PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "In 2007, NACDL partnered with the Innocence Project and the FBI to review comparative bullet lead analysis cases, following the FBI’s admission that its agents potentially gave flawed or misleading testimony in thousands of such cases. In addition, NACDL worked with the DOJ Office of Enforcement Operations to correct the serious injustice caused by the failure to notify thousands of defendants whose cases were affected by the findings of wrongdoing in the 1996 Office of the Inspector General Report and FBI Task Force investigation. Progress has been made on some of these objectives. But sadly, much of the promise of the 2009 NAS report and its associated recommendations remain unfulfilled, as the 2016 PCAST report attests, and some of that progress is in danger of being rolled back. In 2017, the DOJ announced it would not renew the National Commission on Forensic Science, an advisory committee of scientists, prosecutors, defense lawyers, law enforcement, and judges created in 2013 by the Obama administration to improve the practice and reliability of forensic science. The DOJ also ended plans for an expanded review of FBI testimony in several forensic disciplines that are susceptible of the same types of scientifically invalid statements uncovered in the FBI’s microscopic hair comparison review, leaving open the possibility that similar errors and resulting wrongful conviction will go unremedied. The NAS Report achieved progress, but it has been slow. Additionally, momentum recently decreased along with an increased resistance to scientific independence and establishing scientifically valid foundations for forensic disciplines by some in law enforcement."
-----------------------------------------------------------
GIST: " Ten years ago today the National
Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences released the
landmark report Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States, A Path Forward
(NAS Report). The impact of the NAS Report in strengthening forensic
science and improving its use in the courtroom has been tremendous.
However, significant work is still needed to implement its
recommendations and achieve its objectives and the government abandoned
some of the plans for reform, stalling progress. “A critical component of real and lasting reform in the legal system,
especially in the context of criminal prosecutions, is ensuring the
scientific integrity of forensic evidence admitted in the courtroom,”
said NACDL President Drew Findling. “NACDL remains committed to
advancing this essential goal.” The 2009 NAS Report identified serious deficiencies in forensic
science and called for reform, increased funding, and research to ensure
foundational validity and increase the reliability of forensic evidence
used in criminal cases. The Report made several crucial recommendations
aimed at fixing America’s seriously flawed system. That included the
establishment of a wholly independent federal agency to oversee the
forensic science community consistent with scientific principles and as
objective and unbiased as possible. The NAS report discussed the need
for mandatory, standardized certification and accreditation of forensic
science education and laboratories and certification of forensic science
professionals. The Report also cited the need for institutional
independence of public forensic laboratories, which the NAS found often
hold a prosecutorial bias. In 2016, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) issued its own report, Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison Methods,
reaffirming many of the underlying conclusions of the 2009 NAS report.
These reports, along with the seemingly endless litany of major scandals
at forensic laboratories nationwide, revealed that the fundamental
system for forensic science delivery in the criminal justice system is
broken and that structural reform is still urgently needed. NACDL spearheaded many of the efforts to implement the
recommendations and goals of the NAS Report to ensure that forensic
evidence used in criminal cases is validated, reliable, and that the
reporting of the results do not exceed the scientific limits of that
discipline. NACDL convened its own task force and issued a series of
recommendations in 2010: Principles and Recommendations to Strengthen Forensic Evidence and Its Presentation in the Courtroom.
That document endorsed: (1) forming a central, science-based federal
agency that is independent of law enforcement and prosecution agencies;
(2) improving the culture of science; (3) adopting a national code of
ethics; (4) reinforcing the prerequisite of research; (5) providing
greater education; (6) ensuring transparency and discovery; and (7)
allocating increased defense resources, particularly for indigent
defense services. NACDL, noting that flawed forensic evidence is the second leading cause of wrongful convictions, has urged Congress to:
(1) provide a dedicated funding stream to support the existing National
Commission on Forensic Science and either formally separate it from the
Department of Justice (DOJ), or ensure that it is not under the
exclusive control of law enforcement; (2) establish mandatory
accreditation, certification, and proficiency standards; (3) bolster the
emerging culture of science and increased transparency in forensic
work; and (4) enhance the support for defense attorneys commensurate
with the increased prevalence and role of forensic science in criminal
cases. NACDL also played a vital role in several significant historic
reviews of flawed forensic science evidence, including the DOJ and
Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Microscopic Hair Comparison
Analysis Review, which was initiated in part due to the NAS Report’s
conclusions. NACDL and the Innocence Project partnered with the FBI and
the DOJ in their review of criminal cases in which the FBI conducted
microscopic hair analysis to identify cases in which FBI hair examiners
made scientifically invalid statements in testimony or lab reports.
While the review is ongoing, the results so far conclusively documented
the extraordinary frequency of exaggerated testimony. In 2007, NACDL
partnered with the Innocence Project and the FBI to review comparative
bullet lead analysis cases, following the FBI’s admission that its
agents potentially gave flawed or misleading testimony in thousands of
such cases. In addition, NACDL worked with the DOJ Office of Enforcement
Operations to correct the serious injustice caused by the failure to
notify thousands of defendants whose cases were affected by the findings
of wrongdoing in the 1996 Office of the Inspector General Report and
FBI Task Force investigation. Progress has been made on some of these objectives. But sadly, much
of the promise of the 2009 NAS report and its associated recommendations
remain unfulfilled, as the 2016 PCAST report attests, and some of that
progress is in danger of being rolled back. In 2017, the DOJ announced
it would not renew the National Commission on Forensic Science,
an advisory committee of scientists, prosecutors, defense lawyers, law
enforcement, and judges created in 2013 by the Obama administration to
improve the practice and reliability of forensic science. The DOJ also
ended plans for an expanded review of FBI testimony in several forensic
disciplines that are susceptible of the same types of scientifically
invalid statements uncovered in the FBI’s microscopic hair comparison
review, leaving open the possibility that similar errors and resulting
wrongful conviction will go unremedied. The NAS Report achieved progress, but it has been slow. Additionally,
momentum recently decreased along with an increased resistance to
scientific independence and establishing scientifically valid
foundations for forensic disciplines by some in law enforcement. NACDL
continues to work for enhanced forensic practices, reliability and
resources, and is hopeful that the positive changes remain, forward
momentum returns, and that there will not be a return to the practices –
most importantly, exclusive control of forensic science by law
enforcement interests – that led to the high-profile failures that
motivated efforts to undertake reform in the first place."
The entire release can be read at :
https://www.nacdl.org/NAS-report-ten-year-newsrelease/
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/
The entire release can be read at :
https://www.nacdl.org/NAS-report-ten-year-newsrelease/
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/
