Technology (6): Malcolm Querido: Rhode Island; Correctional officers used brute force to seize DNA from prisoner. (What next? Anthing goes? HL); Reporter Katie Mulvaney; The Providence Journal..."A video shows murder suspect Malcolm Querido as correctional officers use pepper spray to subdue him, strap him to a chair and forcibly take a DNA sample from his mouth. The video shows at least three correctional officers wearing gas masks, gloves and carrying shields as another pumps pepper spray into an inmate’s cell, leaving an orange-tinted residue clinging to the walls. The officers then handcuff and shackle the inmate, 31-year-old Malcolm Querido of North Providence, drag him from his cell, strap him to a chair and forcibly hold his head as a Providence detective extracts a DNA sample from his mouth. Throughout the process, Querido challenges the validity of the search warrant for the DNA sample. “This is wrong, bro. Yo, this is wrong, bro,” Querido yells as the correctional officers in riot gear strap his arms and legs to the chair. “You’re all beating me up to get my DNA?” Querido asks."

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The  controversy over the James De  Angelo case  centers over ethics and privacy issues involved in police access to commercial DNA genealogy services. It raises the question as to how far the police can go to legally access a person's DNA  through a commercial service and then match it directly to the individual.  My instinct as a criminal lawyer and journalist is that the police and other criminal justice system authorities will go to just about any extent to grab a person's DNA - as the effectiveness of this investigative tool spreads throughout the policing world - and  as the Malcolm Querido case, subject of this post, demonstrates. Bravo to Judge Krause for his tough, unequivocal decision rejecting police state tactics. I will be following developments closely.

Harold Levy. Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Throughout the process, Querido challenges the validity of the search warrant for the DNA sample. “This is wrong, bro. Yo, this is wrong, bro,” Querido yells as the correctional officers in riot gear strap his arms and legs to the chair. “You’re all beating me up to get my DNA?” Querido asks. Wayne Salisbury, warden of the Adult Correctional Institutions Intake Center, warns Querido to cooperate, that they need to get the DNA swab from his mouth or they will extract blood instead. After Querido fails to cooperate, Salisbury gives the command and three officers grab his head. “Salisbury, this ain’t right,” Querido says. Later, he can be heard screaming, “Ah, ah, it’s burning!” as he showers to decontaminate himself."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY:  "The video, taken June 22, 2017, at the Adult Correctional Institutions, prompted Superior Court Judge Robert D. Krause to suppress key DNA evidence in Querido’s upcoming murder trial based on “outrageous governmental conduct.” Krause issued the order April 11, striking the buccal swab taken June 22 from Querido, an accused pimp who is charged with stabbing to death Robert J. Bullard, of Medway, Massachusetts, in 2014. “I have seen, as you know, some pretty rough stuff, particularly on this calendar,” said Krause, according to a transcript of the hearing. The judge presides over some of the state’s most violent cases. “And frankly, I have rather thick skin, and I have a high tolerance to that stuff, but yesterday when I saw that video, that was one of the most disturbing clips I have seen in a long, long time. It reflected conduct of law enforcement officers — be they correctional officers, police officers, I couldn’t tell how many they were which, most of them were probably correctional officers ... acting in a most unsettling manner. And I use ‘unsettling’ charitably.” Krause compared the chair seen in the video to “Old Sparky — all that was missing was an electrical cord.”

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STORY: "Judge bars DNA evidence obtained at ACI through ‘unreasonable force and violence,’ by reporter Katie Mulvaney, published by The Providence Journal on April 28, 2018.

GIST: "A video shows murder suspect Malcolm Querido as correctional officers use pepper spray to subdue him, strap him to a chair and forcibly take a DNA sample from his mouth. The video shows at least three correctional officers wearing gas masks, gloves and carrying shields as another pumps pepper spray into an inmate’s cell, leaving an orange-tinted residue clinging to the walls. The officers then handcuff and shackle the inmate, 31-year-old Malcolm Querido of North Providence, drag him from his cell, strap him to a chair and forcibly hold his head as a Providence detective extracts a DNA sample from his mouth. Throughout the process, Querido challenges the validity of the search warrant for the DNA sample. “This is wrong, bro. Yo, this is wrong, bro,” Querido yells as the correctional officers in riot gear strap his arms and legs to the chair. “You’re all beating me up to get my DNA?” Querido asks. Wayne Salisbury, warden of the Adult Correctional Institutions Intake Center, warns Querido to cooperate, that they need to get the DNA swab from his mouth or they will extract blood instead. After Querido fails to cooperate, Salisbury gives the command and three officers grab his head. “Salisbury, this ain’t right,” Querido says. Later, he can be heard screaming, “Ah, ah, it’s burning!” as he showers to decontaminate himself. The video, taken June 22, 2017, at the Adult Correctional Institutions, prompted Superior Court Judge Robert D. Krause to suppress key DNA evidence in Querido’s upcoming murder trial based on “outrageous governmental conduct.” Krause issued the order April 11, striking the buccal swab taken June 22 from Querido, an accused pimp who is charged with stabbing to death Robert J. Bullard, of Medway, Massachusetts, in 2014. “I have seen, as you know, some pretty rough stuff, particularly on this calendar,” said Krause, according to a transcript of the hearing. The judge presides over some of the state’s most violent cases. “And frankly, I have rather thick skin, and I have a high tolerance to that stuff, but yesterday when I saw that video, that was one of the most disturbing clips I have seen in a long, long time. It reflected conduct of law enforcement officers — be they correctional officers, police officers, I couldn’t tell how many they were which, most of them were probably correctional officers ... acting in a most unsettling manner. And I use ‘unsettling’ charitably.” Krause compared the chair seen in the video to “Old Sparky — all that was missing was an electrical cord.” “This court finds, unreservedly, that resorting to the use of noxious pepper gas spray, coupled with the subsequent and unreasonable force and violence by several officers to extract the buccal swab, should have and easily could have been avoided by the state simply filing with the court a motion ordering the reluctant defendant to submit peaceably to buccal swabbing. If the defendant thereafter failed to submit peacefully as ordered, the state merely had to seek a contempt order, and the defendant would have been ordered to a medical facility within the ACI to have the swabbing (or blood drawing, as also allowed in the search warrant) ... accomplished,” Krause wrote in his April 11 order. Querido’s trial has been placed on hold as the state attorney general’s office appeals Krause’s ruling to the state Supreme Court. Prosecutors stand behind the correctional officers’ action. A felon with a long criminal record, Querido has previously been convicted of robbery, felony assault and drug possession. “The state believes that the Department of Corrections’ administration of the buccal swab was constitutionally proper in all respects, and will ask the Supreme Court to reverse the trial court’s contrary determination,” Amy Kempe, spokeswoman for the office, said in an email. Special Assistant Attorney General Joseph McBurney emphasized April 11 that the officers’ actions came only after Querido refused to comply with an earlier warrant and, on June 22, refused to exit his cell. Prosecutors told the court that he had tried to bite correctional officers. The state Department of Corrections declined to identify the officers involved through spokesman J.R. Ventura. Asked about department policies regarding the frequency and manner of administering pepper spray (which officers referred to in the video as the “cell buster”), Ventura gave this email response: “The AG’s office is the agency handling this matter, in order to preserve the integrity of the judicial process, we defer to them regarding future inquiries. As to your other questions, in order to maintain proper safety and security, those procedures are not under public policies. Those security measures are in place to ensure the safety and security of our staff as well as the inmates.” The Journal has filed a request under state Access to Public Records law seeking a copy of the video. Querido’s lawyer, Judith Crowell, allowed a Journal reporter to view the video this week. Richard Ferruccio, president of the correctional officers union, said he wasn’t aware of the case. “My officers do what they’re told to do — within reason,” he said. Crowell, who is joined in representing Querido by Ronald C. DesNoyers, expressed outrage after Assistant Attorney General Jay Sullivan asked Krause to give the prosecution time to seek a fresh warrant for the “critical” DNA evidence. “I think what was shown on the videotape of the extraction ... is absolutely outrageous and dehumanizing and inhumane conduct on the part of the officers involved,” Crowell said April 11. “It seems to me, your honor, that the court’s decision to suppress the buccal swab was entirely appropriate and should not be reconsidered.”

