Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Storing digital evidence: Yet another contemporary problem for criminal justice in the computer age: Improper storage of digital evidence: Dallas police may be violating evidence law with 52,000 improperly stored files, The Dallas Morning News (Reporters Kelly Smith and Krista Torralva, reports..."Police said the records may include digital evidence for court cases, which could mean that information wasn’t provided to lawyers as required by state law."...The Richard Miles Act, a 2021 state law named for a Dallas man wrongfully convicted of murder, mandates police agencies verify that they turned over all evidence when filing cases with prosecutors. If police discover more evidence later, they must immediately turn it over. Police said the records are predominantly videos like patrol officers’ body cameras, vehicle camera recordings and footage from interview rooms that weren’t categorized and tagged in the department’s server when they were uploaded."




PASSAGE  ONE OF THE DAY: Defense lawyer Cheryl Wattley, who was involved in Richard Miles’ appeal, said properly storing and cataloging evidence is fundamental to the integrity of the criminal justice process.   Miles was exonerated after the discovery of a memo in the police department’s possession that implicated another man. Prosecutors said they weren’t made aware of the memo before Miles’ trial. “We want the people who violate the laws to be appropriately addressed,” Wattley said. “We don’t want those who haven’t done anything to be inappropriately caught up, and that goes back to the integrity of the information.”

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Just last week, a Dallas murder case was thrown into jeopardy because evidence wasn’t stored properly.  three-day court hearing revealed 18 videos or photos were deleted in accordance with the department’s retention policies because the lead detective did not save them. A state district judge is deciding whether to dismiss the case as a result. Issues regarding the city’s and DPD’s storage and preservation of evidence have come up multiple times over the last several years.  The city’s storage system for police files came under scrutiny in August 2021, when lawyers were alarmed to learn that a city information technology employee lost millions of police files including videos and audio recordings when he improperly moved evidence between systems. The IT worker was fired. Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said at the time that if the Richard Miles Act were in place, the deletion would not have caused so much alarm. The law went into effect in September of that year."

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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Wattley said there are many reasons information that could be related to criminal prosecutions must be properly stored and easily retrievable. It’s critical that attorneys have access to and knowledge of “all of the information” that’s been gathered by police, she said. She expressed concern about DPD’s attempts to retag and categorize all of its records, particularly since the footage may date back several years. “When they say, ‘We’ll go back and tag,’ immediately, I’m curious as to what does that mean and how is that different than what they would have expected to have been done in the first place?” Wattley said. “Does that mean less content? Does that mean less detail? Does that mean less accuracy? I mean, what does that mean?”

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GIST: "Dallas police may be violating evidence law with 52,000 improperly stored files, The Dallas Morning News (Reporters Kelly Smith and Krista Torralva, reports

STORY: "Dallas police may be violating evidence law with 52,000 improperly stored files," by Reporters Kelli Smith and Krista M. Torraiva, published by  The Dallas Morning News, on February 20, 2023. (Staff writer Kelly Smith  covers public safety and the Dallas Police Department for The Dallas Morning News. Staff writer Krista Torralva first joined The Dallas Morning News as an intern on the business desk in 2013. She returned to The Morning News in 2021 as a reporter covering primarily Dallas County criminal courts."

SUB-HEADING: "Police said the records may include digital evidence for court cases, which could mean that information wasn’t provided to lawyers as required by state law."


PHOTO CAPTION: “Dallas Police Detective Christine Ramirez talks on the stand during a hearing conducted by State District Judge Amber Givens inside the 282nd District Court at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. Givens warned the Dallas County District Attorney's Office weeks ago about a problem with police departments not turning over evidence until just before a trail (sic)  begins. A recent murder case in Judge Givens' court was delayed because Dallas police supplied evidence at the last minute.”


GIST: "Dallas police are at risk of being in violation of evidence laws after officers improperly stored more than 52,000 digital records, according to interviews and internal communications obtained by The Dallas Morning News.


The records may include digital evidence for court cases, police said, which could mean that information wasn’t provided to lawyers as required by state law.


