
When faced with criticism following the release of Timothy Masters, wrongfully convicted of the 1987 murder of Peggy Hettrick, the former prosecutors who became judges, now former judges ... "Its not like we were hiding anything. A few things weren't provided. Lawyers ought to have known or asked about the evidence because it was referenced in multiple documents they were given."
After the report of the National Institute of Sciences, as I reviewed for 'The Legal Investigator' - 'Just Because its Forensics' (http://www.forensic-investigators.com/uploads/8/7/3/8/8738199/tli_-_just_because_its_forensics_-_12-2010.pdf), these flaws and systemic accountability need recognized in order to address the issue of wrongful convictions.
It is cases like these in which a qualified forensic investigation expert is of great benefit to the legal team. This is recently demonstrated in the news alert below. It is as important to determine what is not provided in discovery, as well as if procedures and protocol were followed, as assessing what is provided in discovery. In addition to these services, we also have a police practices expert available for consultations.
Convicted defendants uninformed of forensic flaws found by Justice Dept.
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.
Officials started reviewing the cases in the 1990s after reports surfaced that sloppy work by examiners at the FBI lab was producing unreliable forensic evidence in court trials. Instead of releasing those findings, they made them available only to the prosecutors in the affected cases, according to documents and interviews with dozens of officials.
This story continues appeared in the Washington Post (By Spencer S. Hsu, April 16, 2012; Staff researcher Jennifer Jenkins and database editor Ted Mellnik
contributed to this report.)http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/convicted-defendants-left-uninformed-of-forensic-flaws-found-by-justice-dept/2012/04/16/gIQAWTcgMT_story.html