Flawed Forensic Evidence: Convicted Defendants Left Uninformed About Troubled Cases

The Washington Post:

Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people, but prosecutors failed to notify defendants or their attorneys even in many cases they knew were troubled.

Read the whole story at The Washington Post

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Comments

[Geral Sosbee]

08:03 PM on 04/18/2012

Forensic evidence is sometimes intentionally flawed by the fbi chiefs.

See one my reports on fbi corruption here:

http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/updatejan5.html

The fbi top ten most wanted listed is a ruse to control, manipulate, program, mesmerize & entertain the minds of the general population for the purpose, among others, of deflecting attention from the true criminals and murderers inside the fbi.
The united states of america is now forever known as the BEAST, the BrainEntrAinmentSTate, a country w/o conscience, a people w/o heart who are cursed with a national character predominantly w/o soul .

http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/hightechassau.html

Sosbee to my fellow americans:

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands of those who feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you. May posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/urgentmessagetot.html


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bXiqquS-lY8/ToNhotApMYI/AAAAAAAAAXY/dJvjW12xgic/s1600/swastikaweb.jpg

The fbi/cia/police message to Target:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2OUrkgFp3d8/T2yJZ4tN4tI/AAAAAAAAAes/MJ5g_fgVY0U/s1600/kill.jpg


http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/affidavit2007.html

[Autora]

05:38 PM on 04/17/2012

This is absolutely awful. I am not surprised, but I am sickened. NOW will the people who are pro-death penalty stop and think? The system makes too many mistakes-- do you really want to kill a potentially innocent man or woman, and if you make a mistake, just say: oh, oops, sorry?

[Robert A Hayes]

03:29 PM on 04/17/2012

police run crime labs always were a conflict of interests... the judicial system should handle evidence on both sides in an anonymous manner.

[jamesbb08]

01:10 PM on 04/17/2012

"flawed forensic work" and the picture of the technician is a blonde female who looks like a model with a mask on? I suppose it's automatic at this point to do that. "flawed" must go with a picture of a "female". Ugh.

This isn't news anyway. Jog on...

[Fenrir Lokison]

03:08 PM on 04/17/2012

1st: LOL! That is funny.

2nd: This is news. We need to see how screwed up our system is so that we get a reminder of why we try to go with innocent until proven guilty is a fallacy.

[cobraxus]

12:35 PM on 04/17/2012

criminal attorneys are required to offer up a vigorous defense for their clients but prosecutors are charged with seeking justice.putting innocent people behind bars while the guilty walk free is not in the best interest of society.

[Fenrir Lokison]

03:10 PM on 04/17/2012

Agreed.

I think if any of these guys are getting pay for what the prosecution did...It should come out of pockets of the prosecutor's and the prosecuting department.

[OleProfessor]

12:23 PM on 04/17/2012

Our Criminal Justice System is Corrupted..!

Prosecutors only think of their Conviction Rates and We've Privatized Prisons, often run by corrupt Corporations who shall we say influence if not out right bribe judges for new fresh meat for their lock-ups..!

[been2there]

10:32 AM on 04/17/2012

Good forensic work is time and labor intensive; that makes it expensive. States try to cut corners, and justice is denied. Remember what Jon-Benet's family endured?
We need to bite the bullet, stop over-using incarceration for non-violent offenders, and put those resources into superior forensic work. The person so protected just might be YOU, and the felon left free by shoddy forensic work just might hit YOU next.

[realitytrumpsbull]

10:09 AM on 04/17/2012

What's worse is when they've found a bunch of little crimesters working IN the forensics labs. Trust the government!

[ethelmertzrules]

09:05 AM on 04/17/2012

I think it's criminal to withhold potentially exonerating information from someone who was convicted based on the CSI wannabe's shoddy work. Whoever made the decision to keep this quiet needs to do his/her turn in prison.

[LadyXoc]

08:39 AM on 04/17/2012

My heart goes out to this man and thousands like him, and to the families that suffered without son, husband father.

[Countess]

08:21 AM on 04/17/2012

The justice system is as sick as the political system and with terrible consequences for many more people than we are wiling tol admit. If the racism and corruption don't get you the laziness and incompetence will.

[LeftRight]

08:16 AM on 04/17/2012

Sadly, this sounds about right..... Far too often prosecutors are concerned not with justice or truth but with conviction rates.

[MzBergy]

05:30 PM on 04/17/2012

The better their conviction rate is, the more money they make...It really is sad!

[Bradley Greig Smith]

08:13 AM on 04/17/2012

Unfortunately getting convictions has become a team sport and has little to do with justice and everything to do with winning.

Our great cop shows on TV always show these rouge cops or investigators as doing it for the greater good. They "know" the person is guilty so they have to break a few rules to get justice. Sadly that isn't how it works in real life. In real life they break the rules all the time simply to win. All too often justice is not at the forefront of their thoughts and the only thing that matters is getting a conviction (winning).

[jingl]

08:08 AM on 04/17/2012

The prosecutors who did not notify the Defense should be relieved of positions for violating the Public Trust. I have to believe that this news must have been "inconvenient" for their careers, or they would have sent the information, and immediately initiated review. The number of convictions approach as a basis of career-building for prosecutors creates such an aggressive system. We have lost our belief that it is better to set a guilty person free than to jail a single innocent. Seems we just want to jail-em-all ... And given the population stats of inmates in prisons today, I think there can be no question who the "all" is who are suffering most. I sat on a double-murder jury. I was very cynical about the court system before, and came away encouraged by the experience. The jury I sat on really worked hard to get it right, but juries can work only from what they are presented...and the prosecutorial misbehavior in court, and obviously years later, is having a devastating affect. My God, I can not imagine an hour, let alone years and years lost to prison because some schmuck doesn't want to be bothered, or places career above all else. Devastating.

[ethelmertzrules]

09:09 AM on 04/17/2012

I agree and am not satisfied at the loss of position for those prosecutors. They need to pay with their freedom since they wrongfully deprived other people of theirs.

[clearmoments]

07:57 AM on 04/17/2012

I'm glad that HuffPo covered this. To me, however, this is not news, since when looking at forensics from a scientific standpoint, it is pretty clear how subjective the interpretation of evidence can be. Obviously this is not to invalidate the entirety of the field, but there are many methods, like bite mark and handwriting analysis, that are obviously rather subject to individual whims. There are also problems when there is clearly a conflict of interest in general, because of the desire to "solve" the case.