CRIME LAB REPORT
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Forensic Science Knowledge Quiz
1. What agency boasted the first accredited crime laboratories in 1982?
2. Approximately how many felony convictions are there in the United States each year?
3. Approximately what percentage of all criminal cases end with a plea agreement?
Answers at the bottom of this page.
Email us with ideas for future forensic science
trivia questions.
From the Editors - Upcoming Census Survey!
Dear Subscribers:
We would like to strongly encourage forensic science laboratory directors in the United States to give their full attention to the upcoming census of publicly funded crime laboratories. This next survey will be conducted by the Urban Institute with support from the Department of Justice and the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors (ASCLD).
We appreciate that many of us suffer from survey-fatigue. It seems that a new survey comes across our desks about every other week. But this one is different. It provides key measurements of the strengths and needs of crime laboratories in the United States and is used as an authoritative justification for what our community has been calling for over the last two decades.
Please give your full support and attention to this next census. It is worth your time and is an investment that will benefit future lab directors for years to come.
We will have more information on the census in upcoming issues of Crime Laboratory.
John Collins & Jay Jarvis
Crime Lab
Report Managing Editors
Forensic Science News Headlines
Scotland
Unguarded forensic lab firebombed 'to destroy evidence'
An investigation is under way
after one of Scotland’s four forensic science laboratories was
firebombed in what police believe was a deliberate attempt to destroy
evidence.
Michigan
Law officials: Closing of Detroit Police crime lab a crisis for state
justice ...
The closing of
the Detroit Police crime lab two years ago is adding to heavy backlogs
of forensic evidence at labs across the state.
Maine
Lawmakers Demand End to State Crime Lab Backlog
Members of the Legislature's Appropriations
Committee have sent a letter to the Department of Public Safety
Commissioner demanding a plan to eliminate the backlog.
Judge decries crime lab delays
A Superior Court
judge has expressed some discontent over trial delays stemming from the
backlog at the state’s crime lab.
UCLA professors awarded grant to study error rates in latent prints
The research project, which will be completed in the summer of 2012, is
based on the insight that error rates for latent fingerprinting are
likely a function of the inherent difficulty of the specific comparison.
Witnesses testify via Internet in hearing
An
Internet conferencing system was set up in the courtroom with the
agreement of both sides.
Three Crime Labs Closing Soon
To save
money the GBI is eliminating three of its seven labs in Moultrie,
Summerville, and Columbus.
Crime lab in Springfield saving law enforcement time, money, officials
say
The proximity of the lab and its staff, who
frequently must testify in court about the evidence they analyze, also
has streamlined trial preparation.
Parker should start at beginning to improve public safety
The new Houston Mayor is urged
to
establish an independent crime lab and resolve issues with the
fingerprint examination lab.
Forensic Science Meetings and Symposia
Forensic science commissions (continued):
Sadly, but predictably, the Commission is also fraught with
problems such as too many members with limited or no experience in
forensic science or crime lab management, inflated representation by
members of the legal community, no term limits for the Commission
members, and procedural delays that slow the implementation of policy
changes or new technology.
Even more troubling, some commission
members simply have no understanding or appreciation for accreditation
or the robustness of the required quality management systems.
Worse, some commission members present themselves as being more
interested in publicly rebuking labs or using their position as a
platform from which to advocate their own personal or political causes.
New York is not alone. Similar problems are now, in fact,
brewing in Texas where political wrangling has essentially forced a
complete overhaul of the state’s Forensic Science Commission.
So we ask again, what was the real motive in the formation of the New
York State Commission on Forensic Science? The Commission obviously had
no role in preventing or detecting the lapses that occurred at these
three laboratories.
Crime Lab Report has been, and continues to
be, a strong advocate for accreditation as the best and most tested
solution for identifying and preventing problems in our nation’s crime
laboratories. Although accreditation standards, or any standards for
that matter, cannot fully guarantee that instances of malpractice will
never occur, New York should at least be commended for leadership in
making accreditation mandatory across the state.
But the
forensic laboratory community at large was far ahead of New York.
The American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors (ASCLD) recognized
the importance of accreditation nearly thirty-five years ago when it
laid the groundwork for the widely acclaimed program of accreditation
currently administered by its strategic partner, ASCLD/LAB.
The
three cases presented here are real life illustrations of the
effectiveness of this program, which now provides accreditation to well
over 80% of the publicly funded laboratories in the United States.
It’s time for our elected officials and journalists to recognize what
forensic science professionals have known for years. Professional
peer oversight, strong leadership, and the responsible allocation of
resources are the keys to quality in science.
Crime Lab Report
remains stunned and disappointed that so many commentators, both inside
and outside of the profession, will not fully acknowledge that forensic
science laboratories have basic organizational needs just like every
other industry and every other profession. When those needs are
met, great things happen in forensic science.
When those needs
are not met, however, bad things happen. It’s not a difficult
concept to understand.
