Rodricus Crawford: Louisiana; His case has begun to play a role in the U.S. death penalty debate and was recently cited, along with that of the late Glenn Ford, by former Caddo Parish prosecutor Marty Stroud - now, haunted by previous mistakes, in his personal campaign to eliminate the death penalty in America..."The committee also heard about the high number of reversals of death penalty cases. Two-- discussed as cases where the wrongfully accused might have been executed-- both occurred in Caddo Parish. One was Rodricus Crawford of Shreveport, whose death sentence was overturned by the Louisiana Supreme Court. The Caddo district attorney's office earlier this month dropped charges, based in large part on medical evidence showing Crawford's son died of an illness, not trauma-- as claimed by Caddo Coroner Dr. Todd Thoma and his forensic pathologist."..."The committee also heard about the high number of reversals of death penalty cases. Two-- discussed as cases where the wrongfully accused might have been executed-- both occurred in Caddo Parish. One was Rodricus Crawford of Shreveport, whose death sentence was overturned by the Louisiana Supreme Court. The Caddo district attorney's office earlier this month dropped charges, based in large part on medical evidence showing Crawford's son died of an illness, not trauma-- as claimed by Caddo Coroner Dr. Todd Thoma and his forensic pathologist."

STORY: "Former Caddo prosecutor in favor of eliminating death penalty,"  by reporter Gary Hines, published by KTBS 0n April 25, 2017.

GIST: "A former Caddo Parish prosecutor-- haunted by mistakes he made in the case of a man who spent three decades on Death Row before being exonerated-- was among the witnesses who testified before a Louisiana Senate committee that approved a bill to eliminate capital punishment.... The committee also heard about the high number of reversals of death penalty cases. Two-- discussed as cases where the wrongfully accused might have been executed-- both occurred in Caddo Parish. One was Rodricus Crawford of Shreveport, whose death sentence was overturned by the Louisiana Supreme Court. The Caddo district attorney's office earlier this month dropped charges, based in large part on medical evidence showing Crawford's son died of an illness, not trauma-- as claimed by Caddo Coroner Dr. Todd Thoma and his forensic pathologist. The other was Glenn Ford, who spent 29 years on death row for the murder and robbery of jeweler Isadore Rozeman-- before new evidence led the Caddo district attorney's office to conclude Ford helped plan the robbery and pawn stolen items, but was not the triggerman. Attorney Marty Stroud of Shreveport, who prosecuted Ford, has been haunted by that case, saying he was so concerned about procuring a death sentence-- he developed tunnel vision about other people being involved; then celebrated with friends when he won. Now in private practice, Stroud has since become an advocate for abolishing the death penalty, saying humans cannot handle the power over life and death. "When my time comes, I hope God has more mercy on me than I had for Mr. Ford," Stroud told the committee. "I know I don't deserve it."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.ktbs.com/story/35244544/former-caddo-prosecutor-in-favor-of-eliminating-death-penalty

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

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Attorney General Jeff Session's war on science/forensics: (Part 14): Commentary: Jessica Gabel Cino predicts 'Sessions assault on forensic science will lead to more convictions." Newsweek....".The bottom line from the last decade of forensic research: the criminal justice system has been using guesswork dressed up as science to send people to jail. What can the criminal justice system do about bad science? Forensic science should be a prophylactic that prevents wrongful convictions rather than causing them. The NCFS was the starting point: It embraced the need for more research, accurate testing, consistent standards, judicial acceptance and shifts in forensic laboratory culture that would protect innocent individuals from being convicted in the first place."

COMMENTARY: "Sessions’s Assault on Forensic Science Will Lead to More Unsafe Convictions," by Jessica Gabel Cino, published by Newsweek on April 20, 2017. (Jessica Gabel Cino is associate dean for academic affairs at the Georgia State College of Law.)

