FBI FORENSICS GAVE FALSE TESTIMONY FOR PROSECUTORS IN CRIMINAL CASES FOR OVER 20 YEARS

In an astonishing admission of corruption the FBI and the Justice Department acknowledged that for over twenty years almost all of its examiners in its elite microscopic hair comparison unit gave false evidence in criminal prosecutions. Almost all of the faulty evidence helped federal and state prosecutors win convictions.

FBI agent Delilah takes hair sample from Sampson

Forensic evidence has always been based on subjective nonscientific conclusions that have the veneer of science making them difficult for defense lawyers to successfully attack. How much injustice did the prosecutors buy with false microscopic hair comparison evidence? The Washington Post tells us how many lives were ruined with false forensic evidence:

In 268 jury trials in which hair comparison evidence was used against defendants, the FBI gave false evidence in 257 of those cases. Of those 257 trials with false evidence 32 were death-penalty cases.

University of Virginia law professor Brandon L. Garrett said the results reveal a “mass disaster” inside the criminal justice system, one that it has been unable to self-correct because courts rely on outdated precedents admitting scientifically invalid testimony at trial and, under the legal doctrine of finality, make it difficult for convicts to challenge old evidence. 

How could this happen for over twenty years? First, there were no formal written standards until 2012 that adequately defined acceptable and unacceptable hair comparison analysis in court. Second, there were no competent studies that accurately established that hair from different people could never still match nor is it that supposition even now scientifically provable. Third, more accurate DNA testing of similar but different hair samples found that FBI comparisons were flawed. Fourth, any subjective evidence is not really scientific evidence, it's guessing. This is not only true for hair samples but true for other types of forensic evidence such as fingerprint evidence.

Finally, this continued for far too long because it became embedded in criminal law despite lack of absolute scientific standards. In many cases the evidence of hair samples was subject to antiquated legal precedent which allowed prosecutors to argue that comparison results were in fact scientific proof of guilt. This is especially troubling since in essence it means federal and state judges allowed massive injustice in the guise of justice by forcing jurors to accept the FBI analysis as scientifically based fact.

What can we do? Clearly there should never be "finality" for criminal law injustice. It's not enough for FBI agents, prosecutors, judges and defense lawyers to simply apologize to those convicted with false testimony. Whatever effort and cost necessary to right this wrong must be made. The remedy requires opening up these convictions with new trials, because the goal of criminal law should be fairness not finality.

PINELLAS POLICE ADMIT INCOMPETENCE & FAILURES OF COLLECTION, STORAGE & ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE

Integrity, Fidelity & Faulty Evidence

The St. Petersburg Police Department has cut a deal to pay the far better trained and equiped Pinellas County Sheriff's Department (PCSO) for help in collecting, storing and analyzing evidence gathered at crime scenes. Even when evidence was properly collected the police department no longer had room to properly store the evidence possibly tainting the forensic laboratory work. Oddly the cash agreement only involves "significant criminal cases" such as sexual battery, aggravated battery, burglary, firearm cases, murder, DUI manslaughter and child pornography. 

The problem with this reasoning by the St. Petersburg Police Department (SPPD) is that every allegation of criminal misconduct is very significant to the person whose life, property and reputation are at risk. That allegation of grand theft or even petty theft case can still ruin someone's life. As a fundamental right of justice every defendant within Pinellas County should always have access to only the very best possible collection, storage and analysis of all the evidence in his or her case. Yet the reliability of Tampa Bay expert forensic testimony even in fingerprint cases has been in doubt for years.

In a deep moral sense the plea for help to PCSO is a commendable admission of failure that attempts to remedy past incompetence. The new Chief of Police is cleaning up the problems he inherited; problems he clearly did not cause. The police department should be lauded not attacked for it's new found honesty as to it's current inabilities. 

Yet one wonders how many times SPPD officers have taken the stand and testified under oath about evidence that was improperly seized, collected or tested. The act of asking for help from the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department begs the question of when exactly that help was needed. When did the SPPD find that the threshold of honest evidence was not met? Shouldn't a grand jury be convened to find out?

No wonder so many defendants refuse jury trials because they believe that the criminal justice is rigged to find them guilty. But what about those defendants already arrested or convicted by false or faulty forensics? Shouldn't doubtful cases dependent upon the St. Petersburg Police Department's admitted forensic failures be reopened? Shouldn't collected evidence be reexamined and reanalyzed by the more competent PCSO?

Prosecutors and the SPPD have a moral responsibility to dig deep, reviewing every trial, checking each conviction and rewinding any forced changes of plea to bring the facts to judges so that false charges are dismissed and those awaiting justice in prison are finally freed.

HOW RELIABLE IS EXPERT FINGERPRINT EVIDENCE BY POLICE IN ARRESTS INVESTIGATIONS AND PROSECUTIONS IN TAMPA BAY AND PINELLAS?

The Washington Post recently found that the government provided false forensic testimony leading to convictions in hundreds of cases and then inexplicably failed to give this information to the Defense for possible review of wrongful convictions.  The reliability of expert forensic testimony is usually taken for granted in cases in Tampa Bay and Pinellas, even by a Clearwater Criminal Defense Attorney who in this blog has written about faulty forensic crime labs leading to unacceptable errors and false testimony.
What are the weaknesses and strengths of Fingerprint analysis in criminal trials in Pinellas and Hillsborough? How accurate is Fingerprint evidence in Florida Courts?
When a fingerprint is detected at a crime scene, later analysis and comparison depends on the age, integrity, quality of the original latent print and how it was processed. As the articles linked with suggest there are significant hurdles for law enforcement to successfully overcome to gain a fingerprint which will be useable for matching purposes. 

Reliability weak points

Matching and interpreting prints can be subjective and vary between examiners, whose level of training can range from formal programs to informal monitoring.

Matching
"points"

One case study

Houston Police Department Crime Laboratory

In 2009, a Houston police crime lab audit found irregularities in more than half of fingerprint examinations sampled. Officials hired consultants to review 4,300 cases and work through a 6,000 case backlog.

Much of the problem of making an identification based on fingerprint evidence comes into the subjective play over what is a reliable and useable latent print. For example, even as some specialists believe in the impossibility of finding usable prints of a Defendant on a murder victim's body, other experts believe that latent prints on human skin are a hidden evidence which can, with proper care be uncovered. 
When a useable fingerprint exists then the crime scene print is matched to the subject, who one hopes isn't a Pinellas Criminal Defense Lawyer. Yet the matching itself is fraught with uncertainty as experts do not always agree on what constitutes a match. In an interesting news release FDLE (Florida's FBI) noted that it's 'improved matching technology'  had tripled the number of hits within its system. But are all the hits true matches or did FDLE merely reduce the criteria upon which it counts a match?