Forensic Science

An influential California commission said Thursday that forensic science errors are a major contributor to wrongful convictions and called for better training, more monitoring and stronger standards in the real world of "CSI." The report cited the Innocence Project at New York's Cardozo Law School, which identified forensic science testing errors in 63% of a set of nationwide DNA exoneration cases analyzed.

The Los Angeles Police Department this week announced that it has made considerable progress in analyzing DNA evidence from thousands of rapes and sexual assaults that had been left untested. Police officials acknowledged, however, the department has more work to do to resolve the DNA backlog. Police Chief Charlie Beck was honored Friday by the California Forensic Science Institute for his efforts on the issue. Gov.-elect Jerry Brown, who, as attorney general, orchestrated the use of new DNA testing in a serial killer case this year, and two others were also honored.

In one hand, he holds a blood-smeared cotton swab over a beaker. In the other, he delicately clasps a dropper filled with a chemical solution. Matthew Forneris pauses and looks to his forensic science professor for instructions. Very carefully, he's told, he must squeeze a drop of the liquid onto the tip of the swab. But the college junior squeezes a bit too hard and the solution squirts onto the table, onto his hand -- everywhere but onto the swab.

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a pending challenge to a ruling last year requiring lab technicians and other forensic specialists to be available to testify at trials. In last year's 5-4 decision, the justices said the experts who prepare lab reports are "witnesses" for the prosecution and therefore must be prepared to be cross-examined by the lawyer for the accused. Justice Antonin Scalia said the Constitution gave defendants a right to be "confronted" with all the witnesses against them, including lab technicians.

How significant were some of the "errors" in evidence collection admitted by criminalist Dennis Fung? Sealed wet blood samples in plastic bags, allowing degradation of DNA by bacteria. A degraded DNA sample gives no result, not a false result. A degraded DNA sample thus cannot produce a false identification--the DNA fingerprint of another person. If a sample produces a positive result, then it was not significantly degraded. If it is degraded, it benefits the defendant.

Considered the world's leading forensic anthropologist, Clyde Snow travels internationally to unlock secrets of the dead. The 73-year-old Oklahoman has identified thousands of victims of disasters, accidents and violent crimes. In many cases, he's discovered how individuals died and aided law enforcement officials in bringing their killers to justice. "It's challenging work, and a lot of these cases turn into interesting detective stories," Snow said.

If nothing else, if and when this trial ends, each juror will be awarded a degree in forensic science. PETER J. DUFFY Rowland Heights

The Supreme Court announced Thursday a potentially significant change in how crime lab reports are used in trials, ruling that a defendant has the right to cross-examine in front of the jury the experts who prepared these reports. Crime labs have been subjected to criticism in the last decade, much of it because of DNA evidence that has shown at least 240 prisoners were in fact not guilty.

An FBI forensics expert testified Tuesday in Los Angeles federal court that hair fibers found in the house where U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena was murdered matched hair samples taken from defendant Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros' head after his arrest. Matta is one of four men being tried in Camarena's abduction and murder. Matta, 45, contends that he was not at the house in Guadalajara, Mexico, where the agent was interrogated and killed in February, 1985.

Not to offend, but this is about maggots and the good things they do. You see, maggots help solve crimes. To the faint of heart or weak of stomach, fear not. Graphic description is not the intent here. It is only to give the writhing, squishy larvae their due, for maggots, which evolve into the common fly, are one of the chief tools in a relatively new brand of sleuthing called forensic entomology. It is a field that is growing.

Joe Keiper squinted into a microscope and pressed the dead maggot with a pair of surgical forceps to determine how much human flesh the fat white larva had eaten. The forensic entomologist had plucked hundreds of them off a corpse found inside a Cleveland house the day before Halloween. "Understand insects, and you can understand death," said Keiper, a slender, balding scientist of 40. For nine years, Keiper has studied all things creepy-crawly as the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's director of science and curator of invertebrate zoology.

With the busiest death chamber in the nation, it was only a matter of time before Texas positioned itself to become the first state to admit that it executed a person who was wrongfully convicted. And now that day is at hand. According to a nationally respected fire engineer, the so-called scientific evidence used to convict Cameron Todd Willingham of setting a blaze that killed his three daughters in 1995 was not scientific at all. In his scathing report to the Texas Forensic Science Commission, Craig Beyler found that the arson investigators on the case had a poor understanding of fire dynamics and based their conclusions on erroneous assumptions, sloppy research and a dash of mysticism.

The Supreme Court announced Thursday a potentially significant change in how crime lab reports are used in trials, ruling that a defendant has the right to cross-examine in front of the jury the experts who prepared these reports. Crime labs have been subjected to criticism in the last decade, much of it because of DNA evidence that has shown at least 240 prisoners were in fact not guilty.

In June, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas made a bold grab for a crown jewel of local law enforcement: the DNA unit of the sheriff's crime lab. With the lab's director out of town and the sheriff recently deposed by corruption charges, Rackauckas submitted a brief agenda item to county supervisors two business days before their regular meeting. "Our aim is to make significant changes in the way forensic DNA analysis is conducted," Rackauckas wrote. The D.A.'

Patricia Cornwell's name comes with more than a whiff of myth and expectation. Almost every woman writing thrillers with extreme violence gets compared to Cornwell's bestselling work featuring forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta. Interviews focus less on the books and more on Cornwell's Armani suits, personal security concerns or her obsession with solving the Jack the Ripper murders.

In their cocoons of leather upholstery, soothing high-tech sound systems and automatically activated personal seat settings, drivers have come to regard their car interiors as mobile extensions of the homes that are their private refuges. The courts have tended to disagree.

The renowned forensic scientist who gave key testimony for O.J. Simpson in the criminal trial is establishing an institute at the University of New Haven. Henry Lee, 59, said he'll retire as director of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory in about 2 1/2 years. He's seeking donations for the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science and is trying to raise a $1-million endowment for a scholarship fund.

Fingerprints, like hair, semen and blood, carry DNA, and police are using the discovery to track down criminals, Australian scientists report in the June 19 Nature. Researchers at the Victoria Forensic Science Center tested objects regularly handled by volunteers, including leather briefcase handles, telephone handsets and a personal locker handle. But they also found that the last person who handled the objects did not necessarily leave more DNA than previous users.

Late on the morning of April 14, 2006, a troubling letter rolled off the fax machine in the harried, disordered fingerprint unit of the Los Angeles Police Department. Months before, one of the unit's print specialists had determined that several prints lifted from a cellphone store where a burglary had occurred belonged to Maria Maldonado, a 25-year-old hospital technician. Two others in the unit had signed off on the work.

Last summer, the Los Angeles Police Department was dealt a rude shock. Expecting nearly $1 million in federal grant money to help cover the cost of analyzing DNA evidence in rape cases and other violent crimes, the department was awarded only half that much. U.S. Department of Justice officials, who distribute the money to police agencies nationwide, told LAPD staff that the fault was their own.