Crime Lab Report: An Anthology on Forensic Science in the Era of Criminal Justice Reform

By John M. Collins

Crime Lab Report compiles the most relevant and popular articles that appeared in this ongoing periodical between 2007 and 2017. Articles have been categorized by theme to serve as chapters, with an introduction at the beginning of each chapter and a description of the events that inspired each article. The author concludes the compilation with a reflection on Crime Lab Report, the retired periodical, and the future of forensic science as the 21st Century unfolds. Intended for forensic scientists, prosecutors, defense attorneys and even students studying forensic science or law, this compilation provides much needed information on the topics at hand.

• Presents a comprehensive look ‘behind the curtain’ of the forensic sciences from the viewpoint of someone working within the field
• Educates practitioners and laboratory administrators, providing talking points to help them respond intelligently to questions and criticisms, whether on the witness stand or when meeting with politicians and/or policymakers
• Captures an important period in the history of forensic science and criminal justice in America

• Language: English
• Publisher: Academic Press
• Release date: Sep 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9780128173282

John M. Collins

John Collins is among the most active and respected forensic science professionals in the United States. A prolific writer and speaker on contemporary forensic science practices, John has been a pioneering advocate for the improvement of leadership and HR practices in forensic science organizations. His educational workshops are among the most highly attended of any forensic science instructor in practice today, and his writings have had an unprecedented impact on modern forensic science policy in the United States and overseas. John is a member of the forensic science faculty at Michigan State University, and he also works as a high-stakes leadership consultant and executive coach at Critical Victories (www.criticalvictories.com), a company he founded to help people, teams, and organizations function more effectively in high-stakes, high-pressure environments. John has a master’s degree in Organizational Management and is formally recognized by the Society for Human Resource Management as a Senior Certified Professional. In 2013, John was honored by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors with the prestigious Briggs White Award in recognition for his expertise and outstanding contributions in the field of forensic science administration.

Book preview

Crime Lab Report

An Anthology on Forensic Science in the Era of Criminal Justice Reform

John M. Collins

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

About the author

Foreword

Preface: a forensic science century

Acknowledgments

Advisory

Introduction—the creation of Crime Lab Report

Chapter 1. Rise of the innocence movement

A deadly Florida storm

The exoneration of Gary Dotson

The American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors

The birth of Crime Lab Report

The purpose of this book

Crime Lab Report archive—the innocence movement

Innocence politics weighs heavy on senate hearing—and the law

Physical evidence and the execution of Troy Davis

Innocence wool pulled over science eyes at ACS 2012

Innocence politics weighs heavy on Senate hearing—and the law

Physical evidence and the execution of Troy Davis

Innocence wool pulled over science eyes at ACS 2012

The case of Steven Barnes

The case of Ray Krone

The case of Raymond Santana

Thoughts for the American Chemical Society

Chapter 2. The press campaign

Compelling characters

Press captivation

Crime Lab Report archive—the press campaign

Blame the judicial system for wrongful convictions, not crime labs

Houston PD crime lab needs honesty from local journalists and officials

Forensic labs in Tucson, Arizona, hold their own against misinformed critics

Leadership is needed to keep mud from being slung at crime labs

Media activism in Texas distorted facts about hair evidence

Corrupt journalism is survived, but rarely defeated

Kindred spirits? Pharmacists, doctors, and forensic scientists

MSNBC misses real story in forensic failure series

Yet another wrongful conviction misattributed to faulty science

Self-policing a good solution to fix junk journalism

New generation of journalism creates opportunities—and responsibilities—for crime laboratories

Blame the judicial system for wrongful convictions, not crime labs

Houston PD crime lab needs honesty from local journalists and officials

Forensic labs in Tucson, Arizona, hold their own against misinformed critics

Leadership is needed to keep mud from being slung at crime labs

Media activism in Texas distorted facts about hair evidence

Corrupt journalism is survived, but rarely defeated

The innocence clique

North Carolina SBI Laboratory

Science is about improvement

Kindred spirits? Pharmacists, doctors, and forensic scientists

MSNBC misses real story in forensic failure series

Yet another wrongful conviction misattributed to faulty science

Self-policing a good solution to fix ‘junk journalism’

New generation of journalism creates opportunities – and responsibilities – for crime laboratories

Chapter 3. The wrongful conviction of forensic science

The exoneration count

Faulty forensic science

Crime Lab Report archive

New study exonerates forensic science

The wrongful conviction of forensic science

New study exonerates forensic science

The wrongful conviction of forensic science

Conclusion – the root cause of wrongful convictions

Chapter 4. Contextual contamination of scientific evidence

The erroneous conviction window

Contextual contamination

Crime Lab Report archive—contextual contamination

Postconviction activists contaminate evidence in Texas

Another helping of forensic politics - Texas style

Netflix docudrama omits key facts about Steven Avery conviction

Innocence activism contaminates forensic evidence, study warns

Contextual contamination of forensic evidence by postconviction litigators

Post-conviction activists ‘contaminate’ evidence in Texas

Another helping of forensic politics - Texas style

Netflix docudrama omits key facts about Steven Avery conviction

Innocence activism ‘contaminates’ forensic evidence, study warns

Contextual contamination of forensic evidence by post-conviction litigators

Chapter 5. The management of forensic science organizations

A search for the truth

All is not well

HR in forensic science

Crime Lab Report archive— management issues

Look to staff existing crime labs before building new ones

Should states charge for forensic services?

Crime labs under police—unresolved issues

Prosecutors don't belong in the crime lab business

High Court tackles forensic reports in landmark ruling

From Detroit to Boston—a tale of two cities

Preventing crime lab troubles is not rocket science

Complex scandal had simple causes, says audit report

Management credentials at issue in Ohio crime laboratory

For whom toll the bells of St. Paul?

The risk of organized labor in crime laboratories

A public epidemic pays forensic science another visit

The lesson of 2015—politics are alive and well in criminal justice and forensic science

Look to staff existing crime labs before building new ones

Should states charge for forensic services?