Then again, it’s also not difficult to
understand that there are those who, for their own unique reasons,
desperately want the challenges of the forensic science community to be
perceived as remarkably complex. For if it was so, an entirely new
industry and governmental platform of forensic science oversight might
seem justified.
And who do you suppose would benefit from that?
*****
Forensic Science Knowledge Quiz (Answers)
1. What is now the lab system of the
Illinois State Police
2. 200,000
3.
94-95% for both federal and state cases
Media and public policy analysis for the forensic science community
Forensic Science Commissions: a waste of taxpayer
dollars? You be the judge.
“One can reasonably suspect that the individuals involved may have felt pressured to move cases out the door in a timely manner – a cultural problem, if you will, that becomes exacerbated when resources are not sufficient to keep laboratory capacity in line with demand.”
Wednesday,
February 22, 2010 by Crime Lab Report
This wasn’t supposed to happen in New York.
After all, the Empire State has a star-studded forensic science
commission to provide oversight and protection from the supposed errors,
corruption, and misconduct that legal activists would have us believe
are running rampant in forensic science laboratories across the United
States.
But it did happen.
Three instances of forensic
science misconduct occurring in three separate laboratories in New York
State received a handful of attention over the last eighteen months.
Since the Commission on Forensic Science oversees all public forensic
laboratories in the state, they designated the State Office of Inspector
General (OIG) as the entity to investigate allegations of negligence or
misconduct.
New York State Police
According
to a 119 page report from the OIG, problems at the New York State Police
(NYSP) Forensic Investigation Center first came to light during an April
2008 re-accreditation audit conducted by the American Society of Crime
Laboratory Directors - Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD/LAB) when
an assessor discovered questionable results and an apparent lack of
basic skills and knowledge in the analysis of fibers, as well as
incomplete documentation of examinations related to casework in
impression evidence.
At the time, the NYSP had only one
analyst, Garry Veeder, performing fiber comparisons. Rather than
jeopardize its re-accreditation, NYSP decided to cease performing all
fiber cases. The NYSP set up a corrective action plan to re-train Veeder
and monitor his impression evidence casework.
During an internal
investigation, Veeder “admitted to bypassing an analysis required by
forensic center protocols and then creating data to give the appearance
of having conducted an analysis not actually performed.”
Veeder
also told investgators he “lacked the capability of actually performing
the test because he was never taught [the] technique and supplied a copy
of the reference chart . . . provided to him as part of his training by
the prior supervisor in the trace section.”
“Veeder repeatedly
asserted that he was trained to backfill the information using the
crib-sheet and that this improper procedure was potentially systemic in
the laboratory.”
In early May 2008, Veeder announced that he
would retire effective May 30.
But on May 23, two days after he
was requested to submit to another interview, Veeder tragically took his
own life.
When the results of the NYSP internal investigation
were finally submitted to the State Forensic Science Commission, they
did not include Veeder’s allegations that the problems in the trace
evidence section were potentially systemic to the entire NYSP lab
system. So when the OIG conducted its own independent investigation, it
determined that the NYSP had “inappropriately and precipitously
dismissed Veeder’s implication of other scientists and the deficient
training he had received.”
The report further substantiated
Veeder’s statement that his former supervisor and trainer, Anthony
Piscitelli, had likely been the one who encouraged Veeder to fabricate
the data.
At issue was the NYSP requirement to perform a
refractive index determination using the Becke Line method when
examining fiber evidence. According to the OIG report, Piscitelli told
investigators “he was not a believer in the determination of refractive
index and that he did not require scientists in the trace section to
conduct this test.”
Piscitelli volunteered that the refractive
index could be obtained from a generally available reference chart and
was familiar with the chart Veeder used as a “crib-sheet.”
Fortunately, the OIG determined that there was no evidence that other
fiber examiners, who reportedly had extensive training and experience in
fiber examinations prior to coming to the NYSP, had used the crib-sheet.
The OIG did discover, however, that several scientists had
expressed concerns about the quality of the technical reviews performed
in the trace evidence section and that at least one fiber analyst had
written a formal complaint as far back as 1994 that was ignored by the
laboratory management.
Monroe County
In
Rochester, New York’s third-largest city, a seventeen year veteran with
the Monroe County Public Safety Laboratory was also investigated by the
OIG after an internal lab investigation determined that she falsified
quality control data between April and August of 2008.
Linda
Teague admitted that she deliberately manipulated instrumental data
obtained from a routine test of a solvent blank on a gas
chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS) designed to identify potential
contamination and/or problems with the operation of the instrument.
In August 2008, one of Teague’s co-workers received a batch of
cases for technical review. The reviewer noted the presence of + signs
on the instrumental data for the solvent blanks and brought this to the
attention of the section supervisor.
When confronted, Teague
initially stated that she had only been doing this data manipulation for
about a month and even claimed that most labs do not run a solvent
blank.
Teague was immediately removed from casework and an
extensive review was conducted of her previous casework. After Teague
retired in lieu of termination, the laboratory also agreed to re-test
any of Teague’s cases upon request.
There were no differences
found related to the positive or negative results of her examinations,
but there were discrepancies related to the total weights of the
substances tested.
