PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Even if the lab gains reaccreditation, it may still face a staffing problem. In a public safety bill earlier this week, Robert White introduced a provision aimed at beefing up the number of forensic scientists so cops aren’t supplementing that work. The bill would create a $5,000 retention and recruitment incentive for the crime scene science division within DFS, and would also require annual reports on hiring and retention."
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STORY: "DC's embattled crime lab could regain accreditation as early as January, DCist (Reporter Colleen Groblick) reports. "Colleen Groblick hails from Allentown, Pa., a place known for that one Billy Joel song and being “an hour-ish” from Philly. She moved to D.C. in 2016 for college and joined DCist as an intern in 2019. Now, she covers a range of topics as a DCist staff writer — from the COVID-19 pandemic to the National Zoo’s baby panda."
PHOTO CAPTION: "The crime lab has been without accreditation since April 2021, causing the city outsource much of its evidence processing."
GIST: "D.C.’s Department of Forensic Science, which has been without accreditation since 2021, may finally regain it as early as January 2024, according to Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau.
After a site visit on Thursday, Nadeau announced that the agency had filed for reaccreditation in September and requested a fast-track review.
Three days of on-site visits will need to take place in December by the accrediting body, ANSI National Accreditation Board.
It could then take two to six weeks for the accreditation to come through, should the inspection not turn up any errors.
The inspection may, depending on what ANSI concludes, require additional follow-ups or adjustments, according to a spokesperson for Nadeau, but based on the current timeline, DFS could regain accreditation as early as January.
(A DFS spokesperson did not immediately return DCist/WAMU’s request for comment.)
It’s a huge development for D.C.’s embattled crime lab — which handles the preservation and analysis of forensic evidence — and for public safety in the city more broadly.
DFS lost its accreditation in April 2021 over accuracy concerns (including errors in DNA analyses), compromised prosecutions, and a lack of transparency.
The city first opened the lab in 2012 as a means to divorce scientific evidence gathering and processing from police work, theoretically avoiding bias and wrongful convictions; but in the decade following its creation, the lab was often beset by errors.
Without accreditation, the city has been outsourcing much of its evidence-processing work to federal and private labs.
Certain crime lab responsibilities, like photographic forensic evidence, have been carried out by members of the Metropolitan Police Department over the past two years, but the lack of a functioning crime lab has hampered the city’s ability to swiftly close or prosecute cases, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C., which prosecutes most serious adult crimes in the city.
As violent crime — particularly gun violence — has increased over the year, officials have frequently pointed to the city’s essentially non-functioning crime lab as one of the gaps in the “public safety ecosystem” that’s preventing D.C. from driving down crime rates.
“This is not the only fix, but it’s a critical fix,” Nadeau said in her statement on the crime lab’s hopeful path toward accreditation.
In her fiscal year 2024 budget proposal, Mayor Muriel Bowser tried to move DFS’ crime scene science division under the control of the Metropolitan Police Department. She said the move would free up DFS to focus on reaccreditation.
Her proposal received pushback from councilmembers, who argued it defeated the purpose of an independent crime lab.
Ward 2 councilmember and judiciary committee chair Brooke Pinto tried to strike a compromise with a proposal to move the crime scene science division under MPD for just a year, at which point DFS would hopefully be reaccredited, but her measure ultimately failed to make it into the council’s final Budget Support Act.
Even if the lab gains reaccreditation, it may still face a staffing problem.
In a public safety bill earlier this week, Robert White introduced a provision aimed at beefing up the number of forensic scientists so cops aren’t supplementing that work.
The bill would create a $5,000 retention and recruitment incentive for the crime scene science division within DFS, and would also require annual reports on hiring and retention."
The entire story can be read at:
dc-crime-lab-reaccreditation-possible-next-year
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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