GIST: "The Trump administration’s assault on science continues in the early days of his presidency. Recently, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the dismantling of the National Commission on Forensic Science (NCFS)—a body dedicated to improving accuracy and reliability in forensic evidence used in criminal cases. Not only is this short-sighted but it short-circuits efforts to address issues involving forensic errors, wrongful convictions and crime lab misconduct. The practical effect of this action is not that states are going to pick up the mantle and bear the burden of creating forensic science standards. Instead, the ensuing stagnation will lock the forensic science community into a silo and allow problems to persist. Putting an end to NCFS ignores example after example of the need for such an entity.........The bottom line from the last decade of forensic research: the criminal justice system has been using guesswork dressed up as science to send people to jail. What can the criminal justice system do about bad science? Forensic science should be a prophylactic that prevents wrongful convictions rather than causing them. The NCFS was the starting point: It embraced the need for more research, accurate testing, consistent standards, judicial acceptance and shifts in forensic laboratory culture that would protect innocent individuals from being convicted in the first place. Forensic science needs to produce reliable results and it needs to be regulated. The fact that different labs performing the same analysis use different standards is not a sign of scientific freedom, it’s a sign of stress points in the criminal justice system. For a system wedded to an unwavering adherence to the need for finality in criminal cases (which makes it nearly impossible to appeal a bad conviction brought about by bad science), there is a shocking lack of consistency and uniformity. It is no wonder that forensic science has been a patchwork quilt of standards and results. For decades, the legal system has pressured forensic science to deliver results in the form of convictions. And we dress forensic results in a cloak of certainty and sell it to a jury. But the progress that has been made since the inception of NCFS underscores that a commitment to change can come from within and can embrace outside input. If forensic science is truly meant to be a science—to seek the truth—then we must accept that it never will reach the certainty that “pursuit of justice” would like to demand. Even with the inherent tension between law and science, NCFS was a sign that the two could work together. Unfortunately, the research and accomplishments that have been achieved in the last few years are in danger of being consumed by this new policy of willful blindness. That blindness will lead to more wrongful convictions. Evidence admissibility is largely dependent on implementing and enforcing comparable standards which should be achieved for the entire forensic process, from crime scene to courtroom. We needed a central body to connect those constituencies together and to oversee reforms in a system that remained fragmented and impervious to change for too long. Without an entity to enable forensic science to prioritize research and then streamline, simplify and accelerate forensic reform, I fear that advancements will languish and we will soon return to our old ways. Rather than lament the death of NCFS, however, I call upon universities and crime labs to partner together in forensic science reform. Reforming forensics is no small task. It will take cooperation from scientists, lawyers, judges and policymakers--but it can be done. As the Buddha said: “There are only two mistakes one can make on the road to truth: not going all the way, and not starting. We started with NCFS, so let’s avoid the mistake of not going all the way."

The entire commentary can be found at:

http://www.newsweek.com/sessionss-assault-forensic-science-will-lead-more-unsafe-convictions-585762

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

Rodricus Crawford: Louisiana: Bulletin: See his first television interview as a free, exonerated young man who was pretty sure that he was going to die - by Domonique Benn(KSLA) who has been extensively covering his case. Link provided to segments of the videotaped interview: Show to run tomorrow - Wednesday April 26 - at 10.00 PM on KSLA web-site.

FROM  KSLA REPORTER DOMONIQUE BENN'S FACEBOOK SITE:   "He was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to Angola's Death Row. Now he's been cleared.  In his first television interview since being released from Angola's Death Row. Rodricus Crawford sits down with me about his son's death, the fear of execution, and how he had faith in the legal team who helped clear him. Wednesday night at 10." Check out a video showing portions of the exclusive interview at the site below;

https://www.facebook.com/dbennKSLA/

See the entire show tomorrow evening on the KSLA site - at 10.00 PM  (Louisiana time) -  at the link below:

