D.P.T.F.
Detroit People's Task Force Inc. CDC
People's Task Force to
Investigate Crime Labs (Original Name)
Our objectives:
* Free the wrongfully convicted
* Stop the destruction and mishandling of forensic evidence
* Prosecute the law enforcement personnel responsible for past and present abuses
* Compel independent oversight of law enforcement and forensic laboratories
* Separate forensic laboratories from law enforcement agencies
History
In April 2008 it was learned that forensic testing had been falsified by the Detroit Police Depeartment Crime Lab. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy refused to join in requesting a federal investigaion and instead requested a "random audit" by the Michigan State Police. To the dismay of law enforcement, the audit showed that 10% of the cases handled by the Detroit Police Department Lab resulted in false identifications. To quiet public discontent over the situation, Detroit officials falsely announced that DPD Lab ws "closed" in April 2008, and then re-closed in October. In fact, the lab remained open for months afterwards. The lab was utltimately dismantled/
To date, no independent agency has been asked to investigate. Instead, the Prosecutor announced the formation of an internal review team to look at 5 years worth of cases and in March 2008 claimed the 147 cases need "retesting".
More than thirty incarcerted state prisoners have come forward whose cases had been compromised by false or falsified forensic testing. In case after case, review of trial transcripts reveals that forearms examiners testified to identifications that were unsupported by the science of firearms comparison.
The families of these incarcerated men began a grassroots movement to reverse the injustices committed by law enforcement agencies and their labs. This led to the formation of the Detroit-based People's Task Force to Investigate Crime Labs, a collaboration of families, community justice advocates, and legal and forensic professionals dedicated to the plight of the wrongfully convicted.
On the Separation of Labs and Law Enforcement
This Task Force joins the National Academy of Sciences in calling for the SEPARATION of crime labs from law enforcement. The National Academy of Sciences February 18, 2009 Report on Strengthening the Forensic Sciences in the United States: a Path Forward was commissioned by the United States Congress in response to the flood of crime lab disasters around the nation. It says, "Forensic scientists who sit administratively in law enforcement agencies or prosecutors' offices, or who are hired by those units, are subject to a general risk of bias."
"substantive information and testimony based on faulty forensic sciencd analyses may have contributed to wrongfully convictions of innocent people... Moreover, imprecise or exaggerated expert testimony has sometimes contributed to the admission of erroneous or misleading evidence."
The Report calls for the creation of an independent National Institute of Forensic Sciences that would "not be a part of any law enforcement agency" because "the potential for conflicts of interest between the needs of law enforcement and the broader needs of forensic science are too great."