The Richard Miles Act, a 2021 state law named for a Dallas man wrongfully convicted of murder, mandates police agencies verify that they turned over all evidence when filing cases with prosecutors.


 If police discover more evidence later, they must immediately turn it over. Police said the records are predominantly videos like patrol officers’ body cameras, vehicle camera recordings and footage from interview rooms that weren’t categorized and tagged in the department’s server when they were uploaded. 


If video footage isn’t categorized or tagged properly, it could be automatically deleted. If it’s not categorized at all, the file stays on the server but becomes very difficult to find, police said.


Dallas police Chief Eddie García said the department became aware of the uncategorized files in November after an internal audit. 


There were 89,396 uncategorized files in November, police said. That number dropped to 64,626 by Feb. 5 and is now about 52,000. Police said DPD has more than 3.8 million files in the server that date back to 2016, which means only about 1.4% remain uncategorized.


Officers are now sifting through the records to fix the issue, police said.


“Some of those digital records that are untagged could have just been either a test video or a simple call for service where no action was taken,” García said. “So not all of those records are digital evidence. It could have been the myriad of calls that we respond to that no arrest was made and no report was done.”


Police did not say whether any of the 52,000 records may also include evidence for a murder, use-of-force cases or other serious offenses like violent crime.


Police said they do not have a separate category in their server for “no action” calls to prevent a buildup of large amounts of files. Even if no action was taken as a result of a call, police are required to save the records for at least 90 days.


. The footage could still include someone who was briefly detained if an officer suspected criminal conduct, even if they weren’t arrested.


Defense lawyer Cheryl Wattley, who was involved in Richard Miles’ appeal, said properly storing and cataloging evidence is fundamental to the integrity of the criminal justice process. 


 Miles was exonerated after the discovery of a memo in the police department’s possession that implicated another man. Prosecutors said they weren’t made aware of the memo before Miles’ trial.


“We want the people who violate the laws to be appropriately addressed,” Wattley said. “We don’t want those who haven’t done anything to be inappropriately caught up, and that goes back to the integrity of the information.”


Just last week, a Dallas murder case was thrown into jeopardy because evidence wasn’t stored properly. 


A three-day court hearing revealed 18 videos or photos were deleted in accordance with the department’s retention policies because the lead detective did not save them. A state district judge is deciding whether to dismiss the case as a result.


Issues regarding the city’s and DPD’s storage and preservation of evidence have come up multiple times over the last several years. 


The city’s storage system for police files came under scrutiny in August 2021, when lawyers were alarmed to learn that a city information technology employee lost millions of police files including videos and audio recordings when he improperly moved evidence between systems. The IT worker was fired.


Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said at the time that if the Richard Miles Act were in place, the deletion would not have caused so much alarm. The law went into effect in September of that year.


Also in September 2021, a top police official said the department didn’t have a universal policy for retaining documents, videos and other files or checks to make sure existing policies are adhered to.


 Dallas police said the department would create a five-year plan with IT and other city staff to streamline and create uniform policies for how DPD gathers and stores evidence files. Police said Monday that plan is still in the works.


DPD policies

Police officers are required by department policy to tag and categorize video footage at the end of each of their shifts to ensure information that could be needed for cases isn’t deleted.


The department also has supervisory mechanisms in place to ensure officers categorize the videos each month. Patrol supervisors choose two days a month to review videos submitted by their officers on those two days as an internal audit, then sign off attesting that their officers’ videos are categorized appropriately, police said.


Asked why the policies did not catch the uncategorized videos, police spokeswoman Kristin Lowman said most files in the server were categorized and, since the audit, “steps have been taken to ensure further compliance by department members, and to tag the files appropriately.” 

She did not detail those steps.


The chief said there are likely a few reasons officers didn’t categorize the files after their shifts.


“Oftentimes, you know, if officers are going call to call to call and they’re very, very busy, they may not have time at that one moment in time to tag a video before they have to go on to the next call,” García said. “But again, these are things that our internal audits — that, again, we started late last year — we’ll be able to delve through that and fix the issue.”


