PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "With the opinion, Maryland becomes one of the nation’s first jurisdictions where an appellate court has recognized shortcomings in the forensic practice and imposed limits on its use in court. Maneka Sinha, an associate professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law who studies forensic sciences, said the justices “came to the conclusion that scientists, academics and others seriously studying the discipline already have: that conclusions claiming they can say a specific gun fired a specific item of ammunition are simply unreliable.” “These kinds of unreliable conclusions have been central to prosecutors securing countless convictions — convictions we should all be questioning now,” added Sinha, who successfully argued for one of the first limits placed on firearm analysis testimony in a case from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia cited in the Maryland appeal. Jeffrey Gilleran, chief of the forensics division at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, echoed Sinha’s comments. “For too long has the criminal legal system allowed unvalidated and unreliable methods to be admitted at trial,” Gilleran said in an email. “This opinion is a step in the right direction and we look forward to this type of in-depth analysis for other forensic disciplines, even those that have long been considered settled.”
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STORY: "Maryland Supreme Court imposes limits on ballistics evidence used to link guns to crimes," by Reporter Alex Mann, published by The Baltimore Sun, on June 21, 2023. (Thanks to Dr. Michael Bowers for bringing this story to our attention on his Blog 'CSIDDS: Forensics and Law in Focus.'
SUB-HEADING: "An opinion by the Supreme Court of Maryland published Tuesday imposed limits on the use of ballistics evidence in courtrooms across the state."
GIST: "In Maryland, firearms experts will no longer be allowed to testify that a specific gun fired a specific bullet, the state’s highest court ruled in an opinion published Tuesday.
Authored by Chief Justice Matthew J. Fader of the Supreme Court of Maryland, the opinion imposes limits in the courtroom on the practice known as firearm “tool mark” analysis.
The forensic technique postulates that machines used to make guns leave tiny imperfections on their components, and that those components imprint unique marks on ammunition — composed of softer metal — when fired.
Until now, it was commonplace for firearms examiners — usually employed in police crime labs — to testify that a gun recovered by law enforcement fired bullets or used casings found at a crime scene, if they believed that to be true based on their observations under a microscope.
But four of seven justices on the state Supreme Court found that the scientific methodology is not reliable enough to allow examiners to testify that a particular gun fired a particular bullet.
Examiners can, however, testify “that patterns and markings on bullets are consistent or inconsistent with those on bullets fired from a particular known firearm,” the opinion said.
The ruling responds to the appeal of a murder case in Prince George’s County, but all decisions by the state’s highest court are binding on lower courts.
One of the attorneys behind the appeal, Stanley Reed, described the legal team as “very gratified.”
The Maryland Office of the Attorney General, which represented the state in the appeal, did not respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
With the opinion, Maryland becomes one of the nation’s first jurisdictions where an appellate court has recognized shortcomings in the forensic practice and imposed limits on its use in court.
Maneka Sinha, an associate professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law who studies forensic sciences, said the justices “came to the conclusion that scientists, academics and others seriously studying the discipline already have: that conclusions claiming they can say a specific gun fired a specific item of ammunition are simply unreliable.”
“These kinds of unreliable conclusions have been central to prosecutors securing countless convictions — convictions we should all be questioning now,” added Sinha, who successfully argued for one of the first limits placed on firearm analysis testimony in a case from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia cited in the Maryland appeal.
Jeffrey Gilleran, chief of the forensics division at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, echoed Sinha’s comments.
“For too long has the criminal legal system allowed unvalidated and unreliable methods to be admitted at trial,” Gilleran said in an email. “This opinion is a step in the right direction and we look forward to this type of in-depth analysis for other forensic disciplines, even those that have long been considered settled.”
When there is a shooting, police typically cordon off the area with crime scene tape. Crime lab technicians respond to mark evidence, photograph it and collect it. Then, they take it back to the crime lab for further testing.
Key among that evidence is usually fired cartridge casings.
A casing holds a bullet and an explosive substance. After a trigger is pulled, a firing pin rams the back of the casing, sparking a tiny explosion inside the casing.
That propels the bullet down a barrel, which typically feature twisted metal known as “rifling” inside, to spin the projectile for accuracy. Semiautomatic handguns and rifles eject a casing after each shot.
If a gun is recovered during an investigation, firearms examiners test-fire the gun. Then they use comparison microscopes, which allow them to look at two pieces of evidence
simultaneously, to compare bullets or casings picked up at the crime scene with those from the test fires. They then decide whether they believe there are enough markings on the spent projectiles to declare a match.
The Association of Firearm and Tool Mark Examiners says examiners can declare a match when an examiner sees “sufficient agreement” between two projectiles.
The organization, which establishes standards for the field, says agreement between two rounds is significant when a set of markings is of “a quantity and quality that the likelihood another tool could have made the mark is so remote as to be considered a practical impossibility.”
There are five conclusions an examiner can reach: elimination of a bullet as having been fired from a specific gun, identification of a projectile being fired by that gun and “inconclusive.”
There are three types of inconclusive findings an examiner can cite: one that leans toward excluding a match, one that leans toward a match and one that represents greater uncertainty.
Proponents of the practice say that firearms examiners rarely declare a match incorrectly.
But how often examiners’ findings are wrong is a subject of great dispute.
Lawyers on either side of the Prince George’s appeal pointed to studies with error rates ranging from zero to 50%.
That discrepancy likely has to do with how “inconclusive” findings are counted. Critics say that most firearm analysis studies count inconclusive as correct, artificially deflating the error rate.
One of the three dissenting justices, Steven B. Gould, wrote that the court shouldn’t worry about inconclusive findings.
“Our concern is this: when the examiner does declare an identification or elimination, we want to know how reliable that determination is,” Gould said in his dissenting opinion.
“The record shows that conclusive determinations of either kind (identification or elimination) are highly reliable.""
The entire story cam be read at:
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Read also: C.J. Ciaramella's analysis of the decision in an article entitled 'Maryland Supreme Court Limits Testimony on Bullet-Matching Evidence' published by 'Reason' on June 22, 2023.https://reason.com/2023/06/22/maryland-supreme-court-limits-testimony-on-bullet-matching-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/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
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.”
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/
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