Quite honestly, I think that most criminal defense attorneys who handle cases are not substantively and truly competent to handle the case that they accept. That’s right over 50%. At first blush, I am sure that this assertion makes me seem like a pompous know-it-all and perhaps even a jerk, but that is not my […]
Loophole for Justice: Does a Combination of Prosecutorial Ignorance and Outsourcing of Forensic Services Matter?
One of the alarming trends I am seeing locally and even nationally is the employing of third party vendor laboratories to do forensic analysis. While I think it is a good idea to remove the forensic analysis from law enforcement per the NAS report recommendations, I fear that it is also done, in part, for […]
The Shame that is Dallas County Crime Lab-the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences, or SWIFS
It is great to live in a time of great awakening. It is marvelous to watch even the mainstream media do what it should have done decades ago: question. We must continue to question the sacred cow of forensic science. In doing so, it will only promote justice. Here is a great article on the […]
How maintaining scientific justice is like establishing and maintaining a path in the darkest jungle
One of my all time favorite books is Heart of Darkness written by Joseph Conrad. It is a short read but the combination of the first person narrative and the vivid imagery makes it unforgettable. The book is set in colonial times in Africa. The main character is a sailor by the name of Marlow. Marlow […]
Integration and the need for electronic data files
Boss Tweed (pictured below) was a notorious political crime boss in New York. He had a quote that was attributed to him: “Remember the first rule of politics. The ballots don’t make the results, the counters make the results. The counters – keep counting.” This is also true in chromatography. We have written in this […]
Only in the bizarro “science” world of forensic science: I only consider the data the DA tells me to
Remember this scene from Seinfeld? I had a brush of this of similar type today. Science versus science fiction… The Bizarro World (also known as Htrae) is a fictional planet in the DC comics universe. Introduced in the early 1960s, Htrae is a cube-shaped planet, home to Bizarro and his companions, all of whom were […]
Doughnuts and Blood Testing – How the government’s own data often proves that they contaminate blood samples and look the other way
The Colorado Springs Independent recently published an article about laboratory concerns within the Colorado State crime laboratory system. The article written by Chet Hardin was called “Blood and circus: Why many DUI lawyers don’t trust the state’s drug lab.” One of the issues discussed was the problem of ethanol being detected in blanks. The governments position of […]
Whose data is it? The Crime Laboratory or the People
One of the continuing sources of frustration to many criminal defense attorneys is that generally what we get in discovery is simply garbage conclusory reports of little value. What criminal defense attorneys look to do is to verify and validate these conclusions set to this conclusory report. In essence, we simply seek to do science. […]
Inappropriate & Unethical Relationship Revealed between Drug Prosecutor & Chemist Annie Dookhan
The investigation into the Massachusetts Crime Lab scandal involving Annie Dookhan has revealed that there was an inappropriate and unethical relationship between her and a prosecutor in the district attorneys office. It appears that for the last two to three years, prosecutor George Papachristos had direct personal communication with Dookhan who was the chemist on […]
The Rogue Chemist Excuse: Just as real as the boogie man in the closet
We hear time and time again about how these crime laboratory disasters are the work of one lone, rogue chemist. This is the pattern that emerges time and again in the press. What is lost in the reporting is the true failure: the lack of oversight; the lack of quality assurance; the lack of transparency; […]
Ray Krone talks about the nightmare of innocence at the 2012 ACS Fall meeting (Forensic Science, Chemistry and the Law)
On August 20, 2012, the American Chemical Society at its biannual meeting held a special Presidential Seminar called “Innocence! The Work of the Innocence Project.” It was funded by The McShane Firm, LLC and presented through the Chemistry and the Law Division and the Forensic Science, Chemistry and the Law subdivision. At the presentation, were three […]
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