The FBI Crime Lab:The Dark Years

     Until the mid-1990s all of the forensic scientists working in the FBI Crime Lab had at least three years experience in the field as ordinary special agents. Staffing the lab with former criminal investigators (J. Edgar Hoover's idea) was supposed to make them better forensic practitioners. Critics of this policy believed it made them part of a law enforcement team instead of independent forensic scientists. Moreover, by basing the hiring criteria on special agent qualifications, the FBI Lab was not attracting or being staffed by first-rate scientists.

Agent Versus Agent

     Special Agent Michael P. Malone earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in biology, and taught high school science for two years before he joined the FBI in 1970. After working four years in the field as a criminal investigator he was assigned to the FBI Crime Lab. During his 25 years as a hair and fiber analyst, Michael Malone testified in hundreds of criminal trials. He became popular as a prosecution expert, testifying in dozens of high profile cases where the fate of the defendant depended upon his identification of a crime scene hair or fiber. As an expert witness he was confident and hard to rattle, and he knew how to impress a jury.

     In the early 1990s, Frederic Whitehurst, an FBI Lab bomb residue analyst who identified chemical components of explosive substances, alerted lab supervisors regarding problems in the trace evidence section of the facility. Whitehurst complained that the laboratory was so dirty, physical evidence was always in danger of contamination. Whitehurst was especially critical of hair and fiber analyst Michael Malone whom he accused of allowing his loyalty to police and prosecutors attenuate his independence and objectivity as a forensic scientist. In memos to the director of the lab, Frederic Whitehurst pointed out that hair and fiber identification was an inexact and subjective process, making this form of crime scene identification highly unreliable. The whistleblower noted that Malone's testimony had sent many defendants to prison, some of whom might have been innocent.

     When Whitehurst's internal complaints fell on deaf ears, he began writing long, detailed letters to Michael Bromwich, the U. S. Department of Justice inspector general. Between 1991 and 1994 Mr.  Whitehurst wrote Bromwich 237 letters. In September 1995 the inspector general launched an investigation after ABC's "Prime Time Live," having learned of these letters, aired a story about Whitehurst's campaign to improve the FBI Lab. In April 1997, almost six years after Whitehurst began documenting problems in the nation's largest crime lab, Michael Bromwich issued a 517-page report critical of the laboratory. The inspector general singled out seven lab employees, including Michael Malone, whom he described as having provided "false testimony." He recommended Malone for disciplinary action.

     Two years later a second Department of Justice investigation revealed that Special Agent Malone had made hair and fiber identification errors in four homicide cases in the Tampa Bay area. In the same report detailing these findings, Department of Justice investigators also criticized Whitehurst for overstating the forensic implications of his scientific analysis. Whitehurst, who had been transferred to the paint identification unit of the lab, was suspended. After the bureau denied his petition for reinstatement, Whitehurst retired and entered private practice. To some, Frederick Whitehurst was a hero. To the FBI however, he was a traitor. He was a whistleblower, the lowest form of bureaucratic life.

     Michael Malone denied lying under oath or playing fast and loose with hair and fiber evidence. He blamed the FBI Lab scandal on jealous colleagues whom he described as incompetent. Regarding those cases in which DNA analysis had exonerated defendants whose hair he had identified as being at crime scenes, Malone blamed overzealous prosecutors who overstated the implications of his findings. Following the inspector general's investigations and recommendations, Michael Malone was reassigned back to the field. He retired in December 1999. To the FBI, Special Agent Malone was the hero.

     Today, the head of the FBI Crime Lab hires employees on the basis of their backgrounds in science. (The lab also contracts out work to private laboratories.) Even for non-agent crime lab employees, maintaining scientific objectivity is not easy. But there is no question that the lab is far superior now than it was during those dark years. And as is often the case in governmental scandals that result in improved conditions, it was a courageous whistleblower who made it possible.    

J. Edgar Hoover's FBI Crime Laboratory

     Shortly after becoming the FBI's fourth director in 1924, J. Edgar Hoover envisioned a national crime laboratory under the auspicies of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hoover had been influenced by August Vollmer, the innovative chief of the Berkeley, California Police Department and John H. Wigmore, author and professor at Northwestern University Law School.

     August Vollmer and John Wigmore pioneered the formation of the Scientific Crime Detection Lab formed in Chicago in the wake of the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre. These practitioner/scholars believed the developing fields within forensic science, coupled with highly trained criminal investigators, would someday bring victory over crime. Hoover had already made the image of the latent fingerprint the unofficial logo of the FBI. A FBI crime laboratory would advance Hoover's goal to create the ideal crime fighter--a highly educated, well-trained scientific crime detection professional.

     In April 1931 Director Hoover sent Special Agent Charles A. Appel, Jr. to Chicago to enroll in a short course sponsored by the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory that at the time was a private, fee-charging lab partially funded by the University of Chicago. Most of the lab's cases consisted of forensic document examination, firearm identification (then called forensic ballistics) and research and development in the polygraph, a newly developing field of scientific lie detection. (In 1938 the Scientific Crime Detection Lab was taken over by the Chicago Police Department.) Hoover also sent agent Special Agent Appel to police departments in St. Louis (in 1906 the first police department to establish a fingerprint identification bureau), New Orleans and Detroit, the only law enforcement agencies besides Berkeley and Los Angeles that operated crime labs.

