Forensic firearms analysis: Noted criminal justice commentator Radley Balko (he is brilliant investigative journalist and a fabulous writer with incredible knowledge of the world of criminal justice - one of the 'heroes' of this blog for years ) proves how 'the devil is in the grooves' as he presents the case against forensic firearms analysis in the context of, "A landmark Chicago court ruling (that) threatens a century of expert ballistics testimony." (Yet another great Radley Balko post! HL)..."Last February, Chicago circuit court judge William Hooks made some history. He became the first judge in the country to bar the use of ballistics matching testimony in a criminal trial. In Illinois v. Rickey Winfield, prosecutors had planned to call a forensic firearms analyst to explain how he was able to match a bullet found at a crime scene to a gun alleged to be in possession of the defendant. It’s the sort of testimony experts give every day in criminal courts around the country. But this time, attorneys with the Cook County Public Defender’s Office requested a hearing to determine whether there was any scientific foundation for the claim that a specific bullet can be matched to a specific gun. Hooks granted the hearing and, after considering arguments from both sides, he issued his ruling. It was an earth-shaking opinion, and it could bring big changes to how gun crimes are prosecuted — in Chicago and possibly elsewhere. Hooks isn’t the first judge to be skeptical of claims made by forensic firearms analysts. Other courts have put restrictions on which terminology analysts use in front of juries. But Hooks is the first to bar such testimony outright. “There are no objective forensic based reasons that firearms identification evidence belongs in any category of forensic science,” Hooks writes. He adds that the wrongful convictions already attributable to the field “should serve as a wake-up call to courts operating as rubber stamps in blindly finding general acceptance” of bullet matching analysis."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "For more than a century, forensic firearms analysts have been telling juries that they can match a specific bullet to a specific gun, to the exclusion of all other guns. This claimed ability has helped to put tens of thousands of people in prison, and in a nontrivial percentage of those cases, it’s safe to say that ballistics matching was the only evidence linking the accused to the crime. But as with other forensic specialties collectively known as pattern matching fields, the claim is facing growing scrutiny. Scientists from outside of forensics point out that there’s no scientific basis for much of what firearms analysts say in court. These critics, backed by a growing body of research, make a pretty startling claim — one that could have profound effects on the criminal justice system: We don't actually know if it's possible to match a specific bullet to a specific gun. And even if it is, we don't know if forensic firearms analysts are any good at it."

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COMMENTARY: "Devil in the grooves: The case against forensic firearms analysis," by Radley Balko, published on his Blog 'The Watch' on  May 25, 2023. (Investigative journalist. Ex-Washington Post. Author of Rise of the Warrior Cop, co-author of The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist.)

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GIST: Every Balko post is worth reading from beginning to end. As this is a very lengthy post, I will leave that with the readers  at the link below, and, for a taste, will present the following three excerpts.

FIRST EXCERPT: ""Last February, Chicago circuit court judge William Hooks made some history. He became the first judge in the country to bar the use of ballistics matching testimony in a criminal trial. In Illinois v. Rickey Winfield, prosecutors had planned to call a forensic firearms analyst to explain how he was able to match a bullet found at a crime scene to a gun alleged to be in possession of the defendant. It’s the sort of testimony experts give every day in criminal courts around the country. But this time, attorneys with the Cook County Public Defender’s Office requested a hearing to determine whether there was any scientific foundation for the claim that a specific bullet can be matched to a specific gun. Hooks granted the hearing and, after considering arguments from both sides, he issued his ruling. It was an earth-shaking opinion, and it could bring big changes to how gun crimes are prosecuted — in Chicago and possibly elsewhere. Hooks isn’t the first judge to be skeptical of claims made by forensic firearms analysts. Other courts have put restrictions on which terminology analysts use in front of juries. But Hooks is the first to bar such testimony outright. “There are no objective forensic based reasons that firearms identification evidence belongs in any category of forensic science,” Hooks writes. He adds that the wrongful convictions already attributable to the field “should serve as a wake-up call to courts operating as rubber stamps in blindly finding general acceptance” of bullet matching analysis."