Crime labs under police – unresolved issues

Prosecutors don't belong in the crime lab business

High Court tackles forensic reports in landmark ruling

From Detroit to Boston—a tale of two cities

Preventing crime lab troubles is not rocket science

Complex scandal had simple causes, says audit report

Management credentials at issue in Ohio crime laboratory

For whom toll the bells of St. Paul?

The risk of organized labor in crime laboratories

A public epidemic pays forensic science another visit

The lesson of 2015—Politics are alive and well in criminal justice and forensic science

Wisconsin firing

Texas Innocence Project

Significance for forensic science

Romance in D.C.

Chapter 6. Forensic science governance and regulation

On government regulation

Peer-based governance

Forensic science accreditation

Changing landscape of accreditation

State and national commissions

Crime Lab Report archive—governance and regulation

Low-bid accreditation will doom forensic science

The birth of forensic science accreditation

The DNA dilemma

Mixed messages and broken promises

A dangerous and intolerable situation

Accreditation must be owned by the community

Accreditation must be enforced by the community

Accreditation procurement tips

What is qualification based selection?

Licensing, certification, or accreditation?

Lessons from a deadly backlog of a different sort

Forensic science commissions: a waste of taxpayer dollars? You be the judge

New York State Police

Monroe County

Erie County

The bottom Line

Promise and peril: The National Forensic Science Commission

A response to the testimony of Judge Harry T. Edwards before the Senate Judiciary Committee

Strengthening forensic science by example

National Commission on Forensic Science – legitimacy depends on the competence of its members

Journalists grieve death of Forensic Science Commission

Chapter 7. Federal intervention

Federal support

2009 and a path forward

Crime Lab Report archive—federal intervention

A speech to the National Academy of Sciences regarding economic and public policy challenges in forensic science

National Academy of Science report: legacy of historic document depends on good-faith collaboration

Congress must protect forensic science and taxpayers from bad politics

Decision exposes flaw in key recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences–fix as heading level

The law has failed, not forensic science

A speech to the National Academy of Sciences regarding economic and public policy challenges in forensic science

National Academy of Science Report: legacy of historic document depends on good-faith collaboration

Congress must protect forensic science and taxpayers from bad politics

Decision exposes flaw in key recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences

The law has failed, not forensic science

Chapter 8. The clash of law and science

Science subordinated

Science and police—friction and fellowship

Crime Lab Report archive—the clash of law and science

Science increases the need for our justice system to use common sense

Are you sure you're a scientist?

The impossibility of ‘real science’ in today's criminal justice system

Defense attorneys need access to forensic expertise

Like crime labs, public defenders suffer from heavy demand

American Bar Association shows true colors on science

References

When we talk about bias, let's be honest

The expression of scientific certainty by expert witnesses in American jurisprudence

Opinions are why ‘forensic science’ is science

Chapter 9. Randomness—the misunderstood basis

Forensic identifications

Scientific basis

A fragmented community

Criticisms of pattern identifications

The parent of pattern identifications

Crime Lab Report archives

DNA fixation is harmful to justice system and offensive to crime victims

Forensic pattern identification: a history lesson, and some advice, for Saks and Faigman

Stochastics – the real science behind forensic pattern identification

In defense of forensic pattern identifications

Bite marks

I, however, was part of the problem

Moving forward

Chapter 10. Retrospective review of past forensic testing

About hair evidence

Significance of hair evidence

The FBI laboratory case review

A visit to Quantico

Crime Lab Report archives

In search of the Holy Grail

A hair raising tale—analysis and commentary on the FBI hair case review

John Grisham—fresh face with same false message

Standards needed for post-conviction review of forensic evidence

Department of Justice reviews should set an example for forensic science

In search of the Holy Grail

A hair raising tale: analysis and commentary on the FBI hair case review

John Grisham - fresh face with same false message

Standards needed for post-conviction review of forensic evidence

Department of Justice reviews should set an example for forensic science

Chapter 11. The Innocence Audit

Gregory Taylor

The innocence audit

Crime Lab Report archives—The Innocence Audit

The Innocence Audit—a special investigative series

National Registry of Exonerations fabricates blame on forensic science malpractice

Innocence fraud—is it prevalent?

Innocence fraud demands prosecutor vigilance

Anatomy of an exoneration: 
a forensic review of the Gregory Taylor case

The Innocence Audit – a special investigative series

Innocence Fraud—is it prevalent?

Gregory Taylor – North Carolina

Cameron Todd Willingham – Texas

The Gould study

National Registry of Exonerations fabricates blame on forensic science malpractice

‘Innocence Fraud’ demands prosecutor vigilance

Five coercion methods

Anatomy of an exoneration: a forensic review of the Gregory Taylor case

Final ruling of the panel

Review of the SBI Laboratory

Blood results in retrospect

Chapter 12. Forensic science in the future

The possibilities before us

Encouragement over criticism

Independence and autonomy

Crime Lab Report archives—the future of forensic science

Let's measure the reliability of forensic science

An American decision and the future of forensic science

Virginia DFS reacts to budget constraints

Business—the lifeblood of the forensic sciences

Civil liberties are threatened when civil responsibilities are ignored

A rapid revolution

The tragedy of rape kit grandstanding

The law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head: a perspective on the current opiate epidemic in the United States

Let's measure the reliability of forensic science

How reliable is forensic science?

We can quantify reliability

Science over hyperbole

An American decision and the future of forensic science

Virginia DFS reacts to budget constraints

Business – the lifeblood of the forensic sciences

Civil liberties are threatened when civil responsibilities are ignored

A rapid revolution

Not a laboratory instrument

CODIS approval and the FBI

The Rapid DNA Act of 2015

Understanding Rapid DNA for police booking

What does this mean for laboratories?

