GIST: "The top prosecutor in D.C. says the continued fallout from the District’s shuttered crime lab means his office has been unable to bring charges against suspected offenders in some cases.
Overall, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office — the arm of the federal Justice Department tasked with prosecuting local D.C. felonies — declined to bring charges in more than two-thirds of arrests made by D.C. police in 2022, according to data first reported earlier this year by the DC Crime Facts substack.
Speaking Wednesday during a “crime summit” hosted by D.C. officials, U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves said most of the cases his office declined — or “no-papered” — were misdemeanors.
And many of them involved drugs that could not be tested since the D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences lost its accreditation to perform forensic testing more than two years ago.
“We, of course, have not been able to test drugs since DFS lost its accreditation … If we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspected substance is a drug, then we can’t prosecute,” Graves said. “That’s been a big part of the story.”
DFS had its accreditation withdrawn in April 2021 amid a probe by the U.S. Attorney’s Office into errors in the lab’s Firearms Examination Unit and allegations of mismanagement by top lab leadership.
Last year, prosecutors said the federal Drug Enforcement Administration had agreed to perform drug testing for local D.C. cases under a one-year agreement. On Wednesday, Graves said the mayor’s office had also recently identified a new vendor that could start testing drugs but did not provide any other details.
Abrupt leadership change
Bowser’s crime summit came less than a week after the former temporary head of the forensic lab abruptly stepped down. Bowser’s office sent a news release Friday saying Dr. Francisco Diaz, who currently serves as the District’s chief medical examiner, would serve double-duty as the interim director of DFS.
Bower’s office has not responded to multiple requests for more information about the apparent departure of former interim chief Anthony Crispino.
Dr. Jeanne Jordan, a professor of epidemiology at The George Washington University, who serves as the chair of the agency’s Science Advisory Board, said the board was never notified of the move by the mayor’s office and that she only found out about it days later from a news article.
The leadership shuffle comes as officials are preparing to apply for reaccreditation for the lab’s DNA and chemistry units, the first step in what is expected to be a monthslong process that would eventually allow the agency to once again test DNA evidence and seized drugs.
Brandy Cramer, the DFS chief of staff, gave a brief presentation during Wednesday’s crime summit, highlighting the steps the agency is undertaking to restore normal operations.
Last year, the agency retained an outside consultant to help guide the agency through accreditation.
“The consultants met with us and just came up with a plan on how we should tackle this because it’s a really big job,” she said. “So that’s where we came up with the phased approach.”
For now, DNA analysts and chemists are working on “mock casework” to demonstrate their capabilities. The plan to begin the application process for reaccreditation in June remains on track, Cramer said.
‘Won’t make the city safer’
Separately, Bowser and D.C. City Administrator Kevin Donohue are urging D.C. Council members to reverse course on a DFS overhaul bill the council passed unanimously six months ago.
The Restoring Trust and Credibility to Forensic Sciences Act, which has not yet been enacted, restructures DFS as an independent agency — removing it from the direct control of the mayor — and strengthens the Science Advisory Board.
The measure was championed by D.C. Council member Charles Allen, the former chair of the council’s Public Safety and Judiciary Committee, and supported by the Office of the Attorney General, then led by Karl Racine.
Testifying before the council last summer, Jose Marrero, an official in Racine’s office, said long-standing problems at the lab “were allowed to fester and compound for years” under mayoral control and that, “It is imperative that the laboratory’s new director be able to assess and report on what they find in the laboratory and what will be required to fix it with candor.”
On Wednesday, Bowser called on the council to reverse Allen’s bill, which she claimed, “won’t make the city safer and won’t allow us to build a better DFS.”
The council is set to give a first vote to the mayor’s proposed budget on May 16.
Donohue suggested making DFS independent of the mayor’s office would make it difficult to recruit a permanent director.
Donohue said he’s involved in efforts to recruit a permanent director for the agency and that when he interviews candidates, he said they expect to report to the mayor.
“The expectation of every qualified person that I’ve talked to — and I’ve talked to every qualified candidate who has expressed interest — is they would like the agency to have a chain of command that reflects what they see everywhere else in the country.”
