Extra Credit 2: Forensics on Trial

            I just finished watching Nova’s documentary Forensics on Trial. This was an extremely fascinating documentary about how the techniques that forensic scientists use are very flawed. It goes into detail about how finger printing, bite marks and blood splatter are not as scientific as we thought. They are more of an art rather then a science. In the documentary there is also an example of a case in which these techniques were wrong. It also has new advanced technologies that are being used to improve these techniques.

Fingerprint

            On March 11, 2004 in Madrid, Spain there was a terrorist attack that planted ten bombs in trains that killed 191 people and left 1800 people wounded. In a van nearby, police found a blue plastic bag that had bomb-making materials in it. Scientists realize that lines and ridges of fingerprints are made from sweat and oil and can easily be wiped off or distorted. When scientists matched the fingerprint obtained from the plastic bag, the match was Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer in Oregon. He recently represented a convicted terrorist and it was said that his fingerprint was “an absolute match.” When on trail, he even hired his own fingerprint analyst who said that it was a match. Brandon Mayfield was sent to jail for fifteen days before Spanish police found that fingerprint belonged to a known terrorist. Akhlesh Lakhtakia, a professor at Penn State, is working with a team to invent a tool that takes the “geography” of the ridges and uses a gas that does not chemically alter the prints. This device shows very prominent features so its simply matching patterns.

            On May 23^rd 1991, in Auburn NY, a farmhouse was set on fire. Originally the owner of the house, Sabina, was missing. But Coe Ecker, the sheriff’s investigator, found her not far from the home, killed, nude and with bite marks on her breasts, belly and back. Bite marks are bruises with patterns. Forensic odontology makes wax impressions of bite marks to try to get a match. In the Auburn case, Ray Brown was convicted of the murder. The original scientist to take the odontology report said that even though Brown was missing two teeth, he probably twisted and obscured the bites. So Brown was sentenced to 25 years to life. While in jail, Brown went over the case. He noticed that Barry Bench who was a firefighter and ex brother in law of the victim, that his statement did not make sense. He had been fighting with Sabina over the possession of the farmhouse. On his statement he said that he was downtown and went home about 1:30am. If that were true, he would have noticed the farmhouse on fire because he had to pass that. Brown wrote Bench a letter and five days later Bench laid down in front of a train. Police then reinvestigated and found that Barry Bench’s DNA matched the DNA found on the victims t-shirt. Roy Brown was released from jail and sued and won.

            In Sweden they are now using visual autopsy reports. It is a combination of CT scans and MRI’s that produces a 3-D model of the body. Examiners can then give virtual autopsies without having to touch the actual body. Using this technology, persons involved in solving a mystery can see the dead as clearly as the day they died. When doing a hands-on autopsy, cutting open the body releases gases, which is often a big mistake that alters the autopsy report especially in cases related to strangulation. Designers are now making a portable application that can be used anywhere.        

            On June 13^th 1994, in Brentwood California, police found a woman whose throat was slit so deep that her head was almost decapitated. The woman was Nicole Simpson, estranged wife of football player O.J. Simpson. Her friend Ronald Goldmen was dead nearby with at least 20 stab wounds. Within hours of the discovery, police and reporters were walking throughout the crime scene, smearing and tracking blood everywhere. O.J Simpson’s trial lasted nine months but the jury came to their decision in less than four hours. They found him not guilty because there were too many things that did not add up. The police contaminated the scene, photos of the crime scene were not the same and most importantly justice cannot be served if the crime scene is contaminated or moved.

            It is imperative that forensics improve their techniques because murderers are walking free and innocent people are being sent to jail based on interpretations of fingerprints, bite marks, autopsies and blood splatter. Doctors across the world are working on new tools to use to improve these techniques. One new invention, the I See Crime, partners with video gamers to produce a 3-D scan of the crime scene. This gives detectives the opportunity to have a permanent record of the original crime scene. As technology improves, the accuracy of convictions should too. We have the resources to improve old techniques. It is unbelievable the technologies that can be used in forensics now. I never realized how unreliable the forensics techniques can because I am so used to them being used today. It’s crazy and scary to imagine how many innocent people can be in jail because of similarities in fingerprints to the actual murderer but, it’s even scarier to think of how many murders are walking free because of a crime scene or evidence that is contaminated. Slowly but surely the flaws in forensics science is being corrected. The common techniques are being improved and becoming a science rather then an art. 