Responsible adoption of Rapid DNA

The tragedy of rape kit grandstanding

The law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head: a perspective on the current opiate epidemic in the United States

Chapter 13. Conclusion

A partisan system

Forensic science experts

The impact of Crime Lab Report

An era of scrutiny

Forensic science exposed

Commissions on forensic science

Full circle—collaborating with the Innocence Project

Rethinking criminal justice in America

Expert witnesses—the third party

Implications

Forensic science matters

Index

Copyright

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Dedication

To my son, Kevin:

Thank you for being my teacher. No matter what happens in this life, you have already made a positive difference. The world is a better place because you are here.

I love you, Dad

About the author

John M. Collins is an author, consultant, executive coach, and speaker specializing in the development of people, teams, and organizations in forensic science. He also works frequently with other employees and organizations that function in high-impact, high-pressure industries.

John is formally certified by the Society for Human Resource Management as a Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP). He holds a Master of Arts degree in Organizational Management and is formally trained as an executive coach by the College of Executive Coaching. He has consulted with organizations across the United States and overseas. John lives and works near Lansing, Michigan.

In 1993, John was hired by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Division of Forensic Sciences where he trained and worked as a forensic laboratory scientist specializing in firearm evidence. In 1996, he was recruited and hired by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms laboratory in Atlanta. During the 1996 Olympic Games, hosted in Atlanta, John became heavily involved in the investigation of a bomb that exploded in Centennial Olympic Park, which killed a young woman and injured others. More deadly bombs, eventually attributed to the same perpetrator, exploded in the Atlanta area over several months. John and his colleagues were responsible for the forensic analysis of nails that were packed into the bombs to presumably increase their lethality. John's work was published in an internationally distributed forensic journal and is used to this day as a guide for how to analyze nails used in improvised explosive devices.

In 1998, John was hired by the DuPage County Crime Laboratory in suburban Chicago. In 2000, he was promoted to laboratory director. In 2006, under his leadership, the laboratory became only the fourth forensic laboratory organization in the United States to achieve international ISO accreditation. Later, in 2009, John was appointed to serve as the first-ever executive director of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors. As he gained notoriety for his innovative leadership methods and unique perspectives on forensic science management, he became a prolific writer and speaker on matters related to the administration of forensic science laboratories and the use of forensic science in the American criminal justice system.

In 2012, John made the difficult decision to retire from his position as the Director of Forensic Science for the Michigan State Police to begin working in private practice. Under his leadership, the Michigan State Police laboratories achieved their first-ever international ISO accreditation, an achievement that John calls the greatest of my career. Over the next 3  years, John built a successful business that allows him to consult and teach in the forensic science arena. His educational workshops are considered some of the best in the forensic science field. In 2018, John published his first book, HR Management in the Forensic Science Laboratory—A 21st Century Approach to Effective Crime Lab Leadership (Academic Press). In 2019, he earned certification to represent Franklin Covey as a senior consultant, affording him the opportunity to work alongside some of the best leadership consultants in the world.

Foreword

The first time I was assigned to cover a criminal trial, a phone slammed down in my ear when I reached out to the family of a police officer gunned down on the job. The trial of the cop's killer was a major news story and I had much to learn about court reporting then. My editor advised me to make that call. I did what I was told.

Decades later, I still remember how that hang-up felt. And having been on both sides of that kind of phone call in my life, I have a genuine understanding that I got what I had coming to me. Compassion and consideration should have been my strong suit, but what did I know about that?

As a former newspaper reporter, I embraced and survived the boot camp of journalism in the first 15 years of my professional career. I came up through the ranks at The New Haven Register, a major daily in Connecticut, and earned my stripes learning that there are guard rails as a journalist that you follow: get the facts, put the story into the proper context, and give your audience the appropriate level of insights and details without telling them what to think. Opinions were confined to the Opinion page, or to a regular column, if you were a veteran reporter who earned the right to share your personal views.

Throughout my tenure as a newspaper reporter, I was held to the clearly defined rules of journalism: truth and accuracy; independence; fairness and impartiality; humanity (do no harm or minimize it, if that is the best possible outcome); and accountability. The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists was imprinted on my mind from the first journalism course I took as a student pursuing my bachelor's degree. These are the tenets of the profession founded to cultivate the public trust and provide assurances that the Press has no personal agenda. Journalists, I was taught, are the watchdogs of society, charged with the mission to hold government accountable. Without journalists, where would we be?

The second half of my writing career expanded my understanding of what turns good copy into messages that influence how consumers behave. This came with my transition from journalism to marketing and public relations, where spin and focus are meant to sell audiences on a product you have signed on to represent. I knew that my fellow journalists saw my move to the dark side as an abandonment of the altruistic profession that once brought down an American president, exposed corporate scandals and sexual misconduct in Congress. I saw it as a move to expand my professional skills and, yes, to make a living that one day would help me move out of a tiny third-floor apartment. I knew that, as much as I loved my newspaper career, there was more I needed to accomplish, even if I did not know what that meant at the time.

That said, it's important to understand that my experience in journalism was set against a personal background that was shattered by the life-changing moment in which I, along with my family, became a victim in the criminal justice system. It was a pivotal moment in my life.

But hold that thought. Before I share how the careers of forensics expert John Collins and this once fledgling newspaper reporter intersected, I want to highlight a term that John includes in this comprehensive book, the term journalistic activism. As I understand it, it means journalists intentionally use their reporting to influence an outcome on an issue they and their media organization have decided needs to be achieved. Journalistic activism was not rampant in the days when I was a rookie reporter. Activism was what we journalists covered. To be an activist rather than a seeker of fact is to blatantly shed your objectivity, to choose a side and seek to persuade the masses to effect a particular outcome. It is counter to the mission of a journalist as I learned it. Yet, stunningly, it is a trend that largely fueled the evolution of what is called the innocence movement in the United States. The news media loves a redemption story, particularly if the person being redeemed has spent many years in prison for a crime he did not commit. And front-page headlines sell. Try getting coverage of the disintegration of victims' rights (an advocacy role I've adopted), and you will experience what I mean. But suggest that an inmate's conviction was based on false testimony of forensics experts, the news media can't stop perpetuating the rhetoric, whether based in fact or not.