Crowell reiterated that position in an interview at her Dorrance Street office this week. The legal underpinning for Krause’s ruling is “outrageous government conduct,” in which government conduct so shocks the conscience that it violates the Fifth and 14th amendments, Crowell said. “Suppressing evidence so obtained punishes the outrageous conduct and seeks to deter future such conduct on the part of government agents,” Crowell said in an email. “There would be no deterrent value to such a decision if the agents were permitted a ‘second bite at the apple.’” George West is expected to represent Querido on appeal, with Aaron Weisman arguing for the state."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.providencejournal.com/news/20180428/judge-bars-dna-evidence-obtained-at-aci-through-unreasonable-force-and-violence

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/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.

Technology (5): Message from the Washington Post: (Reporter Drew Harwell); Facial recognition may be coming to a police body camera near you. (A still unproven two-edge sword that is not without grave risks. HL)..."The Department of Homeland Security scans the faces of international travelers at many of the country’s biggest airports, and plans to expand to every traveler flying overseas. But critics say facial-recognition systems are still unproven in their ability to uniquely identify someone. Faces age over time and change because of circumstance, and they aren’t always that unique. Identical twins, for instance, have been shown to be able to fool the facial-recognition systems used to unlock Apple’s iPhone X. “Real-time face recognition would chill the constitutional freedoms of speech and association, especially at political protests,” the letter from the dissenting groups states. It “could also prime officers to perceive individuals as more dangerous than they really are and to use more force than the situation requires. No policy or safeguard can mitigate these risks sufficiently well for real-time face recognition ever to be marketable.” Axon has moved aggressively to corner the market on police technologies, offering free one-year trials for its body cameras and online storage to police departments nationwide.?

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The country’s biggest seller of police body cameras on Thursday convened a corporate board devoted to the ethics and expansion of artificial intelligence, a major new step toward offering controversial facial-recognition technology to police forces nationwide. Axon, the maker of Taser electroshock weapons and the wearable body cameras now used by most major American city police departments, has voiced interest in pursuing face recognition for its body-worn cameras. The technology could allow officers to scan and recognize the faces of potentially everyone they see while on patrol. A growing number of surveillance firms and tech start-ups are racing to integrate face recognition and other AI capabilities into real-time video. The board’s first meeting will likely presage an imminent showdown over the rapidly developing technology. Shortly after the board was announced, a group of 42 civil rights, technology and privacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP, sent members a letter voicing “serious concerns with the current direction of Axon’s product development.” The letter urged an outright ban on face recognition, which it called “categorically unethical to deploy” because of the technology’s privacy implications, technical imperfections and potentially life-threatening biases."

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STORY: "Facial recognition may be coming to a police body camera near you," by Drew Harwell, published by The Washington Post on April 26, 2018.

GIST: "The country’s biggest seller of police body cameras on Thursday convened a corporate board devoted to the ethics and expansion of artificial intelligence, a major new step toward offering controversial facial-recognition technology to police forces nationwide. Axon, the maker of Taser electroshock weapons and the wearable body cameras now used by most major American city police departments, has voiced interest in pursuing face recognition for its body-worn cameras. The technology could allow officers to scan and recognize the faces of potentially everyone they see while on patrol. A growing number of surveillance firms and tech start-ups are racing to integrate face recognition and other AI capabilities into real-time video. The board’s first meeting will likely presage an imminent showdown over the rapidly developing technology. Shortly after the board was announced, a group of 42 civil rights, technology and privacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP, sent members a letter voicing “serious concerns with the current direction of Axon’s product development.” The letter urged an outright ban on face recognition, which it called “categorically unethical to deploy” because of the technology’s privacy implications, technical imperfections and potentially life-threatening biases. Most facial-recognition systems, recent research found, perform far less accurately when assessing people with darker skin, opening the potential to an AI-enabled officer misidentifying an innocent person as a dangerous fugitive.

Axon’s founder and chief executive, Rick Smith, said the company is not currently building facial-recognition systems but said the technology is “under active consideration.” He acknowledged the potential for “bias and misuse” in face recognition but said the potential benefits are too promising to ignore. “I don’t think it’s an optimal solution, the world we’re in today, that catching dangerous people should just be left up to random chance, or expecting police officers to remember who they’re looking for,” Smith said. “It would be both naive and counterproductive to say law enforcement shouldn’t have these new technologies. They’re going to, and I think they’re going to need them. We can’t have police in the 2020s policing with technologies from the 1990s.” Axon held the board’s first meeting Thursday morning at its Arizona headquarters with eight company-selected experts in AI, civil liberties and criminal justice. The board, whose members are paid volunteers and have no official veto power, will be asked to advise the company on “future capabilities Axon's AI Research team is working on to help increase police efficiency and efficacy,” the company said in a statement.

Face recognition has long had major appeal for law enforcement and government surveillance, and recent advances in AI development and declining camera and hardware costs have spurred developers to suggest it could be applied for broader use. Roughly 117 million American adults, or about half the country, can be found in the vast facial-recognition databases used by local, state and federal law enforcement, Georgetown Law School researchers estimated in 2016. Faces are regarded as a quick, reliable way to identify someone from video or afar — and, in some cases, seen as easier to acquire than other “biometric identifiers,” such as fingerprints, that demand close proximity and physical contact. The Department of Homeland Security scans the faces of international travelers at many of the country’s biggest airports, and plans to expand to every traveler flying overseas. But critics say facial-recognition systems are still unproven in their ability to uniquely identify someone. Faces age over time and change because of circumstance, and they aren’t always that unique. Identical twins, for instance, have been shown to be able to fool the facial-recognition systems used to unlock Apple’s iPhone X. “Real-time face recognition would chill the constitutional freedoms of speech and association, especially at political protests,” the letter from the dissenting groups states. It “could also prime officers to perceive individuals as more dangerous than they really are and to use more force than the situation requires. No policy or safeguard can mitigate these risks sufficiently well for real-time face recognition ever to be marketable.” Axon has moved aggressively to corner the market on police technologies, offering free one-year trials for its body cameras and online storage to police departments nationwide. The company said in February that more than half of the major city law-enforcement agencies in the United States have bought Axon body cameras or software, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington. The company, which changed its name last year from Taser International, also advertises itself as “the largest custodian of public safety data in the U.S.,” saying more than 20 petabytes — or 20 million gigabytes — of police photos, body-camera video and other criminal-investigation documents have been uploaded to its cloud-storage service, Evidence.com.