 http://www.ksla.com/

"For informative background, see Domonique Benn's  masterful  (November 22, 2016)  story - on the story behind Rodricus Crawford's successful appeal at the link below:  "According to court testimony, witnesses say it took about 15 minutes for EMTs to arrive at Crawford's home. His attorney, Cecelia Kappel, says the distraught father chased down the ambulance before handing his lifeless son off to EMTs. Video entered into evidence during the trial shows Crawford distraught in the back of a police cruiser moments after his lifeless son was taken away in an ambulance. It would be another hour before he would learn his son was dead/ That would not be the only shock for this grieving father and family. According to the autopsy conducted by the Caddo Parish Coroner's Office, Roderius Lott died of smothering. However, defense attorneys for the child's father say the Coroner's office ignored critical evidence that the child died of natural causes. "This was not a homicide, this child died of pneumonia and sepsis and Dr. Traylor was dead wrong," Kappel says. Dr. Traylor was the pathologist who ruled the baby's death a homicide. When asked to comment on the autopsy, Traylor would only point to his findings submitted to the court as evidence during the trial. In the autopsy report, Dr. Traylor cited a small cut under the baby's top lip as evidence of smothering. Defense attorneys say the injury came from a fall and was not evidence of a homicide.  They say Roderius fell down in the bathroom and cut his lip the day before he died and that the real cause of the child's death was his failing health. It's evidence they say is backed up by tissue and blood samples. "He missed the fact that this child had brain swelling, which indicated he did not die of smothering," says Kappel. "He didn't perform testing on the bruising on the child which could have pinpointed the moment those bruises occurred instead of assuming that Mr. Crawford inflicted those injuries."  Kappel adds that Dr. Traylor testified that the little boy had pneumonia, but that it was not serious enough to kill him. When questioned on the stand about the bacteria found during the autopsy, Kappel says Traylor testified that the results would have indicated sepsis if they were accurate but also said that his needle could have been contaminated.  "So based on his testimony either this child died of sepsis and this was not a murder or his autopsy was contaminated.  Either way, we can't have any confidence in this verdict," concludes Kappel. Nine other doctors around the country agreed that Roderius Lott died from sepsis. It was a game-changer for the defense, giving them the cause for appeal before the Louisiana Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had to consider the questions surrounding the evidence presented at trial to support the conviction that allowed Crawford to be sentenced to death.  In their appeal, defense attorneys argued the cards were stacked against their client from the beginning because of his race, the fact that he was unemployed, and still lived at home with this mother. "He is given a presumption that he is a criminal element based on his race and socioeconomic status," says Kappel. "I think the result would have been very different if he were white. I think the result would have been very different if he was middle-class African American. In this case, he was presumed to be a criminal." Crawford's defense team also argued that prosecuting attorney Dale Cox struck people from the jury based on race. The justices ultimately agreed, vacating Crawford's capital conviction and ordering a new trial."

 http://www.ksla.com/story/33776078/ksla-news-12-investigates-behind-the-appeal-that-led-to-new-trial-for-shreveport-father

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

John Jackson: Texas: Cameron Todd Willingham's prosecutor; Major Development: Civil judicial-misconduct trial on grievance filed by Innocence Project; Jury screening is under way. CNHI story is headed: " Prosecutor's trial re-kindles death-row ashes."..."According to the grievance, “... Jackson illegally and unethically made an undisclosed deal” with Willingham’s fellow inmate, Johnny E. Webb, to grant Webb a series of favors in return for testifying that Willingham confessed to the crime. Webb subsequently recanted the testimony of Willingham’s alleged confession to setting the blaze in which his daughters died."

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It’s the perfect storm of a case at this time when interest in exonerations is sweeping the country. It’s in the very top of these exoneration cases.”

Houston criminal-defense attorney John Floyd.

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STORY: "Prosecutor's trial re-kindles death-row ashes," by reporter John Austin, published by CNHI on April 24, 2017, by CNHI.

GIST: "John Jackson helped send Cameron Todd Willingham to death row, but on Monday, lawyers began screening a jury to decide if he hid evidence that could have spared Willingham. “It’s the perfect storm of a case at this time when interest in exonerations is sweeping the country,” said Houston criminal-defense attorney John Floyd. “It’s in the very top of these exoneration cases.” The civil judicial-misconduct trial will take place in the Navarro County Courthouse where Jackson, then an assistant district attorney, in 1992 persuaded jurors to find Willingham guilty of capital murder for torching the Corsicana home in which his three young daughters died. The adequacy of the arson evidence in Willingham’s high-profile trial was the subject of several critical investigations after the conviction. But it’s the circumstances surrounding a purported jailhouse confession that prompted the New York-based Innocence Project to file a grievance against Jackson with the state bar association’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline. According to the grievance, “... Jackson illegally and unethically made an undisclosed deal” with Willingham’s fellow inmate, Johnny E. Webb, to grant Webb a series of favors in return for testifying that Willingham confessed to the crime. Webb subsequently recanted the testimony of Willingham’s alleged confession to setting the blaze in which his daughters died. The Innocence Project has submitted an interview with Webb, “recorded in the presence of his current counsel, which supplements and corroborates the documentary record showing Jackson’s misconduct,” according to its grievance. According to the bar commission’s petition, Jackson knew “before, during and after the 1992 trial ... of the existence of evidence that tended to negate the guilt of Willingham and failed to disclose that evidence to defense counsel.” Moreover, “(Jackson) failed to make timely disclosure to the defense details of an agreement for favorable treatment for Webb, an inmate, in exchange for Webb’s testimony at trial for the state,” according to the petition. Before the trial, Jackson also said he had no evidence favorable to Willingham, who was executed in 2004, according to the petition. Jackson, who went on to become a district judge, also worked to have Webb’s conviction changed from aggravated robbery to robbery, and requested early parole for Webb with the Board of Pardons and Paroles, the bar alleged. Jackson signed warrants for Webb so he would be transferred from prison to the Navarro County jail.".........As for potential punishment, in the civil trial, “the finder of fact has complete discretion and can choose from a public reprimand ... to a suspension to disbarment, depending on the facts of the case and the disciplinary background of the attorney,” Claire Mock, public affairs counsel for the bar association’s Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel, said in an email. Mock said a conviction in a civil trial does not automatically give rise to criminal charges. “It’s really the state bar right now that has the biggest stick,” Floyd said. Jackson could have opted to have a bar association evidentiary panel hear the case, but chose a district-court hearing instead. “Getting in front of a panel is quicker, but if you feel like you’re not going to do well there, you take it to trial court,” said Floyd, adding that while proceedings before the bar are confidential, “this is going to air things out.”"

