The FBI review of the North Carolina’s crime lab is in. It’s not good.
The government-ordered inquest by two former FBI officials found that agents of the State Bureau of Investigation repeatedly aided prosecutors in obtaining convictions over a 16-year period, mostly by misrepresenting blood evidence and keeping critical notes from defense attorneys.
The review of blood evidence in cases from 1987 to 2003 by two former assistant directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation calls for a thorough examination of 190 criminal cases, stating information that could have helped defendants was sometimes misrepresented or withheld.
“It impacted the decisions that were made — it could have,” report author Chris Swecker said Wednesday. “Let me step back and make sure you understand: It could have resulted in situations where information that was material and favorable to the defendant was not disclosed.”
In three of the cases, the defendants were executed.
The failings don’t prove that the executed defendants were innocent, but that the system failed and it’s possible. At it’s absolute best, it shows that the North Carolina crime lab withheld Brady. In the middle, it manufactured reports for the purpose of aiding the prosecution to convict. No matter which way you twist it, it’s bad. Very bad.
We have this great big complex system which, if every cog meshed perfectly and every widget did what it was supposed to do, would work fairly well most of the time. The problem is that it’s replete with broken cogs and missing widgets. Those failures are usually the nice people whose fingers are necessary to make the system happen, but end up in a nose, ear or eye. No doubt the hard-working crime lab people believed that they were doing the right thing by making sure the guilty got convicted. But as Murray Kempton used to say, there they go again, framing the guilty.
That people who serve a critical function in the system want to be a part of what they perceive to be the solution comes as no shock. They pick the side they believe to be righteous and do what they can to help it along. If that means fudge some tests, or hide some bad results, it’s all in the name of justice. As I’ve tried to make clear many times, our justice isn’t their justice. There are few things less compelling than fools who justify their actions in the name of justice.
But what of the three dead men ?
—Desmond Keith Carter was executed in 2002, a decade after he was convicted of first-degree murder for the fatal stabbing of his neighbor in Eden. An SBI analyst reported a confirmed presence of blood on an item in the investigation. That overstated the results because a follow-up test was negative due to an insufficient sample to test.
Carter confessed that he killed Helen Purdy after going to her home to borrow money so he could buy drugs.
— John Hardy Rose was convicted of first-degree murder in 1992 and executed in 2001 for the slaying of Patricia Stewart in Graham County. An SBI analyst reported that an item in the investigation gave chemical indications for the presence of blood and said that there wasn’t enough quantity in the stain to test further. In fact, the analyst had conducted two follow-up tests, one of which was negative and one of which was inconclusive. Neither was reported.
Rose confessed to the stabbing death; testing on other items found in Rose’s car revealed blood consistent with victim Patricia Stewart.
— Joseph Timothy Keel was executed in 2003 for the 1990 slaying of his father-in-law in Edgecombe County. An SBI analyst reported that there were indications for the presence of blood on an item in the investigation but that there wasn’t enough evidence for a conclusive identification. That report failed to reflect an attempt at a confirmatory test that came up negative.
Keel confessed to the shooting death of Johnny Smith.
No “smoking guns,” given that each defendant confessed to their respective murder. On the surface, it doesn’t look as if any great injustice was done. Sure, the labs had issues, but isn’t it about making sure that they guilty get what they deserve?
If only it was so simple. In this complex system, there is an interconnection between evidence, the inducement of confessions, the decision to bring a capital prosecution and the strength of evidence in determining a plea offer. Without researching the particulars of any case, there is no rational view of the criminal justice system that doesn’t take into account the myriad of influences the produce any particular outcome. Like Chaos Theory, a bad lab report changes how all the other factors fit together and, by definition, impacts the outcome.
This doesn’t mean that any of the three dead men were innocent. It does mean that the executions of these three men are now in question, and we can never replay how these cases wound their way through the system to end up in death. There are no mulligans here, and there is no way to bring back the dead to ask them what they want to do now.
As long as there are human fingers involved in doing the work upon which the system’s integrity relies, there will be failures. Even if crime labs become putatively “independent”, as opposed to captives of the prosecution, there will be lab techs who believe they are doing God’s work by putting criminals in prison. It will be an improvement, but not a perfect cure. The human mind is an ugly thing, doing wrong and yet feeling pretty darn good about it.