Officers were directed to sort through the files and provide status updates by the end of last week, according to an email sent Feb. 13 to commanders by Dallas police Assistant Chief Mike Igo, who oversees patrol.


Igo told his majors and deputy chiefs in the email, which was obtained by The News, that the department “was not in compliance with the Richard Miles/Michael Morton acts.” (The Michael Morton Act mandates prosecutors turn over all their evidence to defense lawyers.)


An internal police spreadsheet obtained by The News showed that thousands of uncategorized digital files were discovered in every Dallas police patrol division. A few hundred also were uncategorized in DPD’s traffic and tactical response and support units.


In an interview last week, Igo said some of the uncategorized files may be digital evidence that could be used in cases, but it’s not clear. He said if he reworded his email, he’d say the files may have implications for cases under the two laws, rather than DPD isn’t in compliance with them.

“The point of that email was to make sure that I got everyone’s attention,” Igo said.



Lowman, the police spokeswoman, said: “We cannot speculate as to how much an officer may or may not remember regarding a call or file, however, there are supporting documents that can assist in the file review.”


García has previously remarked about how imperative it is that body cameras are utilized according to policy and in accordance with Texas law. In August, he implemented a new policy that officers wear the cameras for off-duty jobs, not just while on duty.


The use of body cameras was regarded by DPD leaders as a win for transparency and also a way to protect officers since the footage can often clear officers of wrongdoing. But it has also led to new challenges for police across the country due to the massive amount of files that need to be audited and tracked — and possible breakdowns in oversight and maintenance of the system, such as what occurred in Dallas in 2021.


Other evidence issues

The concerns about uncategorized records came just as a murder investigation was thrown into question in a Dallas County courtroom last week because a detective failed to properly save video evidence.


Dallas police and Dallas County prosecutors had to answer to a judge for why hundreds of videos and photos weren’t turned over until just days before a trial was scheduled to start Jan. 23 for Nina Marano.


 Marano is charged in the slaying of Marisela Botello Valadez, a Seattle woman killed while visiting Dallas in 2020. Two others, Lisa Jo Dykes and Charles Beltran, are also charged.


During the three-day hearing, police disclosed that 18 videos were permanently deleted because lead detective Christine Ramirez did not save them correctly. Defense lawyers filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the murder and tampering with evidence charges against Marano. State District Judge Amber Givens has yet to rule on their request.


The Dallas Police Department’s internal affairs division is conducting an administrative investigation of Ramirez.


In her case, officers did categorize their videos — although some categorized them as “calls for service” when they should have been “investigative evidence,” Corey Parker, an officer with the DPD digital media evidence team, testified during the hearing last week. The categories carry different lengths of retention.


Calls for service are saved for only 90 days while investigative evidence footage is saved for two years, Parker said. The detective should have moved the videos into her case file to be saved permanently, he said.


García said the notice sent to DPD officers about categorizing videos last week was unrelated to the murder case.


“Obviously, I know the timing of this in light of the testimony,” the chief said. “But the process started in November and I just wanted to say that I’m quite frankly proud of the fact that a commander took an internal audit and tried to fix the issue.”


Disciplinary action

Asked whether anyone could face disciplinary action in connection with the thousands of uncategorized files, García said it’d be “evaluated on a case-by-case basis.” 


The department’s current policies state that “minor infractions of policy or procedure” found during bodycam reviews would “be handled as a training issue and supervisors should use the opportunity to counsel with employees to ensure no future violations occur.”


“These audits are important, and we need to ensure that everyone’s complying,” García said. “There’s many ways to conduct discipline, from training to other types of action.”


He said the department policies in place now are strong, but there “may be policies to tighten up with regards to the supervisory accountability and things of that nature.”


Asked whether the chief intends to add a new disciplinary clause to the policy, Lowman, the police spokeswoman, said: “With nearly 99% file tagging compliance, the Chief does not feel it is necessary to update General Orders.”