Police video is seen as a major growth market for AI-development firms, both for real-time surveillance and after-crime review: One company, BriefCam, allows city officials and police investigators to narrow hours of video down into seconds by filtering only the footage of, for instance, red trucks or men with suitcases. Axon’s long-established contracts with nationwide police forces could push the technology’s real-world deployment rapidly forward. Instead of signing new deals with tech firms, police departments with Axon body cameras could push facial-recognition features to its officers in potentially the same way they apply a software update. Face recognition is one of the most competitive and hotly debated subsets of AI in today’s consumer tech, with Apple, Facebook and Google all devoting teams to expanding its use in security, photo tagging and search. Most facial-recognition systems today depend on “deep-learning” algorithms that analyze facial photos and scan for similarities across a huge data set of similar images. Supporters of body cameras say the upgraded systems could help alert officers to a passing criminal suspect or spot a missing child in a crowd. But the technology does not always deliver perfect results and instead suggests the probability of a possible match, with an accuracy rate that can vary wildly based on the photo’s quality, the person’s skin color or other factors. Privacy advocates worry that the systems could instill a false confidence and lead to police misidentifying innocent people as suspects or wanted criminals, with potentially fatal results. “There’s always going to be a possibility of error and, in a real-time scenario where a police officer is likely armed, the risks associated with potential misidentification are always going to exceed any possible benefits,” said Laura Moy, the deputy director of Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy & Technology. “There's a real concern that it could exacerbate the risk of police use of force.” Today’s facial-recognition systems also show troubling implicit biases, often due to the lack of diversity in images its systems have been trained on. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab said earlier this year that the three leading facial-recognition systems — from IBM, Face++ and Microsoft — performed consistently better at identifying the gender of people with lighter skin, averaging 99 percent accuracy for lighter-skinned men and 70 percent accuracy for darker-skinned women. Body cameras, which gained popularity in recent years as tools for checking police misconduct, have been criticized for contributing to pervasive surveillance and potentially worsening the problems in heavily policed neighborhoods. Police also largely decide the rules of use. Sacramento police officers last month muted their body cameras after fatally shooting Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man, in his grandmother's back yard. Critics have questioned how effective the volunteer ethics board, meeting twice a year, will be in steering the decisions of a private company. But Smith said he saw some parallels between face recognition and Tasers, which saw initial resistance but have rapidly proliferated into one of law enforcement's most commonly used weapons. “We’ll probably see some missteps along the way. As I look back on the Taser journey, when you introduce things with this much of a change, it’s rarely a smooth process,” he said. But “getting this wrong is not just a bad thing for society. Companies that get these things wrong pay a big price. ... We don’t want to create an Orwellian state just to make a buck.”"

The entire story can be found at:

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/26/facial-recognition-may-be-coming-to-a-police-body-camera-near-you/?utm_term=.74c1eec965f5&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1

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/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.

Technology (3): Joseph DeAngelo: The Golden State Killer? Genealogy, crime solving and privacy/ethics: New York Times (reporter Thomas Fuller) explains, 'How a Genealogy Site Led to the Front Door of the Golden State Killer Suspect.'..."The Golden State Killer raped and murdered victims across California in an era before Google searches and social media, a time when the police relied on shoe leather, not cellphone records or big data. But it was technology that got him."

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "He was totally off the radar till just a week ago, and it was a lead they got, somehow they got information and through checking family or descendants — it was pretty complicated the way they did it — they were able to get him on the radar,” said Ray Biondi, 81, who was the lieutenant in charge of the homicide bureau of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department during the crime spree."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The big players in commercial DNA testing — including 23andMe and AncestryDNA — extract genetic profiles from the saliva that customers send to the company in a tube by mail. It would not be easy for law enforcement to upload a profile to one of those sites. Over the past few years, numerous smaller genealogical websites have emerged, however, giving customers more avenues to upload a DNA profile and search for relatives. If law enforcement located the suspect through a genealogy site, it could raise ethical issues, particularly if individuals did not consent to having their genetic profiles searched against crime scene evidence. GEDmatch said in its statement that it had warned those who used its site that the genetic information could be used for other purposes. “If you are concerned about non-geneatological uses of your DNA, you should not upload your DNA to the database and/or you should remove DNA that has already been uploaded,” the statement said."

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STORY: "How a Genealogy Site Led to the Front Door of the Golden State Killer Suspect," by reporter Thomas  Fuller, published by The New York Times on April 26, 2018.

PHOTO CAPTION: "Investigators obtained what Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney, called “abandoned” DNA samples from the suspect."

GIST: "The Golden State Killer raped and murdered victims across California in an era before Google searches and social media, a time when the police relied on shoe leather, not cellphone records or big data.  But it was technology that got him. The suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested by the police on Tuesday. Investigators accuse him of committing more than 50 rapes and 12 murders over decades. Investigators used DNA from crime scenes that had been stored all these years and plugged the genetic profile of the suspected assailant into an online genealogy database. One such service, GEDmatch, said in a statement on Friday that law enforcement officials had used its database to crack the case. Officers found distant relatives of Mr. DeAngelo’s and, despite his years of eluding the authorities, traced their DNA to his front door. “We found a person that was the right age and lived in this area — and that was Mr. DeAngelo,” said Steve Grippi, the assistant chief in the Sacramento district attorney’s office. Investigators then obtained what Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney, called “abandoned” DNA samples from Mr. DeAngelo. “You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain,” she said. The test result confirmed the match to more than 10 murders in California. Ms. Schubert’s office then obtained a second sample and came back with the same positive result, matching the full DNA profile. Those who had investigated the case for years in vain were ecstatic by the sudden breakthrough. “He was totally off the radar till just a week ago, and it was a lead they got, somehow they got information and through checking family or descendants — it was pretty complicated the way they did it — they were able to get him on the radar,” said Ray Biondi, 81, who was the lieutenant in charge of the homicide bureau of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department during the crime spree. The big players in commercial DNA testing — including 23andMe and AncestryDNA — extract genetic profiles from the saliva that customers send to the company in a tube by mail. It would not be easy for law enforcement to upload a profile to one of those sites. Over the past few years, numerous smaller genealogical websites have emerged, however, giving customers more avenues to upload a DNA profile and search for relatives. If law enforcement located the suspect through a genealogy site, it could raise ethical issues, particularly if individuals did not consent to having their genetic profiles searched against crime scene evidence. GEDmatch said in its statement that it had warned those who used its site that the genetic information could be used for other purposes. “If you are concerned about non-geneatological uses of your DNA, you should not upload your DNA to the database and/or you should remove DNA that has already been uploaded,” the statement said. The Golden State Killer, also known as the East Area Rapist, tormented his victims with sadistic rituals. Some he shot and killed with a firearm. Others were bludgeoned to death with whatever he could find — in one case a piece of firewood. He had many trademarks: He wore a mask, he bound his victims’ hands. He started by raping single women and then went on to raping married women with their husbands present, before killing them both. Among the numerous serial killers who stalked America in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s — the Zodiac Killer, the Son of Sam, to name two — the Golden State Killer was among the most notorious. Ms. Schubert has been central to the efforts to find the killer. Her childhood in the Sacramento suburb of Arden-Arcade, just miles from where the suspect prowled through houses and raped women, was marked by the terror of wondering if she or people she knew might be next. “It wasn’t a matter of if he was coming, it was when,” Ms. Schubert said. Her parents were “not gun people,” she said, but her father bought a firearm. Her mother kept an ice pick under her pillow when she slept. Monica Miller, who was in charge of the Sacramento F.B.I. field office from 2013 to 2017, said that when she retired, the case of the Golden State Killer was cold. She said that Ms. Schubert, “was central in leading this, convincing people this was worth pursuing.” For the people of Sacramento, she added, “it was almost an open wound. People would still talk about it. He was a phantom or a ghost in people’s minds.”

