Crime Lab

When British researchers asked five crime lab examiners to evaluate a series of fingerprints, they were told one pair had been mistakenly matched to a terrorism suspect. The experts reached conflicting results. Only one judged the prints identical. The fingerprint examiners later learned that the samples were prints they each had previously reviewed and found to be the same. The study by Itiel E. Dror and two colleagues underscores what some defense attorneys in Maryland and elsewhere have argued - forensic experts can be influenced, and not in justice's favor.

Rebuffed by Pikesville residents who didn't want a new crime lab in their neighborhood, Maryland State Police have pinpointed another Pikesville site behind a subway station.The state's Office of Real Estate is seeking appraisals on a 10-acre property west of Reisterstown Road and bordered by Dreher Avenue and Milford Mill Road. The site, known as the Phillips property, is about 10 blocks from the current crime lab and two blocks from the site state police had hoped to buy for the facility.

Looking for ways to save money, Baltimore Police crime lab technicians have turned an inexpensive program designed for remodelers into a tool that illustrates homicide, rape and other crime scenes.``It's a homeowners' program used for creating better homes or gardens that we've adapted,'' said crime lab supervisor John French.French stumbled on Floor Plan Plus in 1997 while looking for software to help technicians create courtroom-presentable crime scene renderings. Until then, the illustrations were drawn by hand.

The state is considering scaling back plans to build a $53million police training center, the first of its kind in Maryland, at Springfield Hospital Center in Sykesville, officials confirmed yesterday.Budget deliberations will determine what happens to the Public Safety Training Center, where a $10 million driver training course opened in September, said Ray Feldmann, a spokesman for Gov. Parris N. Glendening.As part of those deliberations, "we are looking at all the projects ,, the state is going to build to make sure they are consistent with Smart Growth," Feldmann said.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening moved yesterday to quell fears that the Maryland State Police might abandon their historic Pikesville headquarters, saying he has told state police officials to stop looking in Carroll County for a new police crime lab site.The announcement -- which surprised officials gathered at a routine business group breakfast in Pikesville -- was hailed by County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger and local Democrats who said it would help preserve old Pikesville.But it was denounced by state Sen. Larry E. Haines, a Carroll County Republican, as a blatant political move by the governor to shore up his base in Baltimore County, where current Republican gubernatorial hopeful Ellen R. Sauerbrey beat Glendening four years ago."

The trial of three Florida brothers accused of savagely killing two Columbia men on spring break this year will be delayed until June because prosecutors and defense attorneys are seeking DNA evidence.In a hearing Monday, a Florida judge granted a request by prosecutors to test the blood of the three men charged in the April slayings of Kevans Hall II, 23, and Matthew Wichita, 21, at a resort in New Smyrna Beach, Fla.That judge also ordered, at the request of defense attorneys, blood samples from two men who have pleaded guilty to attempted murder charges in the slayings, officials said.

John Holt surveyed the scene of a recent Columbia home burglary -- chairs and clothes strewn everywhere by thieves whose work was interrupted by the unexpected return of the homeowner.Holt is one of five Howard County crime lab technicians who work anonymously behind the police tape and flashing lights, gathering evidence at crime scenes. What they find is often crucial to breaking cases.At the house, Holt examined a bag of electronics equipment apparently dropped by the burglars."Your adrenalin is pumping," said Holt.

The state is considering scaling back plans to build a $53million police training center, the first of its kind in Maryland, at Springfield Hospital Center in Sykesville, officials confirmed yesterday.Budget deliberations will determine what happens to the Public Safety Training Center, where a $10 million driver training course opened in September, said Ray Feldmann, a spokesman for Gov. Parris N. Glendening.As part of those deliberations, "we are looking at all the projects ,, the state is going to build to make sure they are consistent with Smart Growth," Feldmann said.

It's not over for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not by a long shot. The FBI's handling of problems in its crime lab, detailed in a withering report by the Justice Department last week, amounts to an FBI "Tailhook," the aviator drinking party that ballooned into a major scandal, sunk the Navy's top officers and forever changed the culture of America's oldest and most elite military service.As in Tailhook, the FBI bomb lab's problems began when it ignored the complaints of one of its own, an FBI scientist.

It's not over for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not by a long shot. The FBI's handling of problems in its crime lab, detailed in a withering report by the Justice Department last week, amounts to an FBI "Tailhook," the aviator drinking party that ballooned into a major scandal, sunk the Navy's top officers and forever changed the culture of America's oldest and most elite military service.As in Tailhook, the FBI bomb lab's problems began when it ignored the complaints of one of its own, an FBI scientist.

The Baltimore Police Department's head of criminal investigations is stepping down, the latest shake-up of the agency's top leadership. Officials confirmed that Col. John M. Bevilacqua - who oversees high-profile investigative units, including the homicide, district detective and sex offense divisions, as well as the crime lab - has decided to retire after 29 years with the Police Department, expressing a desire to spend more time with his family....

The murder was fake, the trial scripted, the kids reading off notes to play their roles of cops, lawyers, witnesses and jurors as part of an exercise to learn the ins and outs of the criminal justice system. But the courtroom and judge were real, and the best moments were unrehearsed. It was the young Chaivez Brown ad-libbing an end to the prosecution's closing argument, telling jurors "it could've been you" at the other end of the bullet that killed the maintenance worker, infusing some passion into the case.

The crime lab technician, Evana Hebb, fingerprinted India Mouton, a 10th-grader from Dunbar High. All five fingers on her right hand rubbed in black ink and pressed hard onto a white sheet of paper in a garage at the headquarters of the Baltimore Police Department. It's part of a monthlong lesson for teenagers at city recreation centers on the criminal justice system - they are following a mock murder from corpse to trial - but for this 15-year-old student, it's the start of what she hopes will be a career as a scientist investigating crime.

When British researchers asked five crime lab examiners to evaluate a series of fingerprints, they were told one pair had been mistakenly matched to a terrorism suspect. The experts reached conflicting results. Only one judged the prints identical. The fingerprint examiners later learned that the samples were prints they each had previously reviewed and found to be the same. The study by Itiel E. Dror and two colleagues underscores what some defense attorneys in Maryland and elsewhere have argued - forensic experts can be influenced, and not in justice's favor.

Baltimore's crime lab suffers from inadequate funding, spotty recordkeeping and broken equipment, according to an independent audit of the embattled facility released by the Police Department yesterday. The report, which the Police Department initially refused to release to the public, found that the lab was inadequately staffed, equipment to analyze narcotics had long been out of order, faulty paperwork sometimes made it difficult to establish a chain of custody for evidence, and evidence was stored in rooms that were too warm, which could cause it to degrade.

Baltimore police named a new director yesterday to lead the city's embattled crime lab, filling a position that has been open since the previous director was fired in August amid questions of oversight. Francis A. Chiafari, who began his new position Jan. 13, has worked with the city crime lab since 1994 when his company, Baltimore Rh Typing Laboratory, won a contract to perform DNA tests for Baltimore criminal cases. He also has served as a technical adviser for the Police Department.

The skull mask left at the Northeast Baltimore scene of former City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr.'s killing does not contain the DNA of either suspect charged in the homicide, according to a crime lab report reviewed yesterday by The Baltimore Sun. Attorneys for the two suspects, Gary Collins and Charles Y. McGaney, entered pleas of not guilty on behalf of their clients yesterday and, afterward, questioned the strength of the evidence against the...

When the largest crime lab in Maryland messes up or does sloppy work, lives may be at stake. That's because the Baltimore Police Department's lab processes evidence from crime scenes that can lead to criminal charges, convictions or a guilty suspect walking free. Whether it's microscopic DNA from a bloody knife, fingerprints or bullet slugs, evidence must be carefully collected and preserved and the samples tested in accordance with the highest scientific and research practices. Confidence in lab results depends on the integrity of the process.

Baltimore police have refused to release a report from an outside group detailing problems in the city's crime lab, arguing that revealing the findings would be "contrary to the public interest," according to a letter from the Police Department's chief attorney, Mark H. Grimes. The Baltimore Sun received the denial yesterday in response to a request for the report under the state's Public Information Act. The decision comes the same week that the department's public affairs office reversed a long-standing policy of releasing the names of officers who shoot or kill people, prompting criticism from some state and city leaders who feared that less disclosure would hurt public trust in the department.

A national legal group that works to reverse wrongful convictions called on state police yesterday to investigate possible "negligence" or "misconduct" in the city's crime lab after revelations that technicians had left their own DNA on evidence in at least 13 cases. Stephen Saloom, policy director for the Innocence Project in New York, wrote that Congress requires Maryland State Police to oversee the lab. Before receiving federal funds for its crime lab, Baltimore certified that the state police would conduct "independent external investigations" into allegations of serious negligence or misconduct, according to the Innocence Project.