Extra Credit 1: The Confessions

            I recently watched the documentary The Confessions on frontline.org. This is a criminal justice documentary that is based on the murder of a navy sailor William Bosko’s wife.  Four men confessed to committing the crime but none of them actually committed the murder. This documentary interviews the four men, Daniel Williams, Joe Dick, Eric Wilson and Derek Tice. We get to hear their side of the story and we learn why they confessed to a murder that they did not commit. Three other men were also charged with participating in the murder however their charges were later dropped.

            The documentary gives us an insight as to what happens during an interrogation. Tamika Taylor, a friend of the victim, told detectives to look into Daniel Williams because he seemed “obsessed” with the murder. Ford, a fierce “pit-bull-like” detective, interrogated Williams for eleven hours. After eleven hours, Williams gave a false confession that was very inconsistent. When DNA results came back four months later and showed that he was not a match, the police and investigators kept this a secret. Next detectives questioned Joe Dick because he was Daniel Williams’ roommate. Ford questioned Joe and just like Daniel Williams, Joe gave a false confession. Ford showed Joe a picture of the crime scene and that’s where Joe got information for his false confession. Eventually DNA results came back and he too was not a match. Investigators kept questioning Joe until he gave them the name Eric Wilson. Eric Wilson was arrested right off of his Mediterranean cruise and his DNA test came back negative also but they kept him in jail too. Then Joe gave Derek Tice’s name and his polygraph test came back negative but they did not let him go. After eleven hours he too gave a false confession. Then three other men were charged with gang rape and murder but their charges were dropped. Finally a man named Omar Ballard wrote a letter from jail to his girlfriend expressing that he killed Michelle Bosko. Even after Omar’s DNA match came back positive and confessed he acted alone the police did not let the others out of jail. Ultimately, the false, rehearsed confessions the men gave is what kept them in jail.

            The murder took place in July 1997 at a naval station in Norfolk Virginia. The population of Norfolk at that time was mostly naval men with their young wives and family. The crime rate there was not particularly high. The demography of the people involved in the case was all young white men, who were in the navy.  The victim was an eighteen-year-old female. Omar Ballard, who says he committed the murder and had his DNA matched was an African-American male who had a history of assaulting women charges.

            Although there was not much pertaining to economics in this documentary, all of the accused requested a lawyer besides Daniel Williams. Derek Tice requested a lawyer but never received one. The politics that I found in this documentary was the work the investigators and prosecutors were doing. They were keeping polygraph tests and DNA results a secret, feeding the accused information about the crime to enhance their confessions and denying lawyers. All of the acts mentioned must be illegal however everyone in the justice department allowed this to go on.

The four men who gave false confessions

            This documentary shocked me. I find criminal justice stories to be very interesting and I have seen many. This is the first story though that had so much evidence in favor of the accused that the police force ignored. It’s very unjust and unfair what happened to these accused men. Ford knew what he wanted the men to tell him and he would not give up. At one point in the documentary, Derek reenacted how Ford would interrogate them and broke down crying because it was too hard for him to remember. I’ve never seen such an obvious case before but these police would not admit that they were wrong. Even when John Danser had a very legitimate alibi, Ford still charged him with gang rape and murder. All of the confessions were obviously false, some even had to give seven plus confessions to get it to exactly what the police wanted to hear. I feel that if this case happened in present days, the men who gave false confessions would not have been locked away for so long. The false confessions the men gave have turned their world upside down and inside out. Even now when they were all released from jail, they have to register as sex offenders. The justice system is very much needed in society however there are definitely many faults within it.