Forensic Science Under the Microscope

Ever since the NAS report was pub­lished, the pop­u­lar media has taken an about face in what news sto­ries they report. No longer are police crime labs por­trayed as hal­lowed halls con­tain­ing cru­saders pro­tect­ing the pub­lic from crim­i­nals. Now crime labs are described as lairs con­tain­ing bum­bling lack­eys for tyran­ni­cal police and pup­pets for prosecutors.

The truth of course lies some­where in between.

This arti­cle blasts the Santa Clara County Prosecutor’s Office for their own inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion of crime lab errors, but shouldn’t a lab with per­ceived prob­lems be inves­ti­gated exter­nally? Certainly a lab should inves­ti­gate itself inter­nally, but for pub­lic con­fi­dence it needs to be inves­ti­gated exter­nally. It should also not be inves­ti­gated by other crime labs, such as an ASCLD/LAB audit, but rather a com­pletely inde­pen­dent group.

This arti­cle and this arti­cle go into how the Michigan State Police will have to rean­a­lyze cases orig­i­nally done by the Detroit Police Department. The prob­lems with the Detroit Police crime lab were pre­vi­ously cov­ered in this blog here, here, and here.

This arti­cle goes into false con­vic­tions stem­ming from the Houston Police Crime Lab, from the point of view of the District Attorney. The most incred­i­ble part of the story is the pros­e­cu­tor, the agency who demo­nized this inno­cent man, and con­vinced a jury of his peers, that he was a child moles­ter, some­how man­ages to blame the defense in the case for not PROVING the man’s inno­cence. Make no mis­takes peo­ple, this IS the com­mon trend in today’s pros­e­cut­ing attor­neys’ offices — the belief that a man isn’t inno­cent until proven guilty, but rather the defense needs to prove them­selves innocent.