Oregon: Allegations of sloppy work, bias, dishonesty taint State Police handwriting unit. The Oregonian.

STORY: "Allegations of sloppy work, bias, dishonesty taint Oregon State Police handwriting unit," by reporter Bryan Denson, published in the Oregonian on November 18, 2012.

GIST: "An Oregon State Police handwriting examiner committed a serious error in a killer-for-hire case last January, provoking so much finger-pointing that the future of the agency's document analysis unit is uncertain. State police officials, confronted by a whodunit under their own roof, suspended all work by the handwriting unit in March, saying little about why. But internal reviews obtained by The Oregonian through open-records filings detail allegations of bias, sloppy work and dishonesty. Out-of-state experts are now re-examining 35 criminal cases worked by the unit's two handwriting analysts, partly to ensure that no innocent people were convicted on faulty findings. Washington State Patrol officials, who relied on the examiner who made the error to review at least 40 of their cases from 2009 to 2010, are waiting to see what the experts find."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/81d445007c46449dae797d7f332e049a/OR--Police-Handwriting

 PUBLISHER'S NOTE

I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.