In her career as a district attorney, Ms. Schubert championed DNA technology and taught courses about cold cases, creating a unit in the Sacramento district attorney’s office to pursue them. Eighteen years ago she reached out to an investigator from Contra Costa County who specialized in the East Area Rapist, beginning a collaboration to re-energize the case. Two years ago she convened a task force on the 40th anniversary of the attacks in the Sacramento suburbs. It was the work of that group — a collaboration with counties in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area and the F.B.I. — that helped solve the case, Ms. Schubert said. Many questions remain about the suspect. Did his family or his former colleagues have hints about his grisly past? Why did he appear to stop his spree of rapes and murders in 1986? Did he leverage his job as a police officer to elude detection? All of these questions swirled in conversations among residents of Citrus Heights, Mr. DeAngelo’s neighborhood. They awoke on Wednesday shocked to find that their neighbor, a man who liked to tinker with his motorcycle in front of his neat beige stucco house, had been accused of being one of America’s most notorious serial rapists. “It’s crazy — they were looking for this guy for 40 years and he was right here under our noses,” said Ashley Piorun, who lives five houses down from Mr. DeAngelo. “We were shellshocked to find out.” This suburban neighborhood of well-kept homes, northeast of Sacramento, is a classic California housing tract of looping cul-de-sacs and towering palm trees. Ms. Piorun calls it a “quiet, sweet, boring neighborhood.” Paul Sanchietti, another neighbor, said he had taken an interest in the case six months ago and combed through the Wikipedia entry that listed all of the grisly and sadistic crimes the Golden State Killer was accused of committing. “Here I was looking up the guy on Wikipedia and he was five doors down,” Mr. Sanchietti said of Mr. DeAngelo. From the outside, the house seemed meticulously maintained. The roof is new, the garden hose is perfectly coiled, the landscaping of sod, wood chips and decorative rocks is neat. Mr. Sanchietti said he had nothing more than polite interactions with Mr. DeAngelo over the past two decades, but like other neighbors, he remembered Mr. DeAngelo as having a temper. “He would get volatile,” Mr. Sanchietti said. “He would be out here tending to his car and he would get very angry. There were a lot of four letter words.” “Every neighborhood has some strange little dude,” Mr. Sanchietti said. “But for him to be a serial murderer and rapist — that never crossed my mind.”"

The entire story can be found at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/us/golden-state-killer.html?emc=edit_nn_20180427&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=5762908620180427&te=1

See related NBC story -  DNA used in hunt for Golden State killer previously led to wrong man -  at the link below: "Investigators hunting down the so-called Golden State Killer used information from genetic websites last year that led to the wrong man, court records obtained Friday by The Associated Press showed. An Oregon police officer working at the request of California investigators persuaded a judge in March 2017 to order a 73-year-old man in a nursing home to provide a DNA sample. The Oregon City man is in declining health and was unable to answer questions Friday about the case. His daughter said authorities never notified her before swabbing her father for DNA in his bed a rehabilitation center, but once they told her afterward she understood and worked with them to eliminate people who conceivably could be the killer. The case of mistaken identity was discovered as authorities hailed a novel use of DNA technology that led this week to the arrest of former police officer Joseph DeAngelo at his house outside Sacramento on murder charges. Critics of the investigative approach, however, warned it could jeopardize privacy rights."
 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dna-used-hunt-golden-state-killer-previously-led-wrong-man-n869796

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/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.

U.S. By SARAH STEIN KERR 2:01

Suspect Arrested in Golden State Killer Ca

Technology (2): Joseph DeAngelo: (The alleged Golden State Killer); Sfgate (reporters Melody Gutierrez and Jenna Lyons) reveals how detectives in Golden State Killer case used genealogical sites to nab suspect serial killer..."Forensic DNA expert and biologist Greg Hampikian said genealogical websites have been used in missing-person cases, but mining them for criminal suspects is a novel approach that had yet to be successful. “It’s been tried, but this is the first time it’s been successful, and it’s on a gigantic case,” said Hampikian, who consulted on the 2014 case in Idaho using information from Ancestry.com. “This is fantastic.” Others said the privacy concerns raised by the case are weighty."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "It’s possible, said New York University law Professor Erin Murphy, an expert in forensic evidence, that detectives might have been reluctant to tell the public how they identified a suspect because they know people are uneasy about the use of genealogical websites as crime-fighting tools. If a company turned over DNA information, Murphy said that would not be unprecedented, but also not without problems.“There could be huge ethical issues there,” Murphy said."

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STORY: "Detectives in Golden State Killer case used genealogical sites to nab suspect," by reporters Melody Gutierrez and Jenna Lyons, published by SFgate  on April 26, 2018.