Wattley, the attorney, said she was surprised to learn about the 52,000 files, adding that if the footage was important enough to record, it should be important enough “for us to be able to retrieve those recordings.”


She said it’s difficult to imagine that the police digital record-keeping system hasn’t evolved to match the importance of the information to criminal cases.


“Defending a criminal case, there are oftentimes what appear to be small pieces of evidence, minute pieces of information that become critical, that show the inaccuracy of the government’s case, that show the bias of government witnesses,” Wattley said.


“And so you can’t just say, ‘Oh, it’s something minor, it’s insignificant’ — because until you know what it is, you can’t assess it in the context of everything that is known.""


The entire story can be read at:

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2023/02/20/dallas-police-may-be-violating-evidence-laws-with-52000-improperly-stored-digital-files/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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;

SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:


https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985


FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."


Lawyer Radha Natarajan:


Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

—————————————————————————————————


FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!


Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;


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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:


David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/


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Monday, February 27, 2023

Fraud in Forensics: India: 'India Today,' (Reporters Md Hizbullah and Nitin Jain report that, "Some rogue scientists at some of the country’s top crime labs have been caught on India Today's camera offering to manipulate forensic reports in exchange for bribes."..."Following a tip, India Today’s undercover reporters visited the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Varanasi, headed by its deputy director Suresh Chandra. Posing as agents of a fictitious murder suspect, the reporters met him twice. Chandra offered to falsify the forensic report in favour of the man the investigative reporters told him was accused of poisoning his victim... The FSL chief at Varanasi demanded Rs 10 lakh for cleaning up the poison from record books. “Let me go through it (the case) tomorrow but seeing it will also cost -- a part payment of Rs 10,000 for checking the records, not the full amount yet,” he demanded. “We’ll start the process when the required fee is paid.” When the reporters met Chandra again at a luxury hotel in Varanasi the next day, the same official of the zone’s main forensic laboratory offered to set up a special team to forge FSL findings of viscera samples. “The case seems to have many signs of poisoning. The nails and lips (of the body) are blue,” he said. “Signs of poisoning are there. But we’ll put our job at stake. We’ll have to set up a team to do this. At least two to three people.” Chandra asked for hard cash to create a team that he claimed would give a clean chit to the suspect in their report. “It will cost 10 (lakh) for (a team of) three people. Their report will be absolutely final. It will be signed off by two-three people. Team work cannot be challenged. It will stand (as valid) even in the Supreme Court,” Chandra boasted. According to the Varanasi FSL chief, the entire process would take one week. “So it (the payment) has to be received before the result (report),” he said."


PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "When probed further, Chandra also offered to help manipulate a DNA report at the FSL headquarters in Lucknow in connection with a rape case. “It will be done,” he claimed. “But it’s a rape case,” the reporter probed. “It will be done,” Chandra repeated. “Take the case details. It will cost as much (Rs 10 lakh). It (the case) should be encashed as soon as possible so that they (the suspects’ family) don’t get in touch with someone else.”

STORY:  "Fraud in forensics: India Today exposes crime in crime labs: Special Investigation, by Reporters Md Hizbullah and Nitin Jain, published by 'India Today' on February 27, 2023. (Wikipedia: India Today is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million.)

SUB-HEADING:  "Some rogue scientists at some of the country’s top crime labs have been caught on India Today’s camera offering to manipulate forensic reports in exchange for bribes.


GIST: "Following a tip, India Today’s undercover reporters visited the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Varanasi, headed by its deputy director Suresh Chandra.


Posing as agents of a fictitious murder suspect, the reporters met him twice.


Chandra offered to falsify the forensic report in favour of the man the investigative reporters told him was accused of poisoning his victim.


CLEANING UP POISON IN FSL REPORT

The FSL chief at Varanasi demanded Rs 10 lakh for cleaning up the poison from record books.