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.weatherforddemocrat.com/news/local_news/prosecutor-s-trial-re-kindles-death-row-ashes/article_a437429d-d3b1-59e2-978d-db33037651d9.html

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

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions' war on science/forensics: (Part 13): Important perspective: "Clinical laboratories must meet higher standards to be allowed to diagnose strep throat than forensic labs must meet to put a defendant on death row."...Reporter Pema Levy; Mother Jones..."The message was clear: The era of independent scientific review of forensics is over. Julia Leighton, a commission member and retired public defender, conveyed the disappointed mood of the room when she spoke a few minutes later. "We have to understand the importance of this juncture that we're at, where we're really grappling with, frankly, are we telling the truth as a matter of science to judges and jurors?"

STORY: "Jeff Sessions Wants Courts to Rely Less on Science and More on "Science," by reporter Pema Levy, published by Mother Jones on April 24, 2017. Thanks to Dr. Mike Bowers at CSIDDS (Forensics in Focus) for bringing this story to our attention.

GIST: "On April 10, a group of lawyers, scientists, judges, crime lab technicians, law enforcement officers, and academics gathered in Washington, DC, for the final quarterly meeting of the National Commission on Forensic Science, a group whose two-year charter expired in late April...The message was clear: The era of independent scientific review of forensics is over. Julia Leighton, a commission member and retired public defender, conveyed the disappointed mood of the room when she spoke a few minutes later. "We have to understand the importance of this juncture that we're at, where we're really grappling with, frankly, are we telling the truth as a matter of science to judges and jurors?" she said. "And that can't be put on hold. It is inconsistent with the Department of Justice's mission to put that on hold." For years, scientists and defense attorneys have fought an uphill battle to bring scientific rigor into a field that, despite its name, is largely devoid of science. Evidence regularly presented in court rooms—such as bite-mark, hair, and lead bullet analysis—that for decades have been employed by prosecutors to convict and even execute defendants are actually incapable of definitively linking an individual to a crime. Other methods, including fingerprint analysis, are less rigorous and more subjective than experts—and popular culture—let on. "Clinical laboratories must meet higher standards to be allowed to diagnose strep throat than forensic labs must meet to put a defendant on death row." But on the witness stand, experts routinely overstate the certainty of their forensic methods.........DNA emerged as a reliable tool in the late 1980s. It has since exonerated tens of thousands of suspects during criminal investigations and more than 349 convicted defendants, according to the Innocence Project. "I think what we've seen with the DNA exonerations," Paul Giannelli, a member of the commission, told Mother Jones at its final meeting, "is that there's a heck of a lot more innocent people in prison than anyone dreamed of.".........In 2009, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the bombshell 2009 NAS report. In his opening statement, Sessions, the committee's top ranking Republican at the time, expressed skepticism of the report's findings. "I don't accept the idea that they seem to suggest that fingerprints is not a proven technology," he said. "I don't think we should suggest that those proven scientific principles that we've been using for decades are somehow uncertain." Instead, Sessions' worried that the NAS report would be used by defense attorneys during cross-examination to discredit exerts, leaving prosecutors "to fend off challenges on the most basic issues in a trial."The hearing took place in the shadow of new information about the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man who was executed in 2004 after he was found guilty of murdering his three children by setting fire to their home. The principal evidence prosecutors used against Willingham was the findings of two fire investigators who claimed that the conflagration could only have been caused by arson. Yet even before Willingham's execution, the arson evidence against him had been debunked by a premier fire expert, though Texas' clemency process had failed to heed the report. In August 2009, a few weeks before the Senate hearing, a fire scientist hired to review the case issued a blistering report