Which brings me to this book, its author John Collins, and why I so strongly support this comprehensive work. John Collins' work as chief managing editor and lead writer of Crime Lab Report, a periodic publication that ran from 2007 to 2017, demonstrated his expertise and knowledge from his professional work as a forensic scientist and as a forensic laboratory administrator. Crime Lab Report offered sharp perspective and research about forensic science and the important role it plays in the American criminal justice system. Crime Lab Report helped to shape public policy on the practice of forensic science. It shone a spotlight on the growing concerns related to innocence organizations seeking to right the wrongs of a criminal justice system that may have failed in its job.

I first met John Collins in 2017 in what might be called a moment of crisis. Our meeting came about by way of an email I sent John in search of his guidance, or more precisely, his help. My family was facing the release of the man who murdered my only sister, Joyce, after learning—only a few months prior—that a series of habeas corpus petitions had become a virtual battering ram to the prison cell bars of this convicted murderer who devastated our life as we knew it in 1984.

As I wrote in my email to John:

My only sister, Joyce Stochmal, was murdered by a stranger who we eventually learned was David J. Weinberg. The case went to trial in 1988 and a jury delivered a guilty verdict, and Weinberg was sentenced in early 1989 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The case was appealed and was affirmed by the State Appellate and State Supreme Court in Connecticut.

The case was all circumstantial evidence that included various pieces of forensic evidence, and a key witness with a long history of psychological problems. It didn't matter, because a jury saw the way all the pieces of the case fit together to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that no one but David Weinberg could have killed Joyce.

Recently, my family was notified that there have been habeas motions and even a habeas trial in 1997 to try to exonerate Weinberg. All these actions have failed, until now. The Connecticut Innocence Project took up the case in 2010 and has chipped away at three pieces of the forensics to the point where a prosecutor doesn't feel she can win the habeas case that is scheduled for trial in September. Instead, the Connecticut Innocence Project has suggested they will agree to a modification of his sentence to time served, but the state has demanded that this be with the stipulation that the conviction remains intact. Apparently, the terms were agreeable.

It is a strange definition of innocence. How an organization that claims to be fighting on behalf of those wrongly incarcerated can manipulate the law to free a guilty person is an abomination of the law that I believe the public will want to know about and, more importantly, needs to.

My family endured that horrible travesty of justice when the sentence modification was granted, and Weinberg walked out of Superior Court a free but guilty murderer.

Having learned about John Collins' work in Crime Lab Report, I emailed him. Less than 6  hours later, John answered my note. He knew exactly where I was coming from because my family's situation epitomized one of the very issues he had been researching and advocating on through Crime Lab Report for years. The re-litigation of old, long-since-closed criminal cases has become a hallmark of innocence programs across the United States. My sister's murder case was just a fresh target.

The issues surrounding forensic science and the innocence network have collided with my life in ways that I never could have imagined as a child growing up in a small town in one of the smallest states in the United States. What I could not have known then was that forensic science was poised to become an invaluable tool to analyze physical evidence in crime investigations. Forensic scientists have a duty to test and verify, to provide an objective assessment of crime evidence. The evidence—in whatever bits and pieces it is found to be—is part of a story—the ending of which closes the book on a human life, in many cases.

On the other side of that science, the tools being wielded are far less precise. Exaggeration and distortion, intimidation, and the growing reputation of innocence activists are powerful forces to overcome. These were the weapons my family faced when the Connecticut Innocence Project took an interest in David Weinberg.

As it does in any criminal case, forensic science played a critical role in the investigation into my sister's murder. A random act of violence, Joyce's murder triggered a police investigation that uncovered a modicum of trace evidence that, when inserted into the complex puzzle assembled, helped to compose a strong circumstantial case. The clues that led police investigators to my sister's killer connected physical evidence with inferences that logically explained the plausible, likely scenario that told the narrative of Joyce's murder.

While any jury would prefer direct evidence—such as an eyewitness to the crime—it is more likely than not that a murder or other violent crime will be prosecuted by way of a circumstantial case. In 1984, the year my sister was murdered, forensic science was still maturing. DNA testing was new and yet the collection of trace evidence in our case became part of the composite that eventually was argued with great conviction by the late John Connelly, the state's attorney for the Waterbury judicial district. Strands of hair and fibers from a blanket kept in the trunk of the defendant's car were among the evidence collected. DNA evidence came in the form of minute blood stains on a knife belonging to the defendant. Each of these became targets for the Connecticut Innocence Project to blow up. In the absence of key players in our case, and with the intimidating reputation of innocence activists, those who might have taken a stand to defend the science chose not to. In a sense, who could blame them?

With technology constantly being improved, it swiftly becomes obsolete or lesser than when compared with the latest and greatest technologies being innovated in the present day. What that amounts to is the potential argument by innocence activists that old technology is somehow inherently bad. It means that old cases can be undone—whether rightfully or wrongfully so. And that means that the question of guilt or innocence remains elusive. But if an organization with the word Innocence in its name does not care if its clients can claim that label legitimately, what are they accomplishing? To victims, it is a manipulation of the law. It is perpetrating a crime against innocent people and is producing unjustified exonerations of criminals who belong in prison.

That is what happened to my family. When convicted murderer David Weinberg was granted a sentence modification in 2017, the Connecticut Innocence Project agreed to his release without exoneration. He remains the convicted murderer of Joyce Stochmal, a 19-year-old college student and the beloved family member of six siblings and her loving parents. Why would an organization that holds itself out to the public as a crusader for the wrongly convicted agree to such a stipulation? The bigger question, perhaps, is why would this organization agree to represent a killer in the first place? Is it about justice and innocence? It does not appear to be. Their objective was not innocence, it was to win.

But in our case, it was not a win that the Innocence Project could parade out on its website as another wrongly imprisoned victim. Yet, it hasn't stopped that organization from continuing to suggest that forensic evidence was falsely presented in our case. Before David Weinberg was charged with my sister's murder, he had been arrested twice for sexual assault, multiple times for threats and harassment, and numerous other crimes dating back to his teenage years. The Weinberg case joins the attack on forensic science that is spinning in Connecticut, right in line with the agenda of the national innocence movement.