“Let me go through it (the case) tomorrow but seeing it will also cost -- a part payment of Rs 10,000 for checking the records, not the full amount yet,” he demanded. “We’ll start the process when the required fee is paid.”


When the reporters met Chandra again at a luxury hotel in Varanasi the next day, the same official of the zone’s main forensic laboratory offered to set up a special team to forge FSL findings of viscera samples.


“The case seems to have many signs of poisoning. The nails and lips (of the body) are blue,” he said. “Signs of poisoning are there. But we’ll put our job at stake. We’ll have to set up a team to do this. At least two to three people.”


Chandra asked for hard cash to create a team that he claimed would give a clean chit to the suspect in their report. “It will cost 10 (lakh) for (a team of) three people. Their report will be absolutely final. It will be signed off by two-three people. Team work cannot be challenged. It will stand (as valid) even in the Supreme Court,” Chandra boasted.


According to the Varanasi FSL chief, the entire process would take one week. “So it (the payment) has to be received before the result (report),” he said.


TAMPERING WITH DNA SAMPLES

When probed further, Chandra also offered to help manipulate a DNA report at the FSL headquarters in Lucknow in connection with a rape case.


“It will be done,” he claimed.


“But it’s a rape case,” the reporter probed.


“It will be done,” Chandra repeated. “Take the case details. It will cost as much (Rs 10 lakh). It (the case) should be encashed as soon as possible so that they (the suspects’ family) don’t get in touch with someone else.”


MANIPUTLATING DOWRY DEATH EVIDENCE

In Agra, India Today’s investigative team met Sanjeev Dwivedi, a scientist at the FSL’s biology division in the city.


Asked about the possibility of altering a viscera report in connection with a dowry death by poison, he offered to omit the lethal substance from the official findings if he was paid Rs 2,30,000.


“The poison-laced viscera is already with you,” the reporter told Dwivedi.


“If you want to negate it, it will be done for Rs 250,000,” Dwivedi said. “We can negotiate Rs 10,000-20,000 but everything is fixed per case here. It will be done, 100 per cent.”


“How do you take the payment?” the reporter asked.


“Advance. The total cost for the job now is Rs 230,000. You have to pay 180,000 now and the rest (50,000) later,” he demanded.


OMITTING ALCOHOL IN DRUNK DRIVING


In Haryana's Gurugram, Madhup Singh, a senior scientific officer at the FSL, was willing to falsify evidence of alcohol from the samples of a body to help secure insurance 

claims.


He sought Rs 200,000 for the job.

“Such cases come under me. I investigate toxicity and alcohol cases. Give me the details. It will cost at least Rs two (lakh). It’s about giving a clear report in case it’s (alcohol) positive,” he said.

“You mean two lakh for converting a positive report into negative?” the reporter asked.

“Yes,” Singh replied."


The entire story can be read at:


https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/fraud-in-forensics-india-today-exposes-crime-in-crime-labs-2340245-2023-02-27


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Read also: (Thanks to Dr. Michael Bowers of CSIDDS: Forensics and Law in Focus for bringing this story to our attention);


https://csidds.com/2023/02/25/forensics-forensic-expert-gets-caught-accepting-bribe-to-destroy-evidence/


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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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;

SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:


https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985


FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."


Lawyer Radha Natarajan:


Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

—————————————————————————————————


FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!


Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;


------------------------------------------------------------------


YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:


David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/


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Annie Dookhan; Sonja Farak: Boston defence attorney James Doyle explains why the drug-testing lab problem "isn't just a few bad apples,' in a superb commentary published by "Commonwealth' sub-headed, "Learn the lessons; lab scandals require top-to-bottom review.".."Now we learn that Inspector General Glen Cuhna, who once seemed ready to pin a massive state drug lab scandal on a lone chemist, Annie Dookhan, actually referred four other lab workers for prosecution. Interesting. Still, counting the number of “bad apples” shouldn’t distract us from the reality that the Massachusetts lab scandals were not the work of isolated violators; they were full system crashes. A look at them will reveal system weaknesses that exorcising individuals will not cure. Ignore that fact, and we are doomed to see this fiasco repeated. Standing to the left of Annie Dookhan (and Sonja Farak, too) were the people who hired them, trained them, supervised them, and devised the laboratory evidence-handling protocols they blithely skated around. Standing to their right was a legion of lab directors and legal system practitioners– prosecutors, defenders, and judges—who failed (throughout the disposition of 30,000 cases) to notice that anything was amiss."


PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "It’s  a feature of our criminal justice system that while it defines its goal as public safety, it makes no use of the lessons learned by experts who have studied safety in high impact fields such as aviation, medicine, and nuclear power. Yes, those experts would tell us to discipline rule violators.  No system can survive without doing that. But they would also warn us that punishing the bad apples is a terrible place to stop—that it is an illusion to think that the job is to protect a safe system from the occasional bad person. Look at any criminal justice catastrophe—a lab scandal, a wrongful conviction, a death in custody, a mistaken release—and you will find what medical experts found whenever they looked at “wrong patient” surgeries, or wrong dosage deaths: dozens of small errors, no one of them independently sufficient to cause the tragedy, combine with each other and with latent system weaknesses. Then—but only then—the nightmare becomes a reality — an “organizational accident.” Cops under pressure to hit a Compstat number stop a guy on Dudley Street.  He has a bag in his pocket. He thinks it contains cocaine. In fact, it contains baking soda. The cops arrest him, and seize the bag.  A “field test” of the contents is ambiguous, but he has an outstanding warrant for ignoring child support orders, so the cops arrest him, and charge him with possessing  drugs with intent to distribute. An assistant district attorney charges a felony trafficking offense.  The bag goes to the lab. The lab is overwhelmed; the volume of cases forces triage, shortcuts, “covert work rules.” Today’s “covert work rule” sets the stage for practical drift to another even more lax practice tomorrow.  Annie Dookhan fakes a test result and certifies it. It “makes sense” to her—it’s despicable, but rational. No one questions the result—maybe no one is able to question the result. The case comes back to court. The prosecutor has a file, nothing else.  The defender has 50 files, and no easy access to a chemist of his or her own.  The judge has 40 cases on his docket and needs to get to zero by 4 p.m. A deal is offered: Drop the mandatory minimum, offer six months in the House of Correction. We have a dozen individual mistakes here, and we have a gradual demoralization that made the mistakes and violations “normal.” When the innocent man pleads guilty rather than risk taking a 20-year sentence, a dozen “someones” have their fingerprints on the case.  Other “someones” far from the scene, who set the budgets, devised the incentives, built the pressures, but left no fingerprints, played their roles, too. None of them intended the catastrophic results they helped bring about. When we discover one of these travesties of justice, we have to seize the opportunity that it offers to discover the myriad system weaknesses that still lie in wait for the next case that will come along—and it will come along."

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COMMENTARY:  “The problem isn’t just a few bad apples,” by James Doyle, published by Commonwealth, (a non-profit journal of politics, ideas and civic life), on February 22, 2023. (James Doyle is  a Boston defense lawyer and author and formerly the head of the public defender division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services and director of the Center for Modern Forensic Practice at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. 


SUB-HEADING: "Learn the lessons:  lab scandals require top-to-bottom review."


GIST: "Now we learn that  Inspector General Glen Cuhna, who once seemed ready to pin a massive state drug lab scandal on a lone chemist, Annie Dookhan, actually referred four other lab workers for prosecution.  Interesting.


Still, counting the number of “bad apples” shouldn’t distract us from the reality that the Massachusetts lab scandals were not the work of isolated violators; they were full system crashes. A look at them will reveal system weaknesses that exorcising individuals will not cure.  Ignore that fact, and we are doomed to see this fiasco repeated.


Standing to the left of Annie Dookhan (and Sonja Farak, too) were the people who hired them, trained them, supervised them, and devised the laboratory evidence-handling protocols they blithely skated around.