denouncing the original investigators' work as "characteristic of mystics or psychics," not scientists. A few weeks later, The New Yorker published a detailed investigation of the Willingham case. Based on flawed forensic science, an innocent man had been executed. "I don't think we should suggest that those proven scientific principles that we've been using for decades are somehow uncertain," Sessions said. When Sessions had his turn to question the witness panel, he brought up the Willingham case. Sessions read extensively from a piece of commentary submitted to a small Texas newspaper by John Jackson, one of the prosecutors in the Willingham case, who had gone on to become a local judge. In his op-ed, Jackson claimed that despite the flawed forensic evidence, Willingham was guilty, and listed bullet points intended to prove Willingham's guilt. But Jackson's points read like someone in denial of the newfound facts about the case—in fact, the author of The New Yorker piece, David Grann, had already written his own rebuttal to Jackson's list by the time of the Senate hearing. Still, Sessions proceeded to read several misleading facts about the case. "That does not excuse a flawed forensic report," Sessions concluded. "But it looks like there was other evidence in the case indicating guilt." The 2009 investigation into the Willingham case was the work of Texas' own Forensic Science Commission—a state-level version of the national commission that Sessions just closed down. In the last few years, the Texas commission has received increased funding and responsibilities from the state Legislature, becoming a national leader in reviewing the scientific validity of forensic disciplines. It has taken up issues such as hair analysis and problems with DNA testing, and last year it recommended a ban on using bite-mark evidence in the courtroom. Texas, not Washington, is now carrying the torch for forensic reformers. At the final meeting of the National Commission on Forensic Science, the group held a session on wrongful convictions, featuring Keith Harward, who had served 33 years in Virginia for a rape and murder based on bite-mark evidence before being exonerated by DNA evidence. When the panel ended, a few members expressed a sense of helplessness now that the commission was shutting down. John Hollway, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, rose to apologize to Harward for the decades he lost in prison. "Your story brings up the tragedy of putting this commission on hold," said Hollway, who was not a commission member but was involved in subcommittee work. Hollway said he worried that "we will lose time to help the other people like you who are incarcerated improperly or, worse, the people who are still to be incarcerated improperly because we cannot solve these problems yet.""

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/sessions-forensic-science

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

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions war on science/forensics: Part Twelve; "Professor of Chemistry and Forensic and Investigative Science Suzanne Bell asks: 'Now who will push ahead on validating forensic science disciplines?' in 'The Conversation.'..."Forensic science as a field has roots both in medicine and in law enforcement. Some subdisciplines emerged from academia; others followed the science track to enter forensic practice. Still others were developed to assist law enforcement. As the work evolved, it was law enforcement personnel who undertook many of the associated analyses and testimony. Therein lies the source of much of the current controversy and concern. The forensic disciplines that weren’t born in the world of science didn’t from their inception go through the crucible of scientific methodology and review. This does not mean they aren’t useful or valid; however, they must be demonstrated as such. If put forth as scientific, these practices must pass scientific scrutiny in the present day."

COMMENTARY:  "Now who will push ahead on validating forensic science disciplines?' by Prof. Suzanne Bell, published by 'The Conversation' on April 18, 2017.

SUB-HEADING: "When lawyers submit forensic evidence in court, is there legit science to back it up?"

SUB-HEADING:  "Science and the courts may weigh things differently."

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT: "Suzanne Bell receives funding from granting agencies including the National Institute of Justice and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology. The opinions expressed here are her own and not are not meant to represent opinions of any other entity or organization."