We were fortunate to be represented by a prosecutor who was a pit bull litigator. He explained the evidence and skillfully navigated the challenges of the defense through meticulous examination of witnesses at trial. He had a masterful closing argument. Unfortunately for us, John Connelly was no longer alive in 2016 when the latest Weinberg habeas petition gained steam. Connelly had fought back an early habeas claim and won. The passage of time and the loss of the original prosecutor in our case was a clear advantage for the Connecticut Innocence Project by the time it wielded its weapons at the new order in charge.

As a case study, my sister's murder case lends credence to the argument that it’s critically important that our criminal justice system have integrity in all aspects—from prosecutorial and defense attorney behavior to forensics to the innocence network, because true justice cannot be possible without it. It's not a fair fight. The fact that John Collins has recognized the uneven playing field in the criminal justice system today in America is encouraging, and to a victim, I might even suggest it is exciting, but that excitement is tempered with a realistic view that these challenges seem impossible to overcome. When you are the underdog in this kind of fight, you are fierce. But the reality is, you must prove your might, and you need a champion. To prevail, you need that force behind you.

John Collins is that kind of champion. His presentation of case after case examples of innocence activists' demands for justice is compelling. He makes an important assessment: innocence activists are taking advantage of a lack of oversight and a lack of standards in the way postconviction cases are litigated. It is a statement to take seriously, for to ignore this trend means allowing the deconstruction of proven criminal cases by taking advantage of the passage of time, the loss of key participants, and the deterioration of physical evidence that may have been minuscule to begin with, only to be consumed by further testing to the point where no helpful assessment can be made.

In an academic style that is direct, respectful, and honest, John Collins sums up the lopsided state of the criminal justice system today as it continues to chalk up victories in the form of exonerations. While there is no doubt that mistakes are made on all sides of the criminal justice process, there also is evidence of the manipulation of old cases being perpetrated in the ongoing assault on forensic science. It seems that the rights of criminals take precedence over the rights of everyone else.

John's style is honest. It's direct. And it needs to be. There is a victimization of every regular citizen taking place, along with the revictimization of the loved ones who have already suffered through the criminal justice process only to have it trample their hearts and rights again through the actions of the innocence movement.

What's the motivation? Why would organizations founded on the concept of helping those who have been wrongly imprisoned develop an aggressive, attack agenda? It shouldn't be difficult to answer that question, but those who need to answer it, won't. Not unless someone holds them accountable.

In reading this book, my heart raced a bit as it exposes injustices being perpetrated in the climate of today's innocence movement. There is no mistaking the feeling: it is victimization. It is a recognition of a wrong you've been dealt that is connected to an indescribable pain: grief plus disrespect plus blatant disregard equals victimization. It's a clear math equation that no human being ever wants to experience. And yet, too many do.

The criminal justice system is a microcosm of our civilized society—comprising those who do harm, those who investigate that harm, and those who protect the rights of those accused of wrongdoing and the rights of those citizens on the outside who are affected by those crimes. We are all stakeholders in the criminal justice system. The difference is that some of us are required to participate in it by our direct roles (lawyers, defendants, judges, expert witnesses, juries) or indirect concerns (the community at large in the location where a crime is committed). Then there are those who are forced to participate in the system because someone they cared about or loved was harmed or, worse, killed.

Collins observes that the innocence movement has taken an aggressive approach in its altruistic mission: rather than seek a collaborative approach to justice by working with the forensic science community, the movement has chosen to denigrate its work and even some of the most highly respected pioneers. It's horrifying to watch, as a victim, but even as a citizen trying to understand this complex game being played. Collins suggests a remedy: the implementation of standards of conduct. The persistent examples of prosecutorial or law enforcement misconduct, the ongoing use of inappropriate tactics by innocence organizations and defense attorneys, and the challenging of the integrity of forensic scientists and their laboratories all point to a criminal justice system that is careening out of control. Our system is broken, but until we find a way to remove the great motivators of misconduct that exist within this failed system—money, power, fame—criminals will continue to win.

It takes integrity and guts to take an unpopular stance on a controversial issue. It can feel like the whole world is against you, or worse, ignores you, because your view doesn't support or align with theirs. As we demand safety in our communities and fairness in our criminal justice system, we must question this assault on forensic science and understand why it is gaining ground. We must insist on justice that serves all sides of a case: the state, the defense, and the victims. If, as John Collins suggests, forensic science as a profession has no choice but to march forward through the current attack on its integrity and value, then we must arm it with the tools and support it deserves, to do the job that only it can do. Anything less is an abandonment of true justice.

Marianne (Stochmal) Heffernan

Preface: a forensic science century

Science gives people confidence; it is as simple as that. Yes, we know that science can fail. We know that engineers may design a bridge that will eventually collapse. We know that researchers in pharmaceutical companies may develop a drug that will later be blamed on the deaths of several patients. We accept the risk that airplanes will sometimes crash and that doctors will sometimes botch surgeries. But we do not lose sleep at night because we trust that science will give us the very best chances for success—even though it sometimes fails in the hands of imperfect human beings. We trust science because we perceive that the value it delivers to our society far outweighs the danger it presents. We put risk into proper context so that we do not deprive ourselves of legitimate opportunities to improve the quality of our lives. This is what it means to be reasonable.

Yet there are few applications of science that foment more controversy than the use of science to evaluate or demonstrate the potential guilt or innocence of defendants in criminal litigation. Because criminal justice is designed to be adversarial, there will always be one party that appreciates the power and value of scientific evidence while an opposing party works diligently to discredit it. Reasonableness is often left out of the equation because there is no advantage to it. No matter how airtight scientific evidence may be or seem, attorneys are not only paid to challenge evidence that tends to weaken their clients' cases, they are, to some extent, ethically obligated to do so. And despite the challenges that our adversarial legal system places before those experts responsible for presenting scientific evidence in court, most do so with great success and accuracy.