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SECOND EXCERPT: "Because it's now widely recognized to be junk science, bitemark analysis provides a useful illustration. The first appellate court opinion in the country to approve bitemark evidence in a criminal case was a California appeals court in 1975. The majority approved bitemark analysis in that particular case as an exercise in “common sense.” Another appeals court then mis-cited that ruling, claiming the court had found bitemark analysis to be rooted in science. Other courts then cited that court, more courts cited those courts, and so on, until dozens of courts had created a a considerable body of case law attesting to the scientific validity of a field that had yet to be evaluated by any actual scientists. Still today, there are states in which the controlling precedent establishing bitemark evidence as scientifically valid is a case in which the analyst was provably wrong, and the defendant was later declared innocent and exonerated. And even now, only a handful of courts have ruled the evidence to be unreliable. But bitemark analysis has only been around since the 1970s. Courts have been using ballistics analysis for more than a century. This presents a more daunting challenge for critics. For courts to overturn forensic firearms evidence now would require judges to conclude that the entire criminal legal system has been wrong about a key component of criminal convictions for more than a hundred years. It would call into question not just firearms analysis and the many, many cases in which it was used, but the very way courts have been certifying experts for most of U.S. legal history. It could also be cause to reopen thousands of old cases. And it would make shootings more difficult to prosecute going forward. None of these are morally persuasive reasons to continue allowing unscientific evidence to corrupt criminal trials. But they are formidable, real-world barriers to stopping it. Overcoming them will require judges who not only possess the scientific acumen to do a proper analysis, but who can summon the courage to buck decades of precedent. It will take judges willing to ask the sorts of questions that could undermine thousands of convictions spanning decades of criminal trials, and call into question the very legitimacy of the system within which they’ve built their careers."

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THIRD EXCERPT:   The impact: It's worth reiterating that in most of these challenges to forensic testimony, judges tend to simply look at what other courts have done then cut and paste a list of citations to opinions that have already certified that particular type of analysis. At most, they might reiterate arguments from prosecution witnesses about low error rates without examining how those rates were calculated. Hooks's ruling was the sort of thorough engagement with the science that every defendant deserves, but too few get. But it took more than just an unusual judge for Hooks’s ruling to happen. As it turns out, the Cook County Public Defender’s Office is one of just a few such offices in the country with a division solely dedicated to forensics. “When we decided to challenge forensic firearms analysis, I spent an entire year in which my full time job was to learn everything I could about it,” says Gutierrez. “I read every study I could find, went to every conference I could attend, interviewed every expert I could get to talk to me. That’s what it took to mount one successful challenge, by one office, in one case.”

A typical public defender doesn’t have the time or resources for that sort of training, so most will lack the background knowledge necessary to thoroughly cross-examine a state witness like Weller. In fact, to mount a successful challenge in some of these areas of forensics, a defense attorney essentially needs to become so familiar with the material that they become experts themselves. And for a typical defense attorney carrying two or three times the ABA recommended caseload, that just isn’t possible. There's also little reason for them to try. If most judges don’t have the patience or will to entertain a request to overturn several decades of case law, most public defenders will conclude — probably correctly — that they'd better serve their clients by focusing on other aspects of their cases. Hooks’s ruling is specific to the Winfield case. It is not precedent, and the state has already filed a motion asking Hooks to reconsider -- the first step toward an appeal. But the ruling is thorough enough that unless overturned, it seems safe to assume Hooks will rule similarly when future challenges come before his court. Moreover, under Illinois case law, once a state judge has found a field of expertise to be unreliable, it’s easier to mount similar challenges in other courts around the state. And even though the ruling has no controlling authority, each time a court issues a skeptical ruling against this sort of testimony, it gives defense attorneys in other jurisdictions one more case to cite should they decide to bring their own challenges. One salient criticism of Hooks's ruling is that if it holds and spreads to other city courts, Chicago prosecutors will no longer be able to call forensic firearms analysts to match a specific bullet to a specific gun. That will inevitably make it more difficult to win convictions in shootings, a consequence police and prosecutors are likely to decry, especially in a city with a (sometimes exaggerated) reputation for violence, and where clearance rates for gun crimes are already alarmingly low. But Hooks's ruling doesn’t preclude police from utilizing forensic firearms analysis in their investigations. They could still use the class characteristics of guns and bullets to eliminate suspects and to help them decide which suspects merit more investigation. If they still believe in the ability to pair a specific bullet with a specific gun, they can continue to use that information to guide their investigations as well. It just means that those investigations will need to find other evidence. Even if Hooks's ruling were to become the dominant case law across the country, it also doesn't mean forensic firearms analysis will never reach the point where it merits inclusion in criminal trials. Even critics of ballistics matching have told me that the work researchers like CSAFE are doing could result in algorithms that can cross reference the marks on bullets against the databases they're creating and match a bullet to a gun with a calculable margin for error. But according to every major scientific body to evaluate forensic firearms analysis, we aren't there yet. Under a fair and just system, the fact that these unproven methods have already been used for so long would be a source of embarrassment. Instead, the fact that the courts are already waist-deep in forensic firearms junk science has become an excuse to continue to wallow in it — instead of freeing themselves from it. Would prohibiting forensic firearms analysis from trials make it more difficult to win convictions? It seems likely. But as we've seen with the hundreds of DNA exonerations to date, ensuring the evidence used in court is backed by sound science is the difference between convicting the correct person for a crime and convicting . . . just anyone."

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The entire post can be read at:

https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/devil-in-the-grooves-the-case-against

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.”

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

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