GIST: "Investigators broke open the long-stagnant case of the prolific serial killer and rapist known as the Golden State Killer by mining DNA profiles collected by genealogical websites used by individuals to trace family heritage, the Sacramento County district attorney’s office said Thursday. Law enforcement had long had a DNA profile of the suspected killer, which helped them connect murders and rapes across the state to the same unidentified man. But, the DNA profile did not match any contained in criminal databases that are used by law enforcement throughout the U.S. to link crimes to suspects. The explosion in recent years of DNA heritage websites such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com provided investigators with another tool, although both of those companies said Thursday they were not involved in this case. The genealogical sites, which were not revealed, linked the suspect’s DNA profile to a likely family member, two sources familiar with the case told The Chronicle, allowing investigators to build a pool of suspects and then narrow it down. They obtained a court order to compel the site to work with them, one of the sources said. Ultimately, detectives said they got what they had long awaited — a DNA match to Joseph James DeAngelo, an ex-cop living in Citrus Heights (Sacramento County). They followed him and collected an item he had discarded that they say contained his DNA. DNA experts said the use of genealogical websites is a controversial and unorthodox method to solving crimes, one that could pose ethical questions if it involves a commercial company where users have an expectation of privacy. There are also publicly available databases online that offer anyone the ability to upload and view DNA results to learn more about their family tree. Investigators had been hesitant to reveal how they came to identify DeAngelo as the Golden State Killer or East Area Rapist, whose reign of terror included 12 slayings and 45 rapes in California from 1976 to 1986. The Sacramento County district attorney’s office confirmed that the use of genealogical websites narrowed their pool of suspects after news outlets, including The Chronicle, reported the method. Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones said a task force trying to solve the heinous crimes turned to “very innovative and emerging DNA technology that gave us a universe to look in.” DeAngelo had not been on detectives’ radar previously. It’s possible, said New York University law Professor Erin Murphy, an expert in forensic evidence, that detectives might have been reluctant to tell the public how they identified a suspect because they know people are uneasy about the use of genealogical websites as crime-fighting tools. If a company turned over DNA information, Murphy said that would not be unprecedented, but also not without problems.  “There could be huge ethical issues there,” Murphy said. One of the biggest genealogical companies, Ancestry.com, said the company has had no contact with law enforcement in the DeAngelo case. The company’s policy is to provide information only when compelled by court order or warrant, a spokeswoman said. The company has received one search warrant in its history demanding that it identify a person based on a DNA sample. In that 2014 case, police searched a public DNA database owned by Ancestry.com using DNA collected at a homicide scene in Idaho and found a profile that matched 35 of 36 genetic markers, leading to the possibility that a family member of that person was their suspect. While the DNA profile was public, the name of the person who uploaded it was not, leading police to obtain a warrant for the identity. In that case, police hit another dead end, ultimately clearing a man they suspected and saying that his family members were also not involved. A spokesman for 23andMe, a genetic testing firm based in Mountain View, said the company was not contacted in the DeAngelo case. It’s possible, Murphy said, that detectives used various publicly searchable genealogical websites, which she said eases privacy or ethical questions. Detectives could have focused on the Y-STR — part of the male Y chromosome that is handed down paternally — to find a relative or find a likely last name, Murphy said. Combine that narrowed list with the likely age of a suspect and geography, and “that could give you a smaller list of names,” Murphy said. Forensic DNA expert and biologist Greg Hampikian said genealogical websites have been used in missing-person cases, but mining them for criminal suspects is a novel approach that had yet to be successful. “It’s been tried, but this is the first time it’s been successful, and it’s on a gigantic case,” said Hampikian, who consulted on the 2014 case in Idaho using information from Ancestry.com. “This is fantastic.” Others said the privacy concerns raised by the case are weighty. Most testing companies don’t explicitly say in their privacy policy or terms of service that they’ll hand over customer information if police departments seek it. But they may not have a choice if ordered by a court to do so, experts said. “A few (ancestry sites) will say, ‘We’ll protect your privacy in so far as we can go — unless the courts intervene,’” said Sheldon Krimsky, a professor at Tufts University who has written about bioethics and privacy, including a 2017 report on consumer privacy and DNA. “Most say, ‘We’ll do our best.’” The use of a genealogical site is different from traditional familial searches using DNA — like the one that unmasked the Grim Sleeper. In that case, police linked Lonnie Franklin Jr. to the killings of 10 people over 25 years using a DNA sample from his son, whose genetic profile had been uploaded into a database of known criminals. “The familial search process, the way it’s designed and the way it works, it gives you a father, son or full sibling,” said Rockne Harmon, a consultant to numerous law enforcement agencies on cold cases and a former Alameda County prosecutor. California expanded its use of familial DNA 10 years ago, when then-Attorney General Jerry Brown allowed law enforcement agencies to receive notification when a partial DNA match — not just a full DNA match — was made in a case, which allowed detectives to link crimes through relatives. Familial searches are designed to produce only a close male relative, Harmon said, which usually results in one suspect, like in the case of the Grim Sleeper. “It either picks out the right person or no one,” Harmon said. “Familiar searching has become far more commonplace, and it’s not as big of a deal anymore.” That’s not the process law enforcement officers were describing when they unmasked their suspect Wednesday at a news conference outside the Sacramento district attorney’s crime lab. There, they described a flurry of activity over the past week as they closed in on DeAngelo. DeAngelo’s name was known to investigators at least a month ago. Paul Holes, a cold-case investigator for the Contra Costa County district attorney’s office, said the list of potential suspects had been narrowed to roughly five men — DeAngelo among them. Still, DeAngelo wasn’t at the top of that list, Holes said, until DNA ruled out some of the other men. Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies began surveilling DeAngelo’s home and were able to obtain two “surreptitious samples” from him — meaning they waited for him to discard something with his DNA on it. Investigators got one sample a week before his arrest, but it was too weak, Holes said. They went back and tested a second sample, which investigators said was a 100 percent match. DeAngelo was then arrested. According to Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, he was “very surprised.”"

The entire story can be found at:

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Detectives-in-Golden-State-Killer-case-used-12867784.php

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/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.

Vicente Benavides Figueroa: California; "Benavides was freed after all but one of the medical experts who testified against him recanted their conclusions that the girl had, in effect, been raped to death — conclusions they had reached after reviewing incomplete medical records. In fact, the first nurses and doctors who examined the semiconscious and battered girl in 1991 observed no injuries suggesting she had been raped or sodomized, but those details were not passed along to the medical expert witnesses who testified in court. Injuries later observed at two other hospitals were likely caused by that first effort to save her life, which included attempts to insert an adult-sized catheter. Convicting Benavides was an egregious miscarriage of justice; he spent a quarter-century on death row for a crime he apparently did not commit." L.A. Times editorial: "The latest California death row exoneration shows why we need to end the death penalty."

EDITORIAL: "The latest California death row exoneration shows why we need to end the death penalty." published by The L.A. Times Editorial Board on April 27, 2018. (Thanks to  Dr. Mike Bowers, CSIDDS, Forensics in Focus, for bringing this case to our attention).

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "In fact, the first nurses and doctors who examined the semiconscious and battered girl in 1991 observed no injuries suggesting she had been raped or sodomized, but those details were not passed along to the medical expert witnesses who testified in court. Injuries later observed at two other hospitals were likely caused by that first effort to save her life, which included attempts to insert an adult-sized catheter. Convicting Benavides was an egregious miscarriage of justice; he spent a quarter-century on death row for a crime he apparently did not commit. His exoneration serves as a reminder of what ought to be abundantly clear by now: that despite jury trials, appellate reconsideration and years of motions and counter-motions, the justice system is not infallible, and it is possible (or perhaps inevitable) that innocent people will end up facing execution at the hands of the state. Not all of them will be saved, as Benavides was."