Crime laboratories

Scattered across the landscape of the American criminal justice system is a network of approximately 400 critically important yet profoundly misunderstood facilities known as forensic science laboratories. They stand guard giving a voice to evidence that cannot speak for itself— objects and materials collected from the scenes of crimes that tell a story all their own, but only to those who are professionally trained to decipher the messages they convey. Despite what is portrayed on television or in the movies, forensic science is challenging and sometimes tedious. Resources are scarce. In many laboratories, wages are surprisingly low given the importance and sensitivity of the work performed inside. Staffing levels are often insufficient to keep pace with the demand for services. Yet forensic science, as a profession, has no choice but to march forward. Without it, our societal pursuit of fair and impartial justice would be existentially damaged. Again, science gives people confidence; and without science, the public would lose confidence in its criminal justice system.

For the many readers having no exposure to forensic science laboratories or how they work, there are but a few, if any, comparisons to other occupations that can be made with any usefulness. But it may help to draw attention to one very simple example that helps illustrate how forensic science laboratories operate on a daily basis: an automotive service center.

When a car owner discovers a problem with her vehicle, she travels to her nearby dealership or service center to speak with a technician to explain what seems to be wrong with the vehicle and request that it be repaired. The technician will likely ask several questions to better understand what may be causing the problem, project how much time it will take to diagnose and fix it, and estimate how much it will cost. When the repairs are completed, the owner will return to pay her bill and retake possession of her car. It is then that the service center's work is complete because the customer's expectations have been met.

Forensic science laboratories work the same way. After the commission of a crime, investigators (the customers) scour the crime scene looking for evidence that might reveal who committed the crime and when, where, why, and how the crime was committed. Evidence is then transported carefully to a forensic science laboratory where investigators will relay information to laboratory staff to help the laboratory determine what scientists in which disciplines, as they are called, will be called upon to provide expertise. Some of the most common disciplines practiced in today's forensic science laboratories include the examination of:

• Body fluids

• Controlled substances

• Cyber/digital evidence/digital devices

• DNA

• Documents and handwriting

• Explosives

• Firearm evidence

• Flammable/combustible materials

• Footwear and tire impressions

• Latent prints

• Tool marks

• Toxicology samples

• Trace evidence (hair, fibers, glass, and other trace materials)

Other valuable forensic disciplines exist to help solve crimes, but the above list captures those that are most commonly applied in the most commonly committed crimes. This means that there is a sufficient volume of work, or economies of scale, for governmental agencies to employ their own forensic scientists to do this kind of work. Other disciplines such as forensic engineering, mitochondrial DNA, forensic accounting, and forensic artistry can often be provided more efficiently by private enterprises. Those laboratories that house the most common forensic disciplines are known informally as crime laboratories.

Forensic evidence in criminal cases

Upon the completion of whatever analyses are required for any given case, crime laboratories will issue written reports that detail the major findings. A laboratory may report, for example, that a suspect's fingerprints were identified on a door knob, that a bullet extracted from a wall was fired from the suspect's firearm, or that a blood stain on a broken window was left by the suspect. When the requesting agency receives a report, it will return to the laboratory to retake custody of its evidence. For the time being, the laboratory's work is now complete. When laboratory results are later presented as evidence in a criminal trial, the scientists who conducted the work will be called to testify as expert witnesses— assuming the case is one of the only 5% of all criminal cases that actually go to trial.

Volume of work

Without these crime laboratories, the enforcement of law and order in America would cease to exist as we know it. We would be deprived of the scientific analyses that are necessary to conclusively demonstrate the guilt of those who perpetrate crimes in our society. Innocent victims of circumstance would be harder to vindicate or exonerate. Erroneous arrests and convictions would become more frequent. Violent predators would go unidentified. Crime laboratories in the United States are estimated to complete scientific analyses in approximately three million cases each year, so it is hardly an exaggeration to speculate that if the power of scientific evidence could not be leveraged in our pursuit of justice, we all would suffer a dramatic decline in our quality of life and an equally unsettling increase in the exposure of our children, families, and businesses to all kinds of criminal behavior. Crimes that cannot be solved by traditional police techniques alone would go unresolved in the absence of the specially equipped laboratories and highly trained practitioners that are needed to make a witness out of science.

Forensic science defined

Forensic science is the use of scientific principles and methods to answer questions that are relevant to the practice of law. The word forensic is derived from the Latin word forensis, meaning of the forum. In the ancient Roman Empire, the forum was the place where public hearings, debates, and trials were held. Forensis, as a result, became a word used to describe things associated with public debate. Any use of science to support one's position or argument in such a debate became known as forensic science.

Facts and fiction

The image of forensic science in the minds of most people is the product of popular televisions shows like CSI, Forensic Files, Law & Order, and the Discovery Channel's The New Detectives. Investigators equipped with fancy, cutting-edge instruments are shown combing through a crime scene in search of evidence that might dramatically solve a mystery that has rendered traditional investigative techniques almost entirely inadequate. Like a little child thanking Superman for pulling her cat from a tree, a perfectly competent detective is often portrayed as a confused bystander who can do nothing but thank a brilliant scientist for identifying the elusive perpetrator.

Crime laboratories and police

In real life, forensic science is a grossly misunderstood profession. Even when a forensic science laboratory provides crucial expertise that winds up solving a major crime, it is often the police who take credit for it. After all, police investigators are, to a large extent, the main consumers of forensic science. Forensic science laboratories serve in a supporting role. They really do not have any cases of their own. The cases belong to the police and the police are understandably proud when their evidence cracks a complex case—even if it required the work of a crime laboratory. Worse, because many laboratories are operated by police agencies, when it comes time to fighting for financial resources, police may be more interested in purchasing holsters and bulletproof vests than they are in test tubes and scientific instruments. Until a forensic scientist can drive around town in a gas chromatograph or a genetic DNA analyzer with the word POLICE painted on the side, uniformed commanders are likely to prefer purchasing squad cars over an expensive laboratory machine about which they know very little. This is not entirely unreasonable, but it creates an imbalance that can threaten the stability of laboratories. This problem will be discussed at length in the following pages.