GIST: "Science and the law are not natural partners. Science seeks to advance our understanding of the natural world. The law is tasked with ensuring public safety and making sure justice is properly served. Over time, science became another tool available to the legal system to pursue those goals. During recent years, though, problems with some aspects of forensic science have come to light. Examples include false convictions based on faulty fire scene and burn pattern analysis and on bite mark analysis, incorrect fingerprint identification and instances of misconduct in forensic labs. Recognizing these shortcoming has led to various efforts to propel forensic science forward, helping us recognize which parts of it are scientifically valid, which parts aren’t and where more research must be done. This month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ended support for the National Commission on Forensic Science (NCFS). This federal advisory board was charged with making recommendations “to enhance the practice and improve the reliability of forensic science.” Sessions didn’t renew the charter of this independent group, instead announcing other steps to be taken within the Department of Justice. DOJ is not a science agency and thus not the ideal place to address core scientific issues. The department is staffed with dedicated public servants and exemplary forensic scientists, but the independence of science (real and perceived) remains a concern. The loss of the NCFS, of which I was a member, disrupts our work to help forensic science come of age and to insure the scientific validity of all its subdisciplines – a desirable outcome for its practitioners, the legal system and all of us who are served by it. A number of practices in forensic science require additional scientific scrutiny and validation. Indeed, any scientific method or practice requires periodic review and update to keep pace with developments in the field......... Forensic science as a field has roots both in medicine and in law enforcement. Some subdisciplines emerged from academia; others followed the science track to enter forensic practice. Still others were developed to assist law enforcement. As the work evolved, it was law enforcement personnel who undertook many of the associated analyses and testimony. Therein lies the source of much of the current controversy and concern. The forensic disciplines that weren’t born in the world of science didn’t from their inception go through the crucible of scientific methodology and review. This does not mean they aren’t useful or valid; however, they must be demonstrated as such. If put forth as scientific, these practices must pass scientific scrutiny in the present day. As an example, fingerprints have been used for identification and legal purposes since the early 1900s. The decision to admit fingerprints to court as evidence in 1911 was made based on the adversarial system and judicial arguments; it didn’t stem from scientific debate and certainly not from 21st-century scientific standards. Scientific scrutiny is an ongoing process, not something done once and settled. This applies to every forensic science practice, from DNA to pattern evidence. Admissibility is not synonymous with scientific validity. Yet this distinction is not always made clear nor clearly understood by those involved with the court system. The validity of using bite marks as identifiers has been debunked. Yet some courts still admit such evidence, and false convictions involving bite marks continue to be reversed, often because of DNA analysis. Without clear statements of the lack of scientific validity, admissibility often falls back on precedent. One of the goals of the National Commission on Forensic Science’s Scientific Inquiry Subcommittee, which I co-chaired, was to encourage and emphasize more work on scientific validation for the forensic disciplines. I don’t know a single forensic scientist true to her roots who has any problem or concern about independent assessment of the validity of her disciplines. This is the essence of being a scientist. We also asked that the National Institutes of Standards and Technology evaluate these questions where needed. Doing so will provide the field with peer-reviewed literature spelling out what’s legitimate and what remains unsupported. We need clear statements of the scope and limits of forensic methods – known and understood by scientists, legal professionals and the public. Finally, we recommended that the term “to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty” no longer be used in reports and testimony. No one knows what that means, and it’s easy to imagine a judge or jury misconstruing such wording. Understanding what forensic disciplines can and can’t do is vital information for any audience. To tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth demands that the strengths and limitations of any procedure and result be made known and understood. Now that Sessions will not renew the NCFS, the progress being made in forensic science will slow, but it will not end. Due to the dedication of many unsung heroes in the forensic science community, progress has been made since the NRC report was published, and momentum has been established. For example, the need for universal accreditation of forensic laboratories at all levels is generally accepted by all parties as vital now, as was clear in multiple presentations at the last meeting of the NCFS. But accreditation is an arduous process that requires time and money, two things most forensic science labs do not have to spare. Without the necessary resources, it can’t happen despite best intentions. NIST has become central to further progress in forensic science. It’s established committees to develop standards for forensic practice; these groups do include independent researchers and academics, so that vital perspective is still being heard. However, there is concern by former commissioners that this enormous effort – by the community and by NIST – is in danger of losing vital funding and support. Ending the NCFS was a blow, but the loss of these committees and the wider participation of NIST and other scientists would be infinitely worse. The 2009 NRC report, along with a 2016 report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, is clear in this regard: the DOJ is not a science agency. Relying exclusively on the DOJ for reform is sort of like allowing admissibility based on precedent. Just because it was done this way in the past does not mean it’s the best way to do it now. We need a science agency – equally and completely free from both defense and prosecutorial pressures – to address the scientific issues in forensic science.