     The FBI Technical Laboratory, with Charles Appel as its head, opened its doors on November 24, 1932 (in 1942 it was renamed the FBI Laboratory) in a nine-by-nine foot room in the Southern Railway Building at Thirteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. Special Agent Appel, its director and only employee, performed firearm identification work. Appel used the newly invented comparison microscope and a device designed for the examination of gun barrel interiors. To produce forensic exhibits of bullets he utilized basic photographic equipment. The FBI Lab, as advertised by Hoover, provided evidence analysis and testimony for the bureau as well as for any local law enforcement agency that requested forensic analysis. Hoover also promised research and development in the various forensic science fields. His ambitious undertaking eventually made the FBI an indispensable and highly visible cog in the nation's crime fighting machine.

     By 1940 the laboratory, now located at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, employed firearm identification experts, questioned document examiners, forensic chemists, physicists, metallurgists specializing in tool mark identification, forensic geologists (soil examinations), hair and fiber analysts, forensic serologists (blood and bodily fluids examinations) and latent fingerprint identification experts. The laboratory, employing over a hundred people, had gotten so large Hoover divided the lab into three sections: questioned documents; physics and chemistry; and latent fingerprint identification. At this time only fifteen police departments and sixteen states operated crime labs. The FBI Lab continued to grow. By 1958 it employed two hundred scientific, clerical and administrative personnel.

     The FBI Laboratory, by the end of the 1980's, had grown into the busiest and most famous crime lab in the world. It had also become one of the top tourist attractions in Washington, DC. But even in its heyday, because of the quantity of forensic examinations and laboratory hiring criteria, there were problems with the quality of some of the work. The FBI Lab was the biggest and the most famous, but not the best. Overwhelmed by a staggering caseload, Hoover did not hire top-rate scientists. Moreover, there was not time for research and development. This led to some bad science and a problem with scientific objectivity.

     The FBI lab had to compete for personnel with a growing number of city, county and state crime labs. Because the FBI only hired lab employees who also met the criteria for the position of special agent, not all of the lab personnel had sufficient scientific backgrounds.  All FBI Lab personnel (except clerical employees) were first sent into the field to work as agents for three years. Many of these agents had to be dragged kicking and screaming back to DC to work inside the lab. Some of these agents used their degrees in science to get into the FBI to become investigators, not bureau crime lab criminalists. Moreover, the close identification with law enforcement created by three years in the field worked against scientific objectivity. (The FBI, after Hoover's death, changed its crime lab hiring criteria.)

     J. Edgar Hoover died in office in May 1972. By 1990 there was nothing left of his reputation and status as an American law enforcement pioneer. The mere mention of his name on a TV sitcom or a late night talk show brought instant laughter. Once a powerful and innovative man, Hoover, like so many other American historical figures--Charles Lindbergh for one--had been reduced by a tabloid culture and hack journalism into a character you might find in an underground comic book. The post-Hoover image of the FBI agent, while having lost some of its luster, did not go down with the Hoover ship. Notwithstanding his fall from grace, Hoover's most profound contribution to the art and science of criminal investigation, the FBI Crime Laboratory, is still considered the gold standard of forensic science in America.

Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan: Crime Lab Rogues

     Last August, authorities in Massachusetts shut down the state crime lab in Jamaica Plain. A month later, state police officers arrested Annie Dookhan on charges related to the forensic chemist's deliberate mishandling of drug evidence, and her failure to follow lab testing protocols. During her tenure at the Jamaica Plain lab, Dookhan had handled more than 50,000 drug samples involving some 34,000 defendants. Now all of these cases are in jeopardy.

     On January 20, 2013, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley announced that state police officers had arrested forensic chemist Sonja Farak. The 35-year-old had been a drug analyst at the state lab in Amherst. The officers arrested Farak at her home in Northhampton on charges she had stolen cocaine and heroin from evidence she had certified. The forensic chemist had replaced the stolen contraband with counterfeit substances. Farak, a state chemist since 2002, was held on $75,000 bail pending her arraignment.

     Two weeks before Farak's arrest, federal inspectors had given the Amherst lab a clean bill of health. After the closing of the Jamaica Plain and Amherst facilities, police and prosecutors in Massachusetts are left with the crime lab in Sudbury, the only laboratory still open in the state.

     In 2012, crime laboratory auditors reported serious quality control problems in the Michigan state system as well as in labs in St. Paul, Minnesota, Houston, Texas, Raleigh, North Carolina, Hartford, Connecticut, Los Angeles and New York City. Over the past ten years, dozens of crime labs across the country lost their accreditation or were temporarily closed. These crime lab failures represent a serious breakdown in American forensic science.

     While there has been some budget cutting that affects street policing, SWAT operations, anti-terrorism programs, and drug enforcement, crime labs have suffered the most from economic austerity. The lack of adequate crime lab funding has created personnel shortages, diminished training, physical plant deterioration, and attenuated administrative oversight.