Standing to their right was a legion of lab directors and legal system practitioners– prosecutors, defenders, and judges—who failed (throughout the disposition of 30,000 cases) to notice that anything was amiss.


It is easy to see that Dookhan and Farak crippled the work of Massachusetts prosecutors and defenders downstream, but it is important to remember that their awareness of the ramshackle state of the downstream inspection apparatus influenced the upstream choices of the two “bad apples.”


Besides, simultaneously battering all of these players was an encompassing environment of acute caseload pressures and dire resource shortages that generated the culture of “work-arounds,” triage, and “covert work rules” that made it both attractive and possible for Dookhan and Farak to zig when they should have zagged.


Don’t look for three or four bad apples. Convene an all-stakeholders “sentinel event review” as a hospital would after a wrong patient surgery, or the NTSB would do after a plane crash.

Hold ourselves accountable for learning the lessons. Change what we can change. Build the capacity to keep doing it.”


The entire story can be read at: 

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/criminal-justice/the-problem-isnt-just-a-few-bad-apples/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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;

SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:


https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985


FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."


Lawyer Radha Natarajan:


Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

—————————————————————————————————


FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!


Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;


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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:


David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/


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Sunday, February 26, 2023

Alex Murdaugh: South Carolina: Prosecution's forensic (blood spatter) evidence: Significant Development? The judge permitted him to testify (over the prosecutions objections) about the presence of blood spatter on his T-shirt - described in the 247 'News around the World' story as, "one of law enforcement's key failures in their investigation. The story is headed: "Alex Murdaugh call's out SLEDS (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) blood spatter T-shirt 'lie'."...“Did you get, on your shirt, high-velocity blood spatter from being within distance of shooting Maggie or Paul?” defense attorney Jim Griffin asked his client at one point. “There’s no way that I had high-velocity blood spatter on me,” the defendant replied. When Alex Murdaugh was indicted, Colleton County grand jurors were told by law enforcement that he had blood spatter on the T-shirt he was wearing the night Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were found shot and killed. That turned out to be false. The state’s own laboratory testing showed no blood on the T-shirt – a fact investigators kept hidden from an expert later asked to assess the shirt for blood spatter. The facts about that T-shirt have proven quite controversial in the case and are considered a significant black eye for the state."


PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Tom Bevel, a former Oklahoma police officer who owns and operates a self-described forensic education and consulting company, was originally intended to be the prosecution’s lead blood spatter expert. The defense successfully challenged Bevel’s credentials and methodology in numerous pre-trial motions, noting that in January 2022 he issued a report that said the stains on the shirt were “consistent with transfers and not back spatters from a bullet wound.” In a second report, Bevel wrote that “100+ stains are consistent with spatter on the front of the t-shirt.” That report also deletes a line saying that the shooter in question likely would have “little to no spatter” on their clothing in favor of a line saying that the shooter “is certainly in a close enough range to get spatter on their clothing.” As it turned out, Bevel’s opinion about the presence of blood spatter only changed after an in-person visit from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. The defense also claims the state “had to lie to him” about what state-ordered testing of the shirt showed. “SLED retained Mr. Bevel to opine that T-shirt is stained with high-velocity blood spatter that could only come from being in proximity with them at the time of their murders,” one motion reads. “It did so even though the State knew on August 10, 2021 — almost six weeks before first reaching out to Mr. Bevel on September 21st — that confirmatory blood test results were definitively negative for human blood in all areas of the shirt where purported spatter is present.”

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STORY: " "Alex Murdaugh call's out SLEDS bloodspatter T-shirt 'lie,' by '247 News Around the World', on February 24, 2023.


GIST: "Double murder defendant Alex Murdaugh was able to testify about one of law enforcement’s key failures in their investigation over an objection from the prosecution on Thursday afternoon.


“Did you get, on your shirt, high-velocity blood spatter from being within distance of shooting Maggie or Paul?” defense attorney Jim Griffin asked his client at one point.

“There’s no way that I had high-velocity blood spatter on me,” the defendant replied.