The entire commentary can be found at:

https://theconversation.com/now-who-will-push-ahead-on-validating-forensic-science-disciplines-76198

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

Annie Dookhan: Massachusetts: Unique perspective: Bloomberg columnist Stephen Carter provides '21,000 reasons why Scalia was right.'..."Melendez-Diaz held that the technician who performed the test had to be produced for cross-examination. Critics were astonished. The cost alone would be prohibitive. And there was no need, they argued: Error or forgery in the laboratory was so unlikely that constantly calling lab techs to testify was a waste of time. There was nothing to be gained. Oops. As the Dookhan case illustrates, Scalia was right. Despite the forensic magic worked on television, there is ample reason to bring the technicians into court and let them be cross-examined. And Dookhan is far from the only example."

COMMENTARY: "21,000 reasons why Scalia was right," by Stephen L. Carter, published by Bloomberg News on April 21, 2017.

GIST: "In an intriguing way, this week’s decision by Massachusetts prosecutors to vacate some 21,000 drug convictions represents a vindication of Justice Antonin Scalia. The astonishing move is fallout from the mess created by Annie Dookhan, a chemist who in 2013 pleaded guilty to 27 counts of tampering with evidence, filing false reports and misleading investigators. In particular, she admitted faking test results used by prosecutors against individuals who have become known as the Dookhan defendants.........Dookhan would add drugs to samples that were clean, and report a positive result. She would claim to have tested samples that she hadn’t. She would forge signatures. Her goal, she said, was to earn higher performance ratings. Which she did, right up to the time she went to prison. After the scandal broke, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court gave prosecutors until this week to determine which convictions would have to be voided because they were tainted by Dookhan’s chicanery. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the tally is 21,587. Only the convictions of some 500 to 700 Dookhan defendants are expected to remain in place. Great news for many thousands of Dookhan defendants. A huge embarrassment for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and, frankly, for those who tout the near-infallibility of forensic science. But what has all this to do with the late Justice Scalia? It reminds us that he was right about the Sixth Amendment. The Sixth Amendment guarantees that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” Until about a dozen years ago, the Supreme Court had allowed this confrontation clause to become, if not precisely moribund, certainly a relatively minor obstacle for prosecutors to overcome. In 2004, that all changed. In a case called Crawford v. Washington, Scalia wrote for the majority that the clause means exactly what it says: Anyone giving testimony against the defendant has to show up in court, be sworn as a witness, and be subject to cross-examination. The Crawford case involved a husband accused of assaulting a man he believed to have tried to rape his wife. The defendant claimed that he had acted in self-defense, but his wife gave a tape-recorded statement to police that suggested otherwise. At trial, Crawford’s wife did not testify due to the spousal privilege. The judge allowed the prosecutors to play the tape for the jury, and Crawford was convicted. The Supreme Court reversed that verdict. The wife’s statement to the police was “testimonial” in nature, and therefore the confrontation clause required that the witness be produced. If the prosecutors did not put the witness on the stand so that the defendant could cross-examine her, the tape was inadmissible. Prosecutors and law professors responded with disbelief. Scalia could not possibly have meant what he said. But he did. Five years later, in a case called Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, the majority extended its analysis to cover -- wait for it -- drug analyses produced by state laboratories if used at trial. Previously, judges had allowed prosecutors to present certificates or affidavits from lab technicians who vouched for the results. Melendez-Diaz held that the technician who performed the test had to be produced for cross-examination. Critics were astonished. The cost alone would be prohibitive. And there was no need, they argued: Error or forgery in the laboratory was so unlikely that constantly calling lab techs to testify was a waste of time. There was nothing to be gained. Oops. As the Dookhan case illustrates, Scalia was right. Despite the forensic magic worked on television, there is ample reason to bring the technicians into court and let them be cross-examined. And Dookhan is far from the only example." Just last month the Washington Post reported that the Firearms Examination Unit of the District of Columbia Consolidated Forensic Laboratory was repeating more than 150 ballistics tests after discovering that three examiners had “incorrectly matched bullets or shell casings recovered at crime scenes to individual weapons.”The discovery of the errors should not have been surprising."......... Lately, an emerging plurality of justices has been questioning the Crawford line of cases. Not every witness, they argue, must actually appear. But as the Dookhan scandal should remind us, there are good reasons to have laboratory technicians come into court and defend their work. Scalia was right: It’s what the Constitution requires."

The entire commentary can be found at:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-21/dookhan-case-gives-21-000-reasons-scalia-was-right

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