Some well-regarded crime labs, however, do not have a director that reports directly to a mayor or governor.
The Houston Forensic Science Center — which was also beset by scandal more than a decade ago and is now lauded as a success story — has a director who reports to a nine-member board of directors. The members of the board are appointed by the city’s mayor and confirmed by the city council.
D.C. listed the job posting for the permanent director position in March of this year.
The director must have prior forensic science experience, an advanced degree in an applicable area of science, and a minimum of five years of management-level experience, among other qualifications.
The annual salary range is $274,831 to $357,281.
The job posting contains a list of several “duties and responsibilities” of the director. The first item listed says the new director is to serve as a “consultant and adviser to the Mayor on matters affecting the District of Columbia’s forensic science services.”
The 10th item, in a list of 15, is that the director “ensures a high level of quality and integrity in the forensic science services” and maintains accreditation.
Applicants are also asked to describe “why you’re interested in being appointed by Mayor Bowser to a role in the Administration,” and if selected, “how you will use it to help lead DC’s comeback.""
The entire story can be read at:
A tougher story: (Washington City Paper: Reporters Alex Koma and Sloane Airey: May 12, 2023;
"Failing the Test: Bowser’s Promised Crime Lab Evidence Retesting Is Nowhere to Be Seen, Despite Years of Work: D.C. pledged in 2021 to find out if forensics errors resulted in faulty convictions, but it still has yet to launch this costly effort.
GIST: (An excerpt): ‘One Innocent Person in Prison Is Too Many’: John Hollway, executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice, is not surprised that D.C. is struggling to get a retesting project like this off the ground Hollway has studied other cities to take on such efforts in the wake of forensics scandals (including similar work in Austin, Texas), and he’s seen conflicts between prosecutors and defense attorneys crop up in pretty much every instance. Add in D.C.’s unusual relationship with its prosecutors, who are totally controlled by the federal government, and things can get especially thorny. “I would be hesitant to be overly critical of the folks in the D.C. government that are trying to get this done thoughtfully, because I do think there are more moving parts in D.C.,” Hollway says. “And keep in mind, every dollar I spend on this remediation is a dollar I’m not spending on schools. All of that has to be worked into how to manage this process.” But that doesn’t mean it’s an impossible task. Consider Austin, for example, where the city government agreed to work with its surrounding county and a collection of defense attorneys to lead an extensive review of cases following questions about its lab’s methods for testing DNA samples that surfaced in 2016. The situation has plenty of parallels to D.C.’s predicament: So many, in fact, that District officials prepared research on the subject, according to the documents released to City Paper. Not only are the cities of similar sizes, but the DNA disputes in Austin echo problems at DFS that cropped up in 2014 and 2015. The same expert was even involved in sounding the alarm at both labs: Bruce Budowle, a well-respected, Texas-based DNA researcher who once applied to lead D.C.’s crime lab and later helped local prosecutors investigate its methods. Things in Austin may not be perfect (officials estimate the project will cost up to $14 million in all) but at least they’re moving forward. The nonprofit partnering with the city, the Capital Area Private Defender Service, has focused on roughly 4,000 different people convicted by prosecutors relying on evidence from the lab, and they’ve successfully reversed convictions for two men who spent years in prison. “We have to look through hundreds of cases, and even though a small fraction have ended up in litigation so far, it’s still a lot of time, it’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of energy,” says Stacie Lieberman, who has spent the past few years leading the case review process for the group. “I’m grateful that Travis County and the city of Austin have taken this seriously, to say that one innocent person in prison is too many. That’s important.” That is precisely the principle that seems to be missing in D.C. Maybe all of the convictions based on DFS evidence will stand, and the crime lab’s issues aren’t as devastating as its critics fear. But the District is still far from finding out if that’s true. “It’s quite possible that individuals may be in jail on evidence that they shouldn’t be in jail for,” former Attorney General Karl Racine told City Paper before he left office last year. “And it may also mean that individuals were never brought to account for wrongs that they committed. So this work will go on for years.”
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;
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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.”
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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.”
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