There is only one way to eliminate the potential of executing someone who doesn’t “deserve” it, whether because he’s innocent or because the system cheated him out of a half-fair chance of fighting. End executions. We’re just not good enough at this whole criminal justice thing to be worthy of playing God.
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Ah but it’s only a review of the SBI crime lab’s Brady record. The audit specifically excluded the lab’s reliance on junk science methodology, a horrific problem that may be what actually got the director fired.
That will have to wait for another review. All we have on the junk science angle is countless defense attorney, and newspaper, anecdotes. It isn’t a scientific sample.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Every link has the potential to be the weakest.
As the AP article also reports:
“Besides the executions, the report urged a closer look at the cases of four people on death row and one whose death sentence was commuted to life.
The cases also include the 1993 murder of James Jordan, father of the NBA star, who was sleeping in his car along a highway when he was killed. Two men were sentenced to life in prison. The review states an SBI analyst reported that an examination of the scene indicated the presence of blood, but didn’t say that four subsequent tests were inconclusive.
Michael Jordan, now owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.”
Scott, your conclusion is inescapable. Human error, in and of itself, is reason enough for the USA to finally pull the switch on executions. As your other commenter, Patrick adds, junk science brings the administration of justice into disrepute. This story is more than just about confirmation bias and prosecutorial zeal: it is blatant, unadulterated corruption. There will be blood.
So you assumed that I neglected to read the rest of the article and include these additional quotes rather than the portions I chose to include? The AP is a little picky about how much it allows a blogger to quote, so thanks for putting me well over the limit, pal.
I’m all for fair use doctrine. I’ll be sure to paraphrase next time.
At least you didn’t toss in the link.
Much of the reading I’ve done over the past few years has taught me to trust confessions about as much as I trust state-run forensics results.
I.E., not much at all. It could be accurate.
So what now, North Carolina? Do crime lab employees enjoy any degree of immunity like prosecutors do? And how much of the suppression of evidence was solely the work of the crime labs, and how much was a bad prosecutor going “This guts my case, I can’t let the defense see this!”
I don’t share your view of our criminal justice system, Scott. I think it’s broken as all hell currently, predominately due to the mission-creep of secondary revenue generation and the support of the prison/enforcement industries. (Prisons and LEO organizations/unions are both HUUUUUGE supporters of tough-on-crime politicians, etc.)
The whole thing is corrupt.
Ah, yes. North Carolina, where Mike Nifong plied his trade.
Yes, it’s all of a piece, and the lab is just one part.
“We’re just not good enough at this whole criminal justice thing to be worthy of playing God.”
Very well said, sir, and exactly the way I feel after having been an avid proponent of the death penalty for most of my adult life. Even without all of the evidence of intentional misconduct on the part of law enforcement, crime labs, prosecutors, and even judges the inevitability of mistakes makes any “final” option one that we, as a society should not be willing to even consider.
I tell my teenagers about these cases; my seventeen year old stated that she wants to become a judge, so that she can change things. It took some explaining for her to see that judges do not make law, and are very circumscribed insofar as implementation of existing law. The only place to effect real change, I told her, is to go to that cesspit we call Washington DC and convince the organized crime families (commonly pronounced “Congress”) that we are not capable of properly administering a death penalty system.
Maybe if enough of us teach our children, we can salvage the next generation; I have almost given up on this one.
The crime lab employees in North Carolina have the same qualified immunity that police officers have, as opposed to the absolute immunity that prosecutors enjoy.
No one will hang for this, except for a few prisoners.
My own opinion, FWIW, is that the police are substantially correct about 80% of the time in the charges they bring; and that people who are truly wrongfully convicted are about 20% of the convictions.
In other words, the impact of the whole vaunted “process” – prosecutors, lawyers, judges and juries is probably close to zero, as a practical and statistical matter. Aside from a few bright lights like our host here on this blog, nothing stops the freight train like momentum of a criminal prosecution.
Bottom line: the criminal justice system is as good – or as bad – as the police.
Throwing around numbers without any basis is the sort of stuff that leads to trouble. Your point can be equally well made without the 80/20 split, and I don’t think many around here will argue that if it’s only 10%, or 5% who are wrongfully convicted, that’s an acceptable failure rate.