TED talk with Professor Ruth Morgan - The dangers of misinterpreted forensic evidence
You vs Science
Not all of us are going to commit a crime, but every single one of us could be accused of one, says Ruth.
Ruth paints the scenario you sit in a seat at a cinema for example. A stand of your hair falls out and the hair is picked up by the clothing of the next person to sit in that seat. You leave the cinema and go home none the wiser. But that same night, the person who your hair is now attached to goes and commits a crime. Your hair is left at the scene, linking you to the crime. Youre stood in court while the expert explains to the judge how your hair, your DNA, is cast iron proof you committed the crime. But you know youre innocent.
This, sadly, is a scenario too many people are all too familiar with.
Misinterpretation of forensic evidence is the biggest problem facing forensic science
For Ruth, forensic science is undeniably a technological success story. We can now identify smaller traces of material, more accurately and quicker than ever before.
But, forensic science has got a problem. Its a problem that has gone under the radar and its a problem that has the potential to impact thousands of innocent people.
Ruth shared a shocking fact - 96% of forensic evidence is misinterpreted. That tells us forensic science has got a problem that technology alone cant fix.
What we really need to know is if we find gunshot residue on you, how did it get there and when did it get there. Ruth explained the issue: that, at the moment, we dont have the data that we need to be able to answer that question sufficiently.
Forensic science evidence isnt always going to be interpreted accurately so we need a change.
For Ruth, we need to change what our primary focus is, from being on what something is and who it belongs to, and we need to get serious about getting the answers we need to the how and the when.
If we can do that, then we will have the opportunity to dramatically reduce the chances of evidence being misinterpreted.
We need to do that so that each one of us never has to stand in court as that innocent person in the dock.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xclg8ikPAvI
https://o-behave.tumblr.com/post/173319397192/nudgestock-2018-professor-ruth-morgan
Ruth Morgan
Excerpts:
Imagine youre in court, accused of a crime that you know you didnt commit. Now imagine a scientist takes the stand and starts explaining to the court how your DNA is on the murder weapon. (This sounds very similar to the old Simon Hall campaign website)
Forensic science is nothing short of a technological success story; it is possible to detect and identify forensic traces at greater levels of resolution and accuracy than ever before, and we can capture, retain and search more data than at any other time in history. These capabilities are transforming what forensic science can do. However, at the same time, forensic science is facing a huge challenge.
Forensic science sits at the intersection of science, law, policing, government and policy. It is a complex ecosystem that has competing demands and drivers to deliver science to assist the justice system. A recent inquiry by the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee in the UK recognized that forensic science is in a state of crisis, to such a degree that it is undermining trust in our justice systems. This crisis is multifaceted, and while some of the results of the crisis have been reported, such as miscarriages of justice, instances of malpractice, and failures of quality standards, there is an aspect of the crisis that has been overlooked. A recent study in the UK identified all the cases upheld by the Court of Appeal where criminal evidence was critical in the original trial over a seven-year period. In 22% of those cases, the evidence was misinterpreted. These cases are only the tip of the iceberg and indicate a broader root cause of the crisis forensic science is facing.
Given how the justice system shapes our societies, the stakes are far too high to ignore the crisis in forensic science. The integrity of the forensic science system is critical to the delivery of justice and public trust, and so this is an urgent challenge for the global community. Like plastics in our oceans, this is a problem that has gone under the radar for far too long. The time for action is now.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-forensic-science-is-in-crisis-and-how-we-can-fix-it/
Forensic fudging June 2017
Funding appeal for dedicated independent scientific evidence labIn recent years we have seen the privatisation of water, energy, railways and even the Royal Mail, which has led to soaring prices, cartel formation and a lack of competition, in spite of all the government claims to the contrary.
For prisoners, we even enjoy our own example of privatisation with the ever-soaring prices of prison canteen items whilst the last proposed pay rise for prisoners, which never happened, was more than 25-years ago.
While price rises may hit the prisoner and public in their pocket, there is one area where privatisation plays fast and loose with peoples lives and that is in the past privatisation of the Forensic Science Service (FSS).
The FSS was not perfect and provided a mostly independent and impartial service even if there were the occasional questionable practises in laboratories like Huntingdon. In one episode, a chemist turned firearms expert disappeared from Huntingdon Laboratories when he realised he was under investigation in 9 cases, only to turn up years later working for the Metropolitan Police in their Lambeth Laboratory.
However, with privatisation, impartiality and ethics is now lacking in some companies who seek to maximise their profits and secure closer business ties with their principle customers, the 43 police forces in the UK. Any laboratory which consistently supports police cases is going to enjoy regular business from their clients the police. There are no checks, balances or regulations for rotating forensic laboratories.
As I write, more than 6,000 forensic samples are to be re-examined after two employees of Randox Forensic Services have been placed under criminal investigation by Greater Manchester Police on suspicion of manipulating data.
There are many thousands of cases affected which range from rape and murder to minor cases like drug-driving, with thousands of convictions suspected to be unsafe.
Helping the evidence along is an old practise in forensic science circles where a lab assistant or scientist forms a view of the evidence and particularly when giving evidence in court will seek to sway the jury by omitting or talking up forensic results to support their view.
This forensic fudging has long been recognised by academics involved in forensic science, like Ruth Morgan, Director of University College, Londons Centre for Forensic Services. Dr Morgan recently highlighted the fact that DNA sequencing and analytical chemistry has improved exponentially in recent years, with more than 55,000 genetic matches every year. What concerns Dr Morgan and her colleagues is detailed understanding of what this evidence actually means.
Misinterpretation of DNA evidence is very easy, shake hands with someone, your DNA is transferred to their hand and vice versa. Hand someone a coat and your DNA is now on the garment and their DNA is transferred to your hand. If your DNA is subsequently found on a victim or a murder weapon, how do you prove your innocence?
Dr Morgans views appear to be shared by the Metropolitan Polices Director of Forensic Services, Gary Pugh, who warned that the system had reached a low point in the past 5 years, and was suffering degradation due to a lack of support.
There are many cases of forensic fudging that I could use as examples in this article. In 2015, the FBI admitted that its experts had overstated the evidence in 95% of microscopic hair sample analysis cases resulting in more than 200 unsafe convictions with 14 defendants dying in prison or executed.
In Britain, we have cases like that of
Barry George, convicted by a microscopic particle of gunshot residue, talked up by an expert with no mention of possible cross-contamination in a laboratory handling gunshot samples. We could look at the laboratory in Kent where for 2-years contaminated equipment had been routinely used. There are dozens of similar fiascos, but here is a specific example.
In 2000, shop assistant Rachel Manning had been found strangled on a golf-course near Milton Keynes. Her boyfriend,
Barri White, was charged with murder and convicted due to the compelling evidence of a dozen micro-particles of the rare-earth elements Cerium and Lanthanum found on Rachels skirt and also found on the seat of a van belonging to Barri Whites friend, Keith Hyatt, who was also convicted.
At trial the prosecution forensics witness talked up the presence of Cerium and Lanthanum as highly unusual and stated that these materials could only have been deposited on the victims clothing minutes before her body was dumped.
In 2003,
Ruth Morgan, then an Oxford University PhD student, found herself testing dozens of cigarette lighters to destruction, flicking them over and over again.
What the prosecutions expert witness had failed to disclose to the court was that though Cerium is indeed a rare-earth metal of the Lanthanides series, atomic number 58. However, it is as abundant as copper, found in many ores and is 3-times more abundant than lead. It oxidises rapidly and strongly so is used in illumination, ignition and signalling devices such as flares. Misch metal, used in lighter flints, is 50% Cerium. Lanthanum, atomic number 57, is routinely found in Cerium oxide. Furthermore, each time a lighter is struck, the flint sheds up to 4,000 metal particles which can persist for at least 18 hours. A classic case of forensic fudging.
Barri White and Keith Hyatts convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2007 due to the evidence above, and in 2013, Shahidul Ahmed was convicted of Rachel Mannings murder.
Dr Ruth Morgan and university College London are now asking the public to assist to raise 1million to fund a new laboratory housing a scanning electron microscope and liquid chromatograph for minute scrutiny of gunshot and other residues. The intention is to provide independent, bespoke scientific reports. One of the principal aims is to answer questions relating to transfer and persistence of DNA and other particles passing from one surface to another.