Another fact about forensic science that often goes unnoticed is that the profession, as we know it, is rather young. Compared to more established professions such as medicine, engineering, and architecture, forensic science has not been around that long—especially in the United States. The 20th century can largely be characterized as marking the birth and fascinating development of forensic science in the modern era. It will be helpful to briefly recount this history as a way to prepare readers for the intense controversy and tumult that came to surround forensic science at the dawn of the 21st century.

A brief history of forensic science in the United States

In the late 1800s, Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional novels about an eccentric and inquisitive investigator named Sherlock Holmes first opened the public's eyes to the possibility that science could be used to solve crimes. Beginning with the first story published in 1887, Holmes emerged as a character of international fame, capturing the imagination of readers who enjoyed the intrigue and suspense of whodunit crimes being solved with clues rather than traditional police methods. To this day, even top forensic experts remain deeply impressed with Doyle's foresight in predicting the eventual development of forensic techniques that did not yet exist at the time of his writings. Both Doyle and his brainchild, Sherlock Holmes, were far ahead of the times in which they lived.

Those times were challenging, to say the least, especially in the United States. Recovering from a long and bloody civil war, social peace and stability would be necessary if Americans would enjoy any semblance of a bright future. The prevention and punishment of crime was taken very seriously, especially among those with more wealth and, therefore, more to lose. With the civil war now over and countless firearms saturating society, those responsible for keeping the peace donned surplus military uniforms as a way to distinguish themselves and assert authority when necessary to do so. This marked the birth of uniformed policing in the United States, and it was largely regarded as being critical to the postwar reconstruction.

The early 1900s

Shockingly, three U.S. Presidents would die at the hands of gunmen in a brief period spanning just 36 years: Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James Garfield in 1881, and William McKinley in 1901. So, it should come as no surprise that one of the first major forensic papers published in the United States appeared in the Buffalo Medical Journal in June of 1900. The article was titled The Missile and the Weapon, a pioneering piece of literature by Dr. Albert Llewellyn Hall on the individualization of fired bullets to specific guns. Other forensic methods also gained widespread use in the United States during this time, including the analysis and comparison of fingerprints.

Public attention

The mere development of scientific methods for solving crimes is far afield from their actual funding and sustained use in modern policing. Two historic criminal cases can be credited with the spectacular showcasing of forensic science before a vast public audience, revealing, once and for all, how important science could be in the administration of justice.

St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929

The first was the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre, where seven men were gunned down in a garage on the north side of Chicago. It was a violent Prohibition-era clash of gangsters. The shooters were alleged to have been associated with the infamous Al Capone while the victims, except for one innocent mechanic, were members of a rival Chicago gang headed by George Bugs Moran. Because the shooters were wearing police uniforms, there were concerns that the incident was perpetrated by corrupt cops working for Capone. A local scientist at Northwestern University, Dr. Calvin Goddard, was called in to help. He was known to be a successful pioneer in the use of a special comparison microscope that allowed two bullets to be compared to each other. Examining the bullets from the massacre, he identified each as having been fired from two Thompson submachine guns belonging to members of Capone's gang, none of whom were police officers. Goddard's work caught the attention of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who was reportedly so inspired by Goddard that he later incorporated the new discipline of firearm identification at the FBI laboratory in Washington, DC.

The baby Lindbergh murder of 1932

The second case was the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the baby son of the famous American aviator, Charles Lindbergh. While asleep in a second-floor bedroom, Lindbergh's son was snatched from his crib. Handwritten ransom notes were sent by the perpetrator, signaling that the baby may still be alive. Fueled by Lindbergh's international fame, a massive hunt for the baby and his kidnapper was orchestrated until, just a few weeks after the baby's disappearance, his lifeless body was found by a startled truck driver by the side of a road. What started as an attempt to save the life of the Lindbergh baby became a complicated and exhausting search for his killer. Eventually, a local carpenter named Richard Bruno Hauptmann was identified, arrested, tried, and executed for the baby's murder. But it was the overwhelming battery of forensic evidence that not only exposed Hauptmann as the killer, it further galvanized the public's already growing fascination with the use of science to solve even the most perplexing crimes.

The birth of crime laboratories

Among the earliest references to a functioning crime laboratory in the United States was published in 1983 by the University of California at Berkeley in what was called the August Vollmer Historical Project. It dates the creation of the first American crime laboratory at 1916. According to an excerpt from August Vollmer: Pioneer in Police Professionalism, Volume II, it was the legendary Vollmer who first acted on the need to incorporate science into the overall police pursuit of justice:

The image of professional policing as we know it today is largely the creation of one man, August Vollmer, who was a police chief of Berkeley, California, from 1905 to 1932. Vollmer was a tireless crusader for the reform of policing through technology and higher personnel standards. Under his direction, the Berkeley department became a model of professional policing—efficient, honest, and scientific. He introduced into Berkeley a patrolwide police signal system, the first completely mobile patrol on bicycles, then in squad cars modern records systems, beat analysis and modus operandi. The first scientific crime laboratory in the United States was set up in Berkeley in 19l6, under the direction of a full-time forensic scientist. The first lie detector machine to be used in criminal investigation was built in the Berkeley department in 1921.

With Vollmer having already pioneered the development of a crime laboratory at Berkeley, it should come as no surprise that the mass proliferation and growth of crime laboratories in the United States either coincided with or followed, shortly thereafter, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and the murder of Charles Lindbergh's baby boy. As shown in the list below, the cities of Chicago and Detroit launched their crime laboratories almost precisely at the time of these crimes, with other cities following close behind:

1916 Berkeley, CA

1924 Los Angeles, CA

1929 Chicago, IL

1929 Detroit, MI

1934 New York, NY

1935 Buffalo, NY

1937 Kansas City, MO

Crime wave

As the demand for forensic science services increased in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, laboratory personnel found themselves drowning in work. Newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times reported on funding shortfalls that made the operation of crime laboratories problematic. In 1947, Mr. Charles Wilson, a pioneering laboratory director in Chicago, waged a battle with the city council to secure $76,000 in extra funding that would allow for the hiring of new personnel and the purchase of equipment. To his dismay, the city council only granted $20,000. Wilson complained that his laboratory was facing a crisis and that he might as well quit. He eventually moved to Wisconsin where he planted the seeds for what is now a respected and robust statewide laboratory system.