Most revealing perhaps were the statements
made by other chemists with whom Teague worked on a daily basis.
They told investigators that she was the section’s “top producer” and
“completed more analyses than any other chemist at the lab.” One of her
colleagues was quoted as saying that “Teague was a work horse who moved
more cases than any other [forensic chemist of equal seniority].”
Investigators found no evidence that Teague had removed any of the
substances for personal use. When she was asked to explain her sampling
methodology, Teague told investigators “I never really worried about the
amount I took because sometimes if I took too little I would have to go
back then start all over again. I didn’t want to be slowed down.”
Erie County
Finally, on February 27, 2009 chemist
Kelly McHugh with the Erie County Department of Central Police Services
Forensic Laboratory in Buffalo consulted with her supervisor that she
had received conflicting results from a positive cobalt thiocyanate
color test for cocaine and a negative GC/MS. The supervisor reminded her
that she was required by laboratory policy to also conduct the Marquis
color test before reporting the sample negative.
When the case
report was submitted to the supervisor for technical review, the case
file indicated that the Marquis test had been performed. The chain of
custody record, however, clearly showed that the evidence had been in
the evidence room at the time the test had reportedly been conducted.
The lab’s policy was that a minimum of 20% of chemistry cases
be submitted for technical review. Due to past problems with what had
been characterized as “sloppy” work, however, McHugh’s work was being
subjected to 100% technical review.
McHugh was suspended from
casework and was subsequently terminated for falsification of a report
and refusal to answer questions at an administrative hearing. An
internal investigation conducted by the laboratory, however, discovered
other problems with McHugh’s case work, including discrepancies that the
laboratory determined should have been exposed during technical review.
As a result, the laboratory instituted a new policy of 100%
technical review, hired a full-time quality manager, and required its
chemists to note specifically in the chain of custody when evidence is
actually being examined on the bench.
In December, McHugh plead
guilty in Buffalo City Court to Attempted Tampering with Public Records
in the Second Degree, with her sentencing scheduled for May 14, 2010.
The Bottom Line
So what does this all mean?
What were the root causes of these systemic failures? What was
supposed to be the role of the New York Forensic Science Commission in
preventing these failures and responding to them once they finally came
to light?
In the case of the NYSP, it appears that a “shortcut”
conveniently employed by an analyst prior to the rigors of
accreditation-mandated quality standards was passed down to a
subordinate analyst, Garry Veeder, during his training. Since the
service was infrequently conducted and was technically reviewed either
by the analyst who invented the shortcut or an individual that was not
properly qualified to conduct reviews, the deviation went undetected for
some time.
In Monroe and Erie Counties, however, the problems
occurred in relatively high-volume sections of the laboratory and were
identified very quickly. One can reasonably suspect that the individuals
involved may have felt pressured to move cases out the door in a timely
manner – a cultural problem, if you will, that becomes exacerbated when
resources are not sufficient to keep laboratory capacity in line with
demand.
In all three of these unfortunate instances of
malpractice, the subsequent investigations were conducted by internal
laboratory personnel and representatives of the New York State Office of
Inspector General.
According to its website, the Inspector General's
Office is entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that State
government, its employees, and those who work with the state meet the
highest standards of honesty, accountability, and efficiency.
Based on a full review of the investigative reports, it appears that the
investigations were all very thorough.
This leads Crime Lab
Report to question the real purpose of the New York State Commission on
Forensic Science, which was established by Article 49-B of the State
Executive Law to develop minimum standards and a program of
accreditation for all forensic laboratories in New York State.
Twelve of the fourteen members of the Commission are appointed by the
governor. There is no requirement to include a forensic scientist
- only a laboratory director and the chair of the New York State Crime
Laboratory Advisory Committee, which may or may not actually be a
forensic scientist.
It appears that the Commission simply
defers the responsibility for investigating labs to the OIG, which
relies to a large extent on the laboratory’s own guidelines, as mandated
by accreditation, to conduct an investigation when issues relating to
quality are discovered.
It also appears that in at least two of the cases
mentioned here, the OIG was actually in agreement with the corrective
actions taken by the laboratory.
The Office of Forensic
Services is the entity that actually monitors laboratory compliance with
accreditation standards established by the Commission on Forensic
Science. Last September, John Hicks gave a presentation to crime lab
directors at their annual meeting in California in which he outlined
some of the observations he made while serving as the Office’s director.
On a positive note, the Commission, along with the New York State Department of Public Health, officially recognized and adopted the accreditation standards from the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board, the American Board of Forensic Toxicology, and the FBI Quality Assurance Standards for Forensic DNA Testing Laboratories. The law and the process have helped to guide New York’s twenty-two state and local labs towards adopting more uniform standards. They have also facilitated the exchange of information among laboratories and technical working groups.
Additionally, there is now access to a variety of specialized technical training courses for laboratory personnel, increased awareness of the needs of forensic labs by legislators and other government officials, and a level of transparency that comes from the public meeting process.
See Forensic Science Commissions on right to continue: