The individuals whose work product was investigated mainly were personnel from the FBI's Explosives Unit. Among these individuals were folks who altered the work product of other examiners with the knowledge of those examiners, testified outside their areas of expertise, bullied fellow examiners to render opinions which their data did not support, had no experience, training or education in any field of science and generally should not have been employed in the crime lab. More significantly (if that is possible) these individuals did not work many cases. In fact a large portion of the cases reviewed by US DOJ Brady task force were cases worked by one forensic hair examiner after it was found that that examiner had presented false and misleading testimony in the trial of then Federal Judge Alcee Hastings. I have the results of some of the reviews of that individual's work product. All bad. (You can find the story of that hair examiner in the March 4 and 5, 2001 articles "Good Cop, Bad Cop" in the St. Petersburg Times. The article was written by Sydney Freedberg and is on line.) Anyhow, the Explosives Unit examiners had very light case loads. That means that if there were other individuals in the crime lab whose work product was just as bad as the Explosives Unit examiners' work product, the potential exists for the mere 46,000 flawed cases to be actually in the hundreds of thousands because most examiners had significantly higher case loads.

Let's project those numbers and threat to our justice system to today. This is not history. As of today, Dr. Adams tells you that the FBI lab has moved into a brand new state-of-the-art crime lab. He tells you that the lab is now accredited and that quality systems in place make the work product that much more trustworthy. In the same breath Dr. Adams tells you that he trusted the work product of the lab even in the midst of the revelations. He has to say those things. He is on the fast track. But what is he really saying? The FBI lab is accredited by the American Society of Crime Lab Directors-Lab. Has anyone on this list seen the results of any audits conducted on the FBI crime lab or any other crime lab for that matter? The ASCLD-Lab group does not tell you the crime lab is doing its job correctly. The audit simply tells you that you, counsel reviewing the work product, can now successfully audit that work product. The documents are now in place which allow you, if you wish, to audit the work product of the lab to determine if the lab product used by the government in its case against your client is flawed or not, is dependable or not. In the spirit of Daubert, 1.) Can it be tested? [ASCLD audit says it can.], 2.) Has it been tested and what is the error rate? We still don't know. We still don't know. Despite Dr. Adams assurances to the contrary, all we have from him is the word of an individual whose very job security depends upon his touting the company line. Unless and until we have the data from an external independent audit process, a process which every other human enterprise involved in the health, safety and welfare of citizens in this nation is subjected to, we will not know if the FBI crime lab or any crime lab is giving us a good work product.

Well, just a few thoughts.

Frederic Whitehurst, J.D., Ph.D.
Attorney at Law, Forensic Consultant
PO Box 820, Bethel, NC 27812