National institute could fix crime-lab deficiencies

Original arti­cle can be found here:

Peter Neufield, co-director of the Innocence Project, points to the recent Supreme Court deci­sion on requir­ing foren­sic sci­en­tists to tes­tify, and Justice Scalia’s com­ment on “defi­cien­cies” in crime labs, as fur­ther evi­dence of the neces­sity of a National Institute of Forensic Science.

Some of the rea­sons listed are “… vast dis­par­i­ties in tech­nique, fund­ing and stan­dards across the country.”

Well tech­niques and fund­ing should vary across the coun­try. What tech­niques used in a hot/dry cli­mate like Arizona, won’t nec­es­sar­ily work well in more humid cli­mates like cen­tral Texas, or colder cli­mates like North Dakota. Also fund­ing will very depend­ing on the size of the lab­o­ra­tory (equip­ment and per­son­nel), as well as the vol­ume of cases being pushed through, and other socio-economic fac­tors such as tax revenue.

As far as there being vari­abil­ity in stan­dards, that’s just a by-product (and not a bad thing) of the fact that the cases are being ana­lyzed by humans, and not machines in the more “con­tested” dis­ci­plines. The same is true when you visit a doc­tor. The diag­no­sis and sug­gested treat­ment for a given set of con­di­tions aren’t always the same for each doc­tor look­ing over the test results. This is why peo­ple get “sec­ond opin­ions”. The fact that two dif­fer­ent doc­tors can come to dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions doesn’t inval­i­date the field of med­i­cine, nor does it mean that we need a National Institute of Medical Science, or any other fed­eral agency look­ing over your doctor’s shoulder…even if that is the way we are headed anyway.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent deci­sion on crime lab tes­ti­mony in crim­i­nal cases has attracted quite a bit of atten­tion from legal com­men­ta­tors and prac­ti­tion­ers who won­der what the rul­ing will mean in court­rooms across the country.

The case con­firmed defen­dants’ con­sti­tu­tional right to ques­tion tech­ni­cians who ana­lyzed the foren­sic evi­dence in their case. In many states, a nota­rized report from a crime lab, with no chance for cross-examination, had been deemed sufficient.

It will take some time to sort out how the case will affect future pros­e­cu­tions. But we should be focused instead on what the case says about the state of foren­sic sci­ence in this coun­try — and how much remains to be done to ensure that our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem relies on solid science.

As Justice Antonin Scalia, writ­ing for the Supreme Court, noted, “Serious defi­cien­cies have been found in the foren­sic evi­dence used at crim­i­nal trials.”

Sadly, there is con­sid­er­able evi­dence to sup­port this find­ing. Earlier this year, the National Academy of Sciences released an unprece­dented, wide-ranging report on foren­sic sci­ence that found the field rife with basic sci­en­tific deficiencies.

The report found vast dis­par­i­ties in tech­nique, fund­ing and stan­dards across the coun­try. Not all labs are accred­ited, and accred­i­ta­tion guide­lines vary from state to state. Worse yet, with the excep­tion of nuclear DNA test­ing, which experts esti­mate is pos­si­ble in only 5–10 per­cent of crimes, many foren­sic “meth­ods” have not under­gone basic sci­en­tific val­i­da­tion, which would would quan­tify accu­racy of results and con­sis­tency of accuracy.

As a first step, the acad­emy strongly rec­om­mends the cre­ation of a National Institute of Forensic Science. The inde­pen­dent, science-based fed­eral agency would stim­u­late research, develop best prac­tices and set national stan­dards for foren­sic work; help secure fund­ing for foren­sic sci­ence pro­grams; and pro­vide guid­ance on how foren­sic test results should be con­veyed to police, pros­e­cu­tors, judges and juries.

At present, there is no con­text in which to place most foren­sic tes­ti­mony for a judge or jury. If a hair found at a crime scene is “con­sis­tent with” a sus­pect, does that mean that the results link that one sus­pect to the crime uniquely? Does it impli­cate 50 pos­si­ble defen­dants? A thou­sand? Attorneys, judges and juries scru­ti­nize the evi­dence, but are not trained in sci­ence or sta­tis­tics. They are will­ing to defer to the “experts.”

The Supreme Court deci­sion rec­og­nized the prob­lem with­out address­ing it. Without under­ly­ing research and stan­dards, nobody knows how reli­able the sci­ence is. That is why we need a National Institute of Forensic Science.

The tragic results of sci­en­tific defi­cien­cies were clear in the case of Paul House in Union County, Tennessee. House was sen­tenced to death after foren­sic evi­dence “def­i­nitely” linked him to the crime. Decades later, DNA test­ing showed that the evi­dence linked to House was, in fact, from some­one else. He served more than two decades on death row before he was finally cleared this year.

House’s case was not an iso­lated inci­dent. Nationwide, more than 240 peo­ple have been exon­er­ated with DNA test­ing, and approx­i­mately half of those wrong­ful con­vic­tions involved the kind of unval­i­dated or improper foren­sic sci­ence that a national insti­tute could help prevent.

A National Institute of Forensic Science is a vital step toward strength­en­ing our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. When an inno­cent per­son is wrong­fully con­victed, the actual per­pe­tra­tor remains free to com­mit addi­tional crimes. That’s exactly what hap­pened in Memphis after Clark McMillan was wrong­fully con­victed — dur­ing the 22 years he was in prison before DNA proved his inno­cence, the actual per­pe­tra­tor went on to com­mit sev­eral addi­tional rapes.

In the months ahead, Congress will seri­ously con­sider how to struc­ture a national insti­tute. U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., will play a key role in this as the chair­man of the House Committee on Science and Technology.

From a cour­t­house in Union County to the U.S. Supreme Court, there is a clear con­sen­sus Congress needs to act so that our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem relies on the best evi­dence possible.