At the time, most crime laboratories were still young and primarily located in the urban city centers. To this day, the cities of Chicago and Los Angeles are widely regarded as the birth-cities of large-scale forensic science laboratories in the United States. As demand for services increased, the capacity of those laboratories to keep up with incoming cases remained stagnant. Then, in the early to late 1950s, the worst possible scenario became a nightmarish reality. An unprecedented wave of crime rushed across the country like a deadly plague. Los Angeles reported a 132% increase in crime over an 8-year period. In 1961, the FBI reported that crime in the United States was at an all-time high, having increased 98% in 10 years. The crime wave lasted well over 20 years and spiraled our criminal justice system into a frenzy. Conservatives argued that liberal, anti-police rulings of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren were to blame for the chaos. Liberals, on the other hand, cited poor antipoverty policies and civil rights travesties that were destabilizing the country and fueling discontent among disenfranchised citizens in the inner cities.

But the historical evidence suggests that this wave of crime was an international phenomenon. In 1965, authorities in Poland reported that juvenile crime increased from 38,000 cases in 1959 to 54,500 cases in 1962. Here, the trends were not blamed on socioeconomic policies but rather a population bulge of young people that were not being appropriately supervised at home. Researchers and theorists noted that young people were driven by boredom to acts of reckless deviance.

It is an interesting and compelling argument that World War II left in its wake a population surge of young people who reached their rebellious and restless years in the 1950s and 1960s. Many of them lost parents, aunts, and uncles in the war, which destabilized many households and reduced the size of what legendary NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw coined the Greatest Generation. Because there were so many of these young people and so many potential caregivers and mentors who were killed or crippled in the war, it might be argued that our cultural, societal, and educational infrastructures could not withstand the assault. The result, if the theory holds water, was an unusually angry and unsettled generation that was prone to excessive reliance on rebelliousness, distrust of authority, and activism as a way to break free from the social handcuffs they perceived to have enslaved their seemingly naïve and dutiful parents.

Obviously, these are generalizations and are not fairly applied to all baby boomers. But there were likely enough malcontents in this large demographic group to fuel unrest and an unprecedented willingness to engage in deviant behavior. It is also clear that civil rights travesties created additional problems in the United States that only exacerbated the anger that already existed.

These arguments are probably best left to social scientists and historians. But whatever caused this global crime wave, the most devastating result, in both my opinion and in my experience, was the necessity of our criminal justice system to evolve into a high-volume, mass-production operation. As is the case in any industry or organization, when the priorities become excessively focused on production, quality eventually suffers. And thanks to increased public access to information through mass media such as radio, television, and print newspapers, the public were increasingly exposed to revelations and accusations that not all police officers were honorable, and that some resorted to abuse, coercion, and outright fraud during the arrest and processing of the criminally accused.

The Warren Court

In the early 1950s, the United States Supreme Court under its controversial Chief Justice, Earl Warren, took a hard stance against these kinds of tactics. Landmark rulings that limited police power and discretion seemed to emanate from Warren's Court like water from a spigot. Two of its most celebrated (and hated) rulings were Terry v. Ohio and Miranda v. Arizona, which restricted the discretion of police to search private property or take statements from suspects. Many law enforcement professionals have argued that the Court dealt a severe blow to the ability of police to efficiently arrest dangerous criminals. Opposing theorists have hailed such rulings as being critical to protecting the civil rights of innocent people.

However one chooses to view the Supreme Court's rulings during the Earl Warren era, which began in 1953 and ended in 1969; there is little doubt that they created a new demand for more credible and objective methods with which to investigate and adjudicate criminal cases. With or without knowing it, Earl Warren and his colleagues were setting the stage for what would eventually become our criminal justice system's addiction to forensic evidence.

Birth of accreditation

By 1970, most states and major cities, as well as many smaller cities and counties, operated and staffed forensic science laboratories of some sort. During this time, forensic science was highly valued by police, prosecutors, judges, and juries due to its capacity to support or refute other forms of testimony that were less reliable and less scientific. Unfortunately, many forensic scientists of that era were reassigned police officers having no college education or any remarkable scientific training beyond that provided by their own laboratories. This is not to suggest that all were incompetent or incapable of producing reliable work. In fact, many were quite talented, knowledgeable, and dedicated. But without a strong scientific background, their work was often limited to those forensic tests that allowed for the direct viewing of forensic evidence with the naked eye, microscope, or magnifying glass. This included firearm evidence, fingerprints, handwriting, footwear and tire impressions, and other kinds of evidence that do not require complex instrumentation or chemical processing.

Increased complexity

The need for more complex analytical methods grew considerably as the illegal drug culture of the 1960s rolled into the 1970s. With the proliferation of the automobile and the massive public effort to develop transnational roadways and interstate highways, the criminal trafficking of drugs and guns threatened public safety in America from coast to coast. In response, crime laboratories began to hire employees with more extensive scientific credentials who could operate the highly complex instruments and work with the dangerous chemicals needed to test the deluge of illegal drugs flowing into crime laboratories at the time.

As the educational requirements of forensic scientists slowly increased, so too did the need for more professionalism and managerial skills. In 1973, a group of crime laboratory administrators gathered at the headquarters of the FBI to discuss the issues of the day, hear presentations from leading thinkers in the field, and share stories and opinions about the operations of contemporary forensic science laboratories. The group became known as the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors (ASCLD, pronounced azz’-clad), which meets every year to this day. But in its infancy, this newly formed association of crime laboratory administrators found itself confronted with an embarrassing and troubling problem.

The need for accreditation

In 1977, a study commissioned by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) discovered the pervasive reporting of incorrect answers on proficiency tests given