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GIST: "A Kern County Superior Court judge last week ordered that a 68-year-old former farmworker, Vicente Benavides Figueroa, be released from San Quentin's death row after the local district attorney declared she would not retry him. Benavides had been in prison for more than 25 years after being convicted of raping, sodomizing and murdering his girlfriend's 21-month-old daughter. Benavides was freed after all but one of the medical experts who testified against him recanted their conclusions that the girl had, in effect, been raped to death — conclusions they had reached after reviewing incomplete medical records. In fact, the first nurses and doctors who examined the semiconscious and battered girl in 1991 observed no injuries suggesting she had been raped or sodomized, but those details were not passed along to the medical expert witnesses who testified in court. Injuries later observed at two other hospitals were likely caused by that first effort to save her life, which included attempts to insert an adult-sized catheter. Convicting Benavides was an egregious miscarriage of justice; he spent a quarter-century on death row for a crime he apparently did not commit. His exoneration serves as a reminder of what ought to be abundantly clear by now: that despite jury trials, appellate reconsideration and years of motions and counter-motions, the justice system is not infallible, and it is possible (or perhaps inevitable) that innocent people will end up facing execution at the hands of the state. Not all of them will be saved, as Benavides was. Innocent people end up facing execution at the hands of the state. The case also ought to remind us of the dangers inherent in California's efforts to speed up the calendar for death penalty appeals under Proposition 66, which voters approved in 2016. Moving more quickly to execute convicted death row inmates increases the likelihood that due process will be given short shrift and the innocent will be put to death. Benavides — described in court filings as a seasonal worker with intellectual disabilities — was convicted in 1993. But the records that blew up the case against Benavides, but also raised doubt that Consuelo Verdugo had been murdered at all, were not uncovered until about 2000. Proposition 66 makes it less likely that such diligent research can be completed in the single year it gives appellate attorneys to file their cases (a process that currently consumes three years or more), and thus more likely that innocent people will be put to death. This rush-to-execute mood isn't California's alone. Florida adopted its own speed-up legislation five years ago. And around the country, pro-death penalty advocates argue that the condemned take advantage of the appeals process to delay their executions. Federal statistics for 2013, the last year available, show an average of 15 1/2 years between sentence and execution for people on death row in the U.S. At least 365 people have been on California's death row for 20 years or more. Benavides was released after more than 25 years. Two half-brothers in North Carolina spent about 30 years under death sentences before they were exonerated. Since the Supreme Court revived the death penalty in 1976, more than 150 people have been exonerated of the murders for which they were condemned (in most cases that also meant the real killers got away with it), with an average of more than 11 years between sentence and exoneration. A 2014 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that at least 4% of the people sitting on America's death rows are probably innocent. With a national death row population of 2,700 people, that means more than 100 people currently under death sentences probably are innocent — about 30 of them in California. A rush to execution will only increase the chances that state governments will execute the innocent in the name of the people. The unfixable problem with the death penalty is that mistakes get made, witnesses lie, confessions get coerced — all factors that can lead to false convictions. It is abjectly immoral to speed things up by limiting due process. The better solution is to get rid of the death penalty altogether."

The entire editorial can be found at:

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-death-penalty-california-benavides-201804257-story.html

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/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.

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Technology: (!): Testing hair for drugs: Does it unfairly target dark hair: Fascinating analysis by reporter Ellen Airhart in 'Wired.'..."The stakes are high. Everyone wants police officers and other public servants to be as alert as possible, especially in dangerous situations. The FDA has approved Psychemedic’s hair tests for eight drugs, not just cocaine. Raymond C. Kubacki, now CEO of Psychemedics, says that scientific accuracy is the company’s top priority. “Psychemedics is a pioneer in the washing technique,” he says. “It’s important that we don’t have anyone falsely accused because of outside contamination.” But the hair test puts an undue burden on African Americans, and especially African American women. Common hair styles mean that simply cutting a chunk of hair for the test can be harder for these women. And adding extra hurdles for this group to join and stay in law enforcement could cost the city: Male police officers cost the government between two to five times more in legal fees than female police officers—and only about 13 percent of policy officers identify as women. Though Hogan has already been reinstated, the risk of future false positives still looms over her peers, both in and out of law enforcement. The result of her discrimination case, which is still ongoing, should inform the use of a potentially flawed test—and hopefully spur the development of others."

 PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Keri Hogan was about to become a police officer when she submitted a sample of her hair to the city of Boston for testing. The city, in turn, gave it to a company called Psychemedics, which washed the hair, dissolved it, and used gas chromatography and mass spectrometry—chemical analysis techniques—to check it twice over for evidence of cocaine. Hogan’s hair tested positive. Boston police officers whose hair tests positive for drugs usually have two options: admit their substance abuse problems and agree to a stint in rehabilitation, or relinquish their position. But Hogan, who finished her police training prior to 2005, says that she has never used cocaine; when she sent her hair to a private company for more testing, it came back negative. Now, she and nine other black police officers are suing the city of Boston, saying that the practice of testing hair for drugs is discriminatory. Because of the chemistry behind the test, they say, it unfairly targets dark hair. The bench trial for the case began on March 12, and may have long-lasting consequences for the future of drug testing."

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STORY: "The Hairy Problem With Drug Testing,"  by reporter Ellen Airhart, published by Wired on April 1, 2018.

GIST: "Keri Hogan was about to become a police officer when she submitted a sample of her hair to the city of Boston for testing. The city, in turn, gave it to a company called Psychemedics, which washed the hair, dissolved it, and used gas chromatography and mass spectrometry—chemical analysis techniques—to check it twice over for evidence of cocaine. Hogan’s hair tested positive.
Boston police officers whose hair tests positive for drugs usually have two options: admit their substance abuse problems and agree to a stint in rehabilitation, or relinquish their position. But Hogan, who finished her police training prior to 2005, says that she has never used cocaine; when she sent her hair to a private company for more testing, it came back negative. Now, she and nine other black police officers are suing the city of Boston, saying that the practice of testing hair for drugs is discriminatory. Because of the chemistry behind the test, they say, it unfairly targets dark hair. The bench trial for the case began on March 12, and may have long-lasting consequences for the future of drug testing. The hair test was developed in the late ‘60s, when an Austrian chemist named Werner Baumgartner decided to piggyback on the work of his wife. Annette Baumgartner was working at the Aerospace Corporation, trying to figure out what toxins might be ingested by onlookers during a shuttle launch, and Werner realized that he could look for drug exposure with the strategies she developed. Substances floating around the blood eventually get incorporated into the hair as it grows—either through tiny blood vessels or the oil and sweat glands that surround the hair follicle—and drugs found inside the hair itself, he realized, would be harder to cheat on than urine or saliva tests. They’d linger longer in the sample, too. Baumgartner demonstrated the full force of the procedure when he used it to identify opiate painkillers in the poet John Keats’ hair, which the lab received from a rare book collection at the University of Texas at Austin. After a Time Magazine story about the Keats test, several businessmen approached Baumgartner with the intent to start a company, and Psychemedics was born. In 1985, a navy chemist named David Kidwell was tasked with studying the test’s effectiveness—and soon, he began to have reservations. In 1993, he published the results of an experiment in which he soaked the hair in a mix of cocaine derivative and water, then washed it repeatedly before performing the drug test. Despite his attempts to remove the external contamination, the tests came back positive. Baumgartner argued that Kidwell had used the wrong wash procedure; the test was still reliable. But Kidwell and his research partner lashed back: “At the current level of understanding, the presence of drugs in an individual's hair indicates exposure to that compound,” they wrote. “Attempting to expand this observation into the suggestion of use or long-term abuse of a drug would seem unwarranted at this time.” Thus began a scientific back-and-forth that has continued to this day. Scientists like Kidwell argue that both external and ingested cocaine binds to melanin in the hair. People with black hair have more melanin in general, but especially more of the subtype eumelanin, which studies have shown binds particularly well with cocaine and amphetamines. (Gray hair doesn’t have much of any type of melanin, so if you want to get away with using cocaine, aging may be your best bet.) And researchers disagree over whether hair can ever be washed clean of any and all drugs it could have come into contact with from the outside.