The establishment of such a facility will be academically driven rather than commercially driven as is now the case with privatised forensic companies seeking to make a profit.
https://insidetime.org/forensic-fudging/Michelle Diskin Bates (10th Sept 2013)
All of us who choose to stand up for justice need to take this on the chin, and move onback to those who deserve to have their cases reviewed and quashed. Our justice system uses smoke and mirrors, rather than real honest evidence to convict. The
B George case is onebut the parallels with the
Barri White/Keith Hyatt conviction are evident; the case was fitted around the defendants, and not around the evidence. I eagerly await the governments response to Barri and Keiths new claim for compensation. Keith was released at the court of appeal, but Barri went on to re-trial. Does this mean that Keith will be successful but Barris claim will not? After all, if the legal view is that the CPS were not wrong to prosecute Barry George,because they had evidence, and he is not a MOJ because he went for re-trial, then poor Barri will face the same prospectwont he?
https://theerrorsthatplaguethemiscarriageofjusticemovement.home.blog/2019/05/13/telling-public-statement-made-by-michelle-diskin-bates-sister-of-barry-george-following-simon-halls-confession/2015 THIS IDEA MUST DIE:
Forensic evidence is always irrefutable Forensic science still has a long way to go to always make a watertight case, says Dr Ruth Morgan.
Forensic sciences reputation is on trial. In April this year, the FBI admitted its hair comparison unit had given flawed testimony in trials going back 20 years, including 33 cases where defendants were sentenced to death. And in the UK, in 2007, Barri Whites forensic-based conviction seven years earlier for killing his girlfriend, Rachel Manning, was quashed. White was cleared of the murder, after which police resumed their hunt and ultimately convicted Shahidul Ahmed for the murder in 2013.
These, and other such cases, have thrust forensic evidence into the spotlight. If the proliferation of TV crime dramas from NCIS to Dexter are to be believed, the forensic scientist is king (or queen). Theirs is the most damning evidence, the result of highly specialist crime scene analysis that always delivers incontrovertible facts.
But however complex a fictional crime drama might be, what happens at crime scenes, in laboratories and in courts is far more complex and more nuanced. Investigators and juries need to stop believing that forensic evidence is always irrefutable. And forensic science needs to continue addressing both the validity and the interpretation of forensic evidence. We need a stronger evidence base: more robust science to underpin the techniques and interpretations of evidence that people rely on in court.
In the majority of cases in which forensic evidence is critical, forensic science offers valuable intelligence evidence. However, Im aware of the damage forensic evidence can do when people believe it is always infallible.
In 2007, the evidence in the Rachel Manning case was re-examined. In the original trial the most crucial evidence concerned some metallic particles found on Mannings skirt and in a van belonging to Barri Whites friend, Keith Hyatt. A forensic expert said the particles were extremely rare and this helped put White and Hyatt in prison. But our research found that far from being rare, the particles in question were incredibly abundant. At least 4,000 of them are produced each time a disposable cigarette lighter is used and they can stay on peoples clothing for more than 18 hours. It was enough to quash the conviction and open the way for the real killer to be found.
Thats what the UCL Centre for the Forensic Sciences, part of the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, is all about. Much forensic science in the UK is about developing new technology and new ways of finding more information. Our aim is to understand how evidence behaves and how we interact with evidence in casework, so we can ensure that our interpretation of what forensic evidence means in a case is robust and is based on empirical evidence; thats crucial to preventing miscarriages of justice.
As well as looking at old cases, we also do a lot of work on DNA transfer. Fifteen years ago, DNA technology meant you needed a reasonable amount of material to get a DNA profile. Today, you can generate profiles from trace amounts of DNA. That sensitivity is powerful, but it also raises issues for the interpretation of that evidence in a forensic context.
In one project weve been trying to understand how much DNA the regular as opposed to the last wearer leaves behind on a garment. Its been assumed the major DNA profile would be from the last wearer, but our research shows it depends on the person.
Miscarriages of justice like the Manning case are terrible examples of how forensic evidence can be misinterpreted and presented as unequivocal when it is not. For all our advances in technology, we still lack the evidence base for a lot of whats being looked at. Our research is providing that evidence base for the robust interpretation of what trace evidence means when it is found. And thats why I believe that the idea that forensic evidence is always irrefutable must die.
Dr Ruth Morgan is director of the UCL Centre for Forensic Science