When Alex Murdaugh was indicted, Colleton County grand jurors were told by law enforcement that he had blood spatter on the T-shirt he was wearing the night Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were found shot and killed. That turned out to be false. The state’s own laboratory testing showed no blood on the T-shirt – a fact investigators kept hidden from an expert later asked to assess the shirt for blood spatter.


The facts about that T-shirt have proven quite controversial in the case and are considered a significant black eye for the state.


SEE ALSO: Alex Murdaugh Gets a Win as State Must Turn over All Communications and Files Associated with Expert Who Provided Blood Spatter Analysis


Tom Bevel, a former Oklahoma police officer who owns and operates a self-described forensic education and consulting company, was originally intended to be the prosecution’s lead blood spatter expert. The defense successfully challenged Bevel’s credentials and methodology in numerous pre-trial motions, noting that in January 2022 he issued a report that said the stains on the shirt were “consistent with transfers and not back spatters from a bullet wound.”

In a second report, Bevel wrote that “100+ stains are consistent with spatter on the front of the t-shirt.”


That report also deletes a line saying that the shooter in question likely would have “little to no spatter” on their clothing in favor of a line saying that the shooter “is certainly in a close enough range to get spatter on their clothing.”


As it turned out, Bevel’s opinion about the presence of blood spatter only changed after an in-person visit from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. The defense also claims the state “had to lie to him” about what state-ordered testing of the shirt showed.

“SLED retained Mr. Bevel to opine that T-shirt is stained with high-velocity blood spatter that could only come from being in proximity with them at the time of their murders,” one motion reads. “It did so even though the State knew on August 10, 2021 — almost six weeks before first reaching out to Mr. Bevel on September 21st — that confirmatory blood test results were definitively negative for human blood in all areas of the shirt where purported spatter is present.”


SEE ALSO: Inside the Alex Murdaugh Defense: Visual Evidence, Experts, and an ‘Essential’ Stained T-Shirt


The state was not keen to litigate those failed efforts during the trial and essentially abandoned its blood spatter theory.


On Thursday, the defendant himself brought the issue squarely to jurors’ attention and with his own preferred narrative about it.


“As far as my understanding goes, my clothes were never an issue in this case until y’all figured out, as my lawyers, figured out that there was no blood spatter on me,” Alex Murdaugh said, as the stated lodged an objection over that area of testimony.


Defense attorney Jim Griffin pointed out that the blood spatter issues are “a matter of public record” in the case and Judge Clifton Newman issued a rare ruling in the defense’s favor, overruling the state.


Last week, SLED agent David Owen testified that he misled the grand jury about the alleged blood spatter evidence on the T-shirt – but said he did not intend to do so. One of the state’s experts, Dr. Kenneth Kinsey, even made note of some alleged blood spatter calculations in a report filed for the state. When questioned by prosecutors last week, those calculations were never mentioned.


The defendant began again.


“I’m well aware that my clothes never became an issue in this case until my lawyers proved that this blood spatter that they said I had on my shirt from my wife and my son – was a lie,” he said. “And that there was no blood on my shirt. And once they filed the documents and they proved that that was a lie, all of a sudden the clothes I was wearing back on that day became an issue. And that’s in the weeks leading up to this trial.”

The testimony about the T-shirt and the allegedly falsified blood spatter claims were elicited from the defendant during a back-and-forth conversation about the defendant admittedly changing from a blue, button-down “dress shirt” into the T-shirt he was found wearing by law enforcement on the day of the murders. The earlier outfit has been seen by jurors in a Snapchat video where the defendant deals with a tree on his property. The state has suggested Alex Murdaugh later disposed of that blue shirt in an effort to hide evidence."

The entire story can be read at: 

https://247newsaroundtheworld.com/crime/alex-murdaugh-calls-out-sleds-blood-spatter-t-shirt-lie/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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;

SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:


https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985


FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."


Lawyer Radha Natarajan:


Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

—————————————————————————————————


FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!


Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;


------------------------------------------------------------------


YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:


David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/


------------------------------------------------------------------