Beating the Devil's Game: A History of Forensic Science and Criminal (34 page)

A universal data bank would, of course, alleviate the issue of genetic surveillance, and law enforcement is generally in support of it, but most private citizens oppose it. There’s a fine balance between security for the masses and the individual right to privacy, and the idea that one’s essence can so easily be accessed can be daunting, especially in light of possible mishandling or misinterpretation. On the other hand, those who have been exonerated via DNA appreciate its power—and would probably welcome a data bank that would have freed them earlier, if not eliminated them as suspects altogether.

As mentioned earlier, officials at the New York–based Innocence Project, founded by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, rely on DNA evidence testing to help the innocent prove their claims. They expect to have many more cases. Since there have been more than two hundred exonerations thus far, the use of this technology brings more accountability into evidence handling. They evaluate requests from prisoners or families of prisoners, read through court transcripts and other reports, and determine whether biological evidence from the relevant case has been preserved well enough for a DNA extraction. If the case fits all their criteria, and they see problems with the investigation or prosecution, they take it on. Thanks to their work, other lawyers have followed a similar pattern and many more such projects have been set up around the country to ensure a greater reach for unfortunate individuals.

For example, Dennis Williams had served eighteen years for the abduction and murder of a young couple in Illinois, placed at the scene by an eyewitness who later recanted her testimony and then reverted to her original story. He and three other men were convicted and imprisoned, two of them (including Williams) going right to death row. They might have been executed if not for a group of journalism students at Northwestern who took up the “Ford Heights Four” case in 1996. They located a witness who had reported the identity of the real killers shortly after the crime, but the police had failed to follow up on the tip. The investigating team also found two of the three men actually responsible for the crime, and they eventually confessed. DNA testing corroborated their confessions and exonerated Williams.

More than three-quarters of the falsely imprisoned were convicted in part with eyewitness misidentification, which can occur even under the best circumstances. Luis Diaz, sixty-seven, served twenty-six years for crimes he did not commit. In August 1979, Miami-Dade County police arrested him for a series of rapes over the previous two years attributed to the “Bird Road Rapist.” One victim, who identified him as the killer even though he looked dramatically different from her original description, had given police his license plate number after she spotted him at a gas station. Seven other victims looked at a photo spread that featured him and agreed, despite similar inconsistencies among their descriptions (two later recanted). Diaz was convicted of seven rapes and attempted rapes. Only two semen samples were recovered, but that was sufficient for later DNA analysis. Diaz was cleared. The need for innocence watchdogs is apparent.

On October 30, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the “Justice for All” act, which set up guidelines and enhanced funding for the use of DNA technology in the legal arena. Convicted felons gained the right to post-conviction testing if DNA evidence is available and provides a reasonable chance of proving the person did not commit the crime. States and other localities will receive money to do more such testing and improve their labs. In addition, the labs must undergo accreditation every two years to comply with guidelines, and CODIS will be expanded to allow state crime labs to send lawfully collected samples to the data bank, including from juveniles adjudicated delinquent.

And speaking of CODIS, the FBI laboratory has partnered with four regional crime labs in Arizona, Minnesota, Connecticut, and New Jersey to increase the capacity to test for mtDNA, which is inherited through the matrilineal line. This effort will assist in identifying John Does and matching them with missing persons, and perhaps assist with identification in terrorism cases. Prior to this development, only the FBI lab performed mtDNA examinations free of charge. Partnering with these labs and paying expenses will double the FBI’s capabilities.

Among other concerns discussed at professional conferences and in forensic science chat rooms is the need for higher standards, forums of accountability that will be taken seriously, and a filter against junk science that harms the innocent and assists the guilty. There’s also a need for better research about how and when courtroom procedures may undermine the cause of justice.

For example, “earprint testimony” put a British man in prison for life. He had served seven years before the “scientific evidence” was exposed as flawed. Mark Dallagher, thirty-one, was convicted at Leeds Crown Court in 1998 of the murder of ninety-four-year-old Dorothy Wood. The prosecution expert, Cornelis Van Der Lugt, told the court he was “absolutely convinced” that the earprints found on window glass where the perpetrator entered the victim’s home were made by Dallagher’s ears. The case made legal history as the first one in which earprints led to a successful prosecution, and one prosecutor described it as “a great step forward for forensic science.” But then a DNA profile obtained from the earprint proved that it was not Dallagher’s after all. Thus, instead of a step forward, it proved to be an embarrassing step backward. Indeed, as judges take on the gatekeeper’s duties for deciding when expert testimony is genuinely science or not, they must get more educated themselves in the sciences. Studies indicate that this has not been the case, and the admissibility of “science” in some places has been rather haphazard. For the most part, they fail to understand the notion of hypothesis testing and error rates, so they often ignore these criteria.

Along these same lines, numerous crime labs around the country have been closed or notified that they must clean up their act, after examination of cases revealed poor controls, mishandling of evidence, and clumsy mixups. Worse, a few labs employed people who failed to do the tests they claimed they had, or who fabricated results.

Between the need to keep judges educated about actual science for admissibility and concern over crime lab protocol, forensic scientists have called for greater accountability and the need for better education. With so many people proven innocent whose lives have been decimated by the legal process, we need to be as careful about our forensic projects as we are enthused about innovations on the horizon. Since terrorist attacks and the world’s destabilization have shown us there’s much more at stake these days than was once the case, and forensic science will probably be a part of any major world catastrophe, we need to develop ethical applications from good, solid science, for use on a global scale.

GLOBALIZATION

Besides innovation, forensic scientists are seeking ways to expand their applications to more countries, especially those in need that have few or no resources. The FBI assists internationally with setting up computerized databases and teaching their programs, while specially trained teams arrive after a natural disaster or massacre to assist with the identification of the dead. With biological terrorism always looming, those with knowledge of microbial technology can assist in developing devices for tracking and for protection. In the field of informatics, we can develop more accurate threat assessment programs, as well as prepare ourselves to respond to large-scale events, as we did with the September 11 incidents.

As part of that effort, Electronic Sensor Technology in California has developed the zNose
^®
, a gas chromatograph that captures and analyzes odors, based on “Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW)” technology. One model is portable, and three other types are in development. This device will work well for homeland security, as units are installed in buildings as early warning alarms for chemical or biohazardous threats. Other smell recorders are also in the works.

In addition, there’s a global alert map, operated by the National Association of Radio-Distress Signaling and Infocommunications, in Hungary, that provides an almost real-time recap of events as they occur. When a man takes over a one-room schoolhouse in the Amish country in Pennsylvania, the entire world can watch what happens. This also means that forensic scientists with certain specialties can be alerted almost immediately if they’re needed in some area far from them.

* * *

We’ve come a long way from convictions based on “spectral evidence,” criminal identification with torture, and the detection of lies via chewing rice. What happens from here might only be limited by the boundaries of our imaginations. While it may be “better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer,” as English jurist William Blackstone stated, it would be better yet if we could avoid both. With biology, psychology, odontology, entomology, and the other areas of forensic science all pulling together, we may one day achieve this ideal. We have our forensic pioneers to thank for that.

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