     The crime lab scandals in Massachusetts illustrate how much damage a couple of rogue forensic practitioners can inflict on a criminal justice system overwhelmed by the government's massive war on drugs.  

The Crime Lab Crisis: Too Many Cases, Not Enough Money

     So far this year, forensic science auditors have reported serious quality control problems in crime labs throughout the state of Michigan, St. Paul, Minnesota, Houston, Texas, Raleigh, North Carolina, Los Angeles, California, and Boston, Massachusetts. Over the past few years, dozens of crime laboratories across the country have lost their accreditation or have been closed. There have been major problems in drug testing units as well as in the fields of toxicology, DNA analysis, latent fingerprint processing, and firearms identification.

     While there has been some budget cutting that affects street policing, SWAT operations, anti-terrorism programs, and drug enforcement, crime labs have suffered the most from economic austerity. The lack of adequate crime lab funding has created personnel shortages, diminished training, physical plant deterioration, and attenuated administrative oversight.

     Overworked, and in many cases under-qualified lab personnel have produced scientifically unreliable results which have put tens of thousands of criminal cases in jeopardy. Moreover, virtually every crime lab in the country is plagued with substantial caseload backlogs which has seriously eroded the nation's criminal investigative services. Detectives are gathering the physical evidence, but getting it tested is a problem. While investigators wait for crime lab results, criminals remain at large committing more crimes. Crime labs have been closed down because forensic scientists have been caught taking short cuts, lying under oath, and mishandling evidence. As a result, the nation's crime investigation services have become less productive.

     On August 30, 2012, in Massachusetts, after revelations that a forensic chemist had deliberately mishandled drug samples, and failed to follow testing protocols, the state crime lab was shut down. Between 2003 and 2012, this lab analyst had handled more than 50,000 drug samples involving some 34,000 defendants. Now all of these cases are in jeopardy.

     The crime lab problem in Massachusetts reveals how much damage a single forensic scientist can cause. It also shows the effects of a grossly imbalanced criminal justice system. The government spends an enormous amount of tax dollars catching drug dealers and their customers which in turn overloads our underfunded crime laboratories. While television series like "CSI" has created high forensic science expectations among the general public, American criminal investigation, as it is actually practiced, is becoming less scientific and more militaristic. In the relatively short history of American forensic science, the golden era lays behind us, and the future looks bleak.   

Problems at the St. Paul Crime Lab

     The crime lab in St. Paul, Minnesota is operated by the police department. Between 2007 and 2011, the laboratory has handled more than 16,000 cases involving 200,000 pieces of physical evidence. In the spring of 2011, a pair of Dakota County public defenders, Lauri Traub and Christine Funk, began raising questions regarding the reliability of results coming out of the lab's drug testing unit. Members of the Dakota County Drug Task Force had also expressed concerns over the quality of the lab's drug analysis.

     The lab in St. Paul is one of 18 in the state of Minnesota that has not been accredited by the American Society of Crime Lab Directors, a process of authentication that can take up to two years. After public defenders Traub and Funk visited the lab in March 2012, they asked a Dakota County judge to hold a special hearing to determine if the findings of the drug testing operation can be trusted.

     On July 17, at the special crime lab hearing, attorney Traub questioned Sergeant Jay Siegel, the director of the lab. Siegel, a former patrol officer who once worked as a latent fingerprint examiner, testified that he had no formal education in science. Attorney Traub presented the lab director with a list of 51 scientific protocols that must be adhered to before a crime lab meets the minimum standards of proficiency and credibility. Sergeant Siegel was forced to admit that the St. Paul Lab had been ignoring all but two of the 51 protocols. He testified that three of the criminalists who tested narcotics seized by the police had little formal training in drug analysis. The lab director also acknowledged that the facility had not been keeping proper records, and that personnel regularly misused the drug testing equipment. In Siegel's opinion, results coming out of this unit could not be trusted.

     At the conclusion of the forensic science court hearing, Police Chief Thomas Smith suspended the lab's drug testing operation, and appointed a police commander to take over the administration of the facility. The chief reassigned Sergeant Siegel to another police job. Chief Thomas also ordered an internal review of the beleaguered operation.

     This crime laboratory will never be credible as long as it's run by the police department, and remains unaccredited. Because almost all criminal justice resources are earmarked for uniformed policing, and crime labs are extremely expensive to operate, the future of the St. Paul facility looks bleak. 

More Crime Lab Problems

     Crime laboratories in the United States are underfunded and understaffed. This has produced serious backlogs, sloppy work, and bad forensic science. Defense attorneys across the country are routinely challenging the scientific reliability of crime lab results. Convictions have been overturned based on bad forensic science. Several crime lab units have been temporarily shut down, and denied accreditation. Recently, the troubled crime lab in Houston was taken from the police department and put into the hands of an independent group of civic leaders. (See: "The Houston Crime Lab: The Nation's Worst," June 18, 2012.)

The Michigan State Police Forensic Science Division

     The seven crime labs in the state of Michigan under the control of the Michigan State Police are at risk of losing their accreditation by the Laboratory Accreditation Board of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors. If this happens, the