Hundreds of Broward Cases in Doubt Over DNA Testing Problems, Expert's Suspension for Sexism, Racism

The shots rang out before either cop could reach for his holster. The only thing the two Broward Sheriff's deputies could do was call for help. "We're shot!" came a voice over police radio. Then it was quiet.

When the bullets stopped flying that November night, Dep. Corey Carbocci lay bleeding on the pavement. Dep. Brian Tephford hung halfway out of his patrol car. Their red, white, and blue police lights were still flashing across the sprawling condo complex where a routine traffic stop had suddenly turned violent.

A swarm of police and first responders sped to Versailles Gardens, a cluster of buildings off McNab Road in the suburb of Tamarac. Screams came from the crowd that had formed near the deputies. Carbocci, 37, clutched his chest and leg as paramedics assessed his wounds. But Tephford wasn't moving. The 34-year-old father of three was soon pronounced dead.

Three suspected gunmen — Eloyn Ingraham, Bernard Forbes, and Andre Delancy — were caught the day after the November 11, 2006 attack, holed up in a room at a Dania Beach inn with two Glocks in the toilet tank and a Springfield Arms pistol under a bed. Prosecutors said ballistics, cellphone data, eyewitness accounts, and DNA evidence all linked the men to the crime.

Read more at Broward New-Times

Can DNA Evidence Be Too Convincing? An Acquitted Man Thinks So

It has been about three months since Terrell Gills’s release from jail, and there are still sleepless nights and days spent in his room as he contemplates the year and a half he spent on Rikers Island for a crime of which he was acquitted.

He stays there for most of the day with the door locked, his jail life so ingrained that he still eats at times close to his old jail schedule: 4:30 a.m., noon and 5 p.m.

There is other baggage: antisocial feelings, and the questions that come during job interviews about the nearly two years left blank on his résumé.

The answers do not come easily.

Mr. Gills, now 36, was arrested in August 2015, accused of robbing a Dunkin’ Donuts about three months earlier in Jamaica, Queens. The arrest was made, in part, on the strength of forensic evidence that is typically persuasive: a DNA match.

Read more at the New York Times.

Rapid DNA Legislation Passes Out of House Judiciary Committee

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Rapid DNA Act, introduced by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) passed out of the House Judiciary Committee and is on its way to a full vote on the floor of the House of Representatives.

If passed, the Rapid DNA Act would establish a system for the integration of Rapid DNA instruments for use by law enforcement to help reduce the DNA backlog. Unlike traditional DNA analysis, which can take weeks, Rapid DNA analysis permits processing of DNA samples in approximately 90 minutes or less.

This technology has the potential to revolutionize the way in which arrested individuals are enrolled in the criminal justice system, shorten the time required for their DNA to be linked to unsolved crimes, and expedite the exoneration of innocent suspects by giving law enforcement officials a new system that meets FBI quality assurance standards to compare DNA samples collected at the time of an arrest to profiles in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).

Congressman Sensenbrenner: “Today’s passage of the Rapid DNA Act out of the House Judiciary Committee is a promising development that brings us one step closer to safer communities throughout the nation. Rapid DNA technology is an effective tool for law enforcement that will help quickly identify arrestees and offenders, as well as reduce the overwhelming backlog in forensic DNA analysis. It will also make crime fighting efforts more efficient and help prevent future crimes from occurring, which saves time and taxpayer dollars. I look forward to this smart legislation moving forward to a vote on the House floor.”

Read More @ urbanmilwaukee below:

http://urbanmilwaukee.com/pressrelease/rapid-dna-legislation-passes-out-of-house-judiciary-committee/

Gill: How misuse of DNA evidence has led to miscarriages of justice

DNA analysis has revolutionised forensic science; helping to catch prolific murderers and shining a light on miscarriages of justice that have seen innocent people wrongfully convicted of serious crimes. Such is the power of DNA to identify, convict, and exonerate, that many perceive it to be infallible. Yet DNA evidence has a number of limitations and the costs of not being aware of these can be huge.

As a forensic geneticist of 35 years standing, I have been very closely involved with every stage of the development of DNA profiling since its discovery in 1985. Yet over recent years, I have become particularly concerned with standards of practice and the court statements written by some forensic scientists.

Read more here

How DNA Evidence Went From Airtight to Error-Prone

Blind faith in any technology can be dangerous -- especially when it comes to areas of forensic science such as DNA fingerprinting. For example, if police have “DNA evidence” against a suspect, most juries will assume that’s proof of guilt. But while the technology for analyzing DNA has become vastly more sensitive since it was first introduced in courts in the 1990s, crime labs are working with ever more minute traces -- sometimes just a few molecules -- and drawing inconsistent or erroneous conclusions from them. In fact, there’s good reason to believe DNA evidence has sent people to prison for crimes they didn’t commit. Read more here.

PCAST Report Final Issued

Report on Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison Methods

On September 20, 2016, PCAST released a Report to the President on Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison

https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/pcast/docsreports

No More 'Reasonable Degree of Scientific Certainty'

Forensic science, already under review and scrutiny from an alphabet-soup of federal agencies, is getting another reining-in from the Department of Justice.

Terms such as “reasonable scientific certainty” can no longer be used, DOJ labs have to post internal validation studies online, and forensic scientists will be expected to uphold a 16-part “Code of Professional Responsibility for the Practice of Forensic Science,” announced Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Attorney General, in a memorandum last week.

Read more on forensic magazine.com here

Broward County Crime Lab DNA Mixture Problems

In March 2015, prosecutors temporarily stopped sending evidence to what was then a state-of-the-art city forensics lab in Washington, DC, over concerns technicians had bungled cases and misstated the likelihood DNA had been left at a crime scene. Earlier this month, the crime lab for the entire city of Austin, Texas, was shut down amid concern its technicians weren't following proper procedure. Both events amounted to earthquakes in the criminal-justice world: Crime labs are responsible for handling nearly every piece of physical evidence. They need to be accurate.

Now, according to an independent forensics analyst, the very same DNA issues have struck the scandal-plagued Broward Sheriff's Office Crime Lab. The place is just now recovering from allegations a former drug analyst potentially tainted thousands of separate cases.

read more here

What Attorneys Can Take Away from "Making a Murderer"

It's no surprise that innocent people face charges for crimes they did not commit every day in this country. No one ever said our system was perfect, but it's the best we've got. Netflix's new documentary, "Making a Murderer" should be a wake up call to Attorneys representing clients faced with serious crimes. A lot CAN and DOES go wrong, and forensic testing is no exception to this rule. This documentary clearly demonstrates the absolute NEED for attorneys to consult with qualified experts to ensure that everything was done correctly with regard to evidence in their respective cases. Attorneys can no longer trust crime labs to do the right thing. The science is moving fast. There is very little in the way of standardization and forensic oversight in the United States. 

Only you can prevent a miscarriage of justice.

http://mobile.onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/makingamurdereralternativesuspects.html