Despite those questions, both the Boston and New York police departments, 10 to 15 percent of Fortune 500 companies, court systems, federal reserve banks, and numerous high schools still use the hair test. The FBI phased it out in 2009, then re-implemented it in 2014. About 200,000 drug tests are run on hair in the US every year. Meanwhile, research from Kidwell and other scientists has shown that both the amount of melanin in the hair and some chemical treatment involved in styling makes a difference in how much contamination the hair can absorb. Kidwell has appeared as an expert witness in many lawsuits about the validity of the tests over the last 20 years. “I am not sure there will ever be absolute settlement,” says Bruce Goldberger, the chief of forensic medicine and a professor of toxicology at University of Florida Health. He was the first person to find a way to identify the difference between heroin and morphine in a drug hair test. The law has generally sided with Pyschemedics. But in 2012, the state of Massachusetts ruled that the hair test alone is not enough to terminate employment. Six police officers were reinstated in their jobs, and Hogan finally graduated from the police academy. She and the other plaintiffs are now in a federal court, asserting that the test is specifically discriminatory. The stakes are high. Everyone wants police officers and other public servants to be as alert as possible, especially in dangerous situations. The FDA has approved Psychemedic’s hair tests for eight drugs, not just cocaine. Raymond C. Kubacki, now CEO of Psychemedics, says that scientific accuracy is the company’s top priority. “Psychemedics is a pioneer in the washing technique,” he says. “It’s important that we don’t have anyone falsely accused because of outside contamination.” But the hair test puts an undue burden on African Americans, and especially African American women. Common hair styles mean that simply cutting a chunk of hair for the test can be harder for these women. And adding extra hurdles for this group to join and stay in law enforcement could cost the city: Male police officers cost the government between two to five times more in legal fees than female police officers—and only about 13 percent of policy officers identify as women. Though Hogan has already been reinstated, the risk of future false positives still looms over her peers, both in and out of law enforcement. The result of her discrimination case, which is still ongoing, should inform the use of a potentially flawed test—and hopefully spur the development of others."

The entire story can be found at:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-hairy-problem-with-drug-testing/

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/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.

Stormy Daniels: Police sketches: A criminologist's point of view: Neat perspective by the Canadian Broadcast Corporations radio show (one of my favourites) The Current...The segment is called: "To catch a criminal, police sketches can be useful — or hilarious."..."Michael Arntfield, a criminology professor at Western University, cautions that human memory can be fraught with problems, which can make for unreliable police sketches. "We don't remember explicit details necessarily, certainly not the degree of detail that courts like to hear," he said. "We remember with emotions, we remember with … other senses, including scent and sound." Arntfield said that in the 1950s, U.S. firearms company Smith and Wesson released the Identi-Kit, a collection of facial features printed on transparent sheets. "Essentially it's a Mr. Potato Head," Arntfield explained, "where you have a face, and just plot certain eyes or nose or mouth shapes on to this transparency. Because it was sufficiently generic, and allowed for a certain degree of interpretation ... it really resonated with people." In contrast, the sketch commissioned by Daniels has an "excess of detail," he said, and is more likely to generate publicity than leads."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The wrongful murder conviction of Thomas Sophonow is an example of how unreliable eyewitness accounts can be, said Arntfield. In 1981, witnesses incorrectly identified Sophonow as a man they had seen near the Winnipeg donut shop where 16-year-old Barbara Stoppel was murdered. After three trials, he spent four years in prison before being acquitted.As an investigative tool it can useful, he said, but only with a credible witness."

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "When someone says it's 100 per cent, and you don't have to fix anything," she said, "then it was made up."

Forensic artist: Diana Trepkov;

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STORY: "To catch a criminal, police sketches can be useful — or hilarious," published by The CBC's The Current on April 19, 2018.

CAPTION: "An artist's drawing of a man who allegedly threatened Stormy Daniels, right, in 2011 caused a stir online."

GIST: "They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but are police sketches worth the paper they're drawn on? Twitter users played a gleeful game of Guess Who yesterday, with an artist's impression of the man who Stormy Daniels alleged threatened her in 2011. The adult film star says she was being warned off selling a story to a magazine about a sexual encounter with Donald Trump. Tom Brady and Matt Damon were among the celebrities being compared to the sketch on social media, but for Diana Trepkov, one of Canada's top forensic artists, it's a serious business. "Someone knows something, always, when it comes to stuff like this," she told The Current's guest host Laura Lynch. "If someone did threaten [Daniels] seven years ago, they would be bragging about it in a bar to some friends," she added. The sketch could ring a bell and prompt them to come forward. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is also offering a $131,000 US reward to anyone who can positively identify the suspect. Trepkov has worked on more than 200 cases worldwide. She said that when someone is threatened, "that image will burn in their head, they'll they'll remember that face." When working with victims, she starts by asking questions that could trigger that memory: What was the weather like that day? What was the person wearing? Once a witness is comfortable, she'll show them a picture catalogue of features: eyes, noses, ears. The witness will point out what resembles the perpetrator, and Trepkov will start to draw, but without showing the witness her progress.  When she is about 60 to 70 per cent finished, she will "swoosh it" past the witness, giving them only a brief glimpse. "I could tell by the expression on her face how close I am," she said. "If it's a little 'Oh my God,' or a scared look, then I know I'm getting close." Our memories make mistakes: Michael Arntfield, a criminology professor at Western University, cautions that human memory can be fraught with problems, which can make for unreliable police sketches. "We don't remember explicit details necessarily, certainly not the degree of detail that courts like to hear," he said. "We remember with emotions, we remember with … other senses, including scent and sound." Arntfield said that in the 1950s, U.S. firearms company Smith and Wesson released the Identi-Kit, a collection of facial features printed on transparent sheets. "Essentially it's a Mr. Potato Head," Arntfield explained, "where you have a face, and just plot certain eyes or nose or mouth shapes on to this transparency.  Because it was sufficiently generic, and allowed for a certain degree of interpretation ... it really resonated with people." In contrast, the sketch commissioned by Daniels has an "excess of detail," he said, and is more likely to generate publicity than leads. A useful tool (with a credible witness); The wrongful murder conviction of Thomas Sophonow is an example of how unreliable eyewitness accounts can be, said Arntfield. In 1981, witnesses incorrectly identified Sophonow as a man they had seen near the Winnipeg donut shop where 16-year-old Barbara Stoppel was murdered. After three trials, he spent four years in prison before being acquitted.As an investigative tool it can useful, he said, but only with a credible witness. Trepkov has come across fabrications in her work, and has learned that witnesses that are too ready to accept her sketches are often hiding something. "When someone says it's 100 per cent, and you don't have to fix anything," she said, "then it was made up.""

The entire story can be found at:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-19-2018-1.4625289/to-catch-a-criminal-police-sketches-can-be-useful-or-hilarious-1.4625316

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/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.

Maine: From our 'when you thought you'd heard everything department': Message to all lawyers: The next time your client says 'it wasn't heroin,' listen carefully. You may be in for a surprise!

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: If this story proves to be 'fiction' I will make a donation to an Innocence Project - and apologize in advance to my readers. (If it doesn't I will make the donation anyway!)

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Kevin Raymond Curtis, of Augusta, held up an evidence bag Tuesday containing two small, clear plastic bags of a white sandy material. Police had suspected the grainy substance was heroin.    It was actually his father. The 48 grams of suspected heroin seized after a car crash Saturday morning in Manchester proved instead to be human remains — specifically, the cremated remains of Robert Clinton Curtis Sr., who died five years ago in Brookville, Florida. “This was the first time my father was ever in lockup right here, and it took me forever to get him out of it,” Curtis said. In fact, it took about 48 hours to have the cremains returned from the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office after a field test showed the substance was negative for heroin."

QUOTE OF THE DAY:  "Curtis said he hasn’t had his father’s ashes long. “My sister had them and gave some of them to me just recently,” he said. He said he had kept father’s cremains in the glove box while he awaited arrival of an urn he had ordered. “I didn’t want them if they were in the house, the kids ripping them open and having them everywhere,” Curtis said. Curtis, 57, has four children. “The kids were really mad when they found out that (the police) took Grandpa, but I tried to make a joke of it. I said, ‘This is the first time he’s ever been in lockup and we’ll just get him out.”

STORY:  "Powder seized by police after car crash was human remains, not heroin," by reporter Betty Adams, published by centralmaine.com on April 24, 2018.

SUB-HEADING: "Kevin Raymond Curtis, of Augusta, says his father's cremated remains were in a vehicle's glove compartment while he awaited arrival of an urn he had ordered."

PHOTO CAPTION: "Kevin Curtis holds an evidence bag Tuesday that contains two clear pouches filled with the ashes of his late father, Robert C. Curtis Sr. The smaller bags had been seized as suspected heroin by Kennebec County sheriff's deputies after a car crash Saturday in Manchester. Kevin Curtis had lent his car to a friend to go to the grocery store, and the remains were in the glove box."

PHOTO CAPTION: "Robert C. Curtis Sr., formerly of Maine and Florida, was the father of Kevin Curtis. His remains were seized by police as suspected heroin."

GIST: "Kevin Raymond Curtis, of Augusta, held up an evidence bag Tuesday containing two small, clear plastic bags of a white sandy material. Police had suspected the grainy substance was heroin.    It was actually his father. The 48 grams of suspected heroin seized after a car crash Saturday morning in Manchester proved instead to be human remains — specifically, the cremated remains of Robert Clinton Curtis Sr., who died five years ago in Brookville, Florida. “This was the first time my father was ever in lockup right here, and it took me forever to get him out of it,” Curtis said. In fact, it took about 48 hours to have the cremains returned from the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office after a field test showed the substance was negative for heroin. Kennebec County Sheriff Ken Mason confirmed the test results Tuesday, calling the substance “human remains; a rather unusual manner in which to keep the remains of a loved one, for sure.” The elder Curtis probably would have been pleased with the result; after all, he had worked as an auxiliary officer for the Hallowell Police Department in the late 1950s, then worked in local factories, his son said in an interview Tuesday. On Saturday, Kevin Curtis had lent his 2006 Chevrolet Impala to a friend, Jess Legendre, 31, of Livermore Falls, to go to the grocery store. Curtis said he was unaware Legrendre’s license had been suspended. Police said Legendre’s license had been revoked because he was a habitual offender. While Legendre was traveling along Prescott Road in Manchester, the vehicle went off the road, struck and broke a utility pole and ended up in a ditch. Initially, investigators thought he was under the influence of heroin, and emergency responders used the opioid-overdose reversal drug Narcan on him to revive him after he appeared to pass out while rummaging through the glove box for paperwork. Deputies found the small bags of powder and suspected they contained heroin. A second dose of Narcan was administered later at MaineGeneral Medical Center, where Legendre was taken for treatment. Curtis said he hasn’t had his father’s ashes long. “My sister had them and gave some of them to me just recently,” he said. He said he had kept father’s cremains in the glove box while he awaited arrival of an urn he had ordered. “I didn’t want them if they were in the house, the kids ripping them open and having them everywhere,” Curtis said. Curtis, 57, has four children. “The kids were really mad when they found out that (the police) took Grandpa, but I tried to make a joke of it. I said, ‘This is the first time he’s ever been in lockup and we’ll just get him out.” He also said some of his father’s remains had dumped out during the crash and the ashes had spilled on Legendre’s pants. Curtis said his sister, who is from Winthrop, is driving around with more of their father’s cremains in her truck because she is in the process of moving. And an unrelated visitor to Kevin Curtis’s home Tuesday morning said she has the cremains of her grandmother in her vehicle, although they are in the original packaging she received from the funeral home. The woman said she was waiting for relatives to agree before the remains could be interred. On Monday, Legendre was charged with operating after habitual offender revocation and falsifying physical evidence. He was not charged with any drug-related offense and there’s no evidence he was under the influence of drugs at the time, even though he seemingly responded to the opioid-overdose reversal drug Narcan administered by emergency repsonders. “At the time we didn’t have the correct testing equipment to test it. It has since come back negative and that property has been returned to the owner,” said Lt. Chris Read, of the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office. Legendre had called Curtis and his girlfriend, Jennifer Nisby, immediately after the crash to tell them what happened, Nisby said on Tuesday. She too is a longtime friend of Kevin Curtis. Both Curtis and Nisby said Legendre was tired after finishing a 20-hour shift. Authorities said that rescue personnel found a small chunk of a brown substance in Legendre’s mouth, believed at the time to be heroin, but Nisby has an explanation for that, too. “The only thing that was in his mouth was something that came from the airbag and he was gagging on that,” Nisby said. “The airbag hit him right straight in the face,” Curtis said. “He wasn’t breathing right and said his eyes were burning.” They said they suspect that’s why the Narcan was administered. Narcan, also referred to as naloxone, is “a medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdose,” is safe and affects only those with opioids in their system, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Legrendre remained in the Kennebec County jail in Augusta early Tuesday afternoon but was expected to be released later on bail, which had been set Monday at $1,000 in cash or, alternatively, $250 cash with a Maine Pretrial Services supervision contract."

The entire story can be found at: 
https://www.centralmaine.com/2018/04/24/tests-show-powder-seized-by-police-after-car-crash-were-human-remains-not-heroin/

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/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.

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/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.