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"Reformers have for years recommended that all forensic labs be independent from law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies' and this is a key reform promoted by The Justice Project (2008). But fixing these problems is only half the answer' because half of the wrongful convictions attributed to misleading forensic evidence involved deliberate forensic fraud' evidence tampering' and/or perjury.
From "The Elephant in the Crime Lab," by co-authored by Sheila Berry and Larry Ytuarte; Forensic Examiner; Spring, 2009;
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COMMENTARY: "Looking Beyond the ‘White Bears’ in Criminal Justice," by James Doyle, published by 'The Crime Report' on June 6, 2017. (James Doyle is a Boston defense lawyer and author, and a frequent contributor to The Crime Report.)
Somebody hired, promoted and assigned Scarcella. Someone was supposed
to supervise him. The crime scene and forensics people were supposed to
investigate the cases too. The answer to “Who is responsible?” is “Everyone involved.” Someone designed, and someone was supposed to maintain, an elaborate
scaffolding of rules and procedures organized to deal with the reality
that now and then a “Louis” may show up. The prosecutors, the defenders,
the judges, the jurors and the appellate courts are all supposed to
intercept his mistakes. Someone organized the responsibilities and
training and set the budgets for this legion. The answer to “Who is responsible?” is “Everyone involved, to one degree or another.” We failed together.........It isn’t hard to see why the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office
hesitates before undertaking the sort of non-blaming, all-stakeholders
review of the circumstances and culture that surrounded Scarcella and
that shaped his conduct which aviation, the military, and medicine would
mobilize (and which the National Institute of Justice is exploring in
criminal justice with its Sentinel Events Initiative). To the Brooklyn prosecutors, any demand for that sort of
comprehensive review inevitably looks like a vindication of the maxim
that no good deed (e.g., creating an active Conviction Integrity Unit)
goes unpunished. The Acting DA is afraid that any search for “Why” and
“How” will inevitably turn up more than one “Who” —in fact, lots of
“Whos,” and lots of them within the DA’s office. After all, any review that assesses the choices not only of a
Scarcella but of the whole system and includes the prosecutors involved
in his cases will expose people who are not swashbuckling Scarcella
types, but are the innocent authors of omissions, slips, oversights,
dangerous “work-arounds,” and other simple human errors. Why risk making “white bears” of those staff members for the
foreseeable future—vulnerable to the arbitrary (and persistent)
attentions of the Times and others? But as uncomfortable as it is to say it, exonerating the innocent,
waving off Scarcella, and then moving on really isn’t enough if
prevention of future tragedies is something you care about. In fact, it doesn’t begin to be enough. Calling endlessly for the discipline or prosecution of Scarcella isn’t enough either. It may be that Louis Scarcella is every inch the creep that many
contend he is, but we have to be careful about seeing this White Bear as
a White Whale. Scarcella didn’t, like Moby Dick, act from “inscrutable
malice.” The white whale is a powerful literary device, but tolerating the
illusion that the only thing wrong in Brooklyn criminal justice is that a
white whale comes along now and then and requires harpooning isn’t
simply incomplete; it is false. The fact is, the Times’ approach and the Acting District Attorney’s reinforce each other. We all need to look past the One Big Villain explanation. Interventions—small changes in the practice of any one of an array of
other people—could have changed the catastrophic outcomes in the
wrongful convictions cases. Those people don’t want to convict the innocent and leave the guilty
free. They will change their practices if we can help them figure out
how. We should enlist them in working to improve the safety
consciousness of their everyday frontline work. They present a much more hopeful path to future safety than the punishment (or not) of Louis Scarcella."
The entire post can be found at:
The entire post can be found at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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/c
