DOJ salary increases for the more experienced workers, leading to low morale. Administrative staff pay is so low that they’re constantly seeking employment elsewhere, the center said.

2018-09-12 | Conviction Reversed Because Houston Crime Lab Analyst, Supervisor Did Not Disclose Evidence Problems
DEEPER INSIGHTS How do modern quantification kits STACK UP? Gooden was suspended in April 2014 after alerting her supervisor, William Arnold, that she had mislabeled a blood sample that apparently arrived at the lab with errors on the label. She was suspended from casework reports while the agency investigated. Gooden continued to testify in three trials, including Diamond’s, about other samples without informing prosecutors or the defense about her suspension, the court found.

2018-09-11 | Houston's crime lab plans downtown move
The forensic science center is again trying to catch up. The lab currently has a backlog of 1,349 latent fingerprint tests; 925 DNA cases, including 316 rape kits; and 697 gun database entries. In January, the lab announced it would spend $2 million outsourcing DNA testing in an effort to clear a new rape kit backlog by next year.

2018-09-05 | Case Study: Local AFIS Eradicates Aliases in Ohio
The palm prints, which the West Chester examiners regularly take, did not produce any hits in the local or state database. But after the fourth burglary, latent-to-latent hits matched all the crimes together, according to Tivin. The eighth crime developed a lead: a juvenile offender. Most minors are not allowed to be fingerprinted in Ohio, owing to state law. But when police proved their case to get a court order to print the juvenile, they had their immediate answers: all eight burglaries, and an auto theft, all matched against the boy’s biometrics. “It sounded like a pinball machine with all the beeps we were getting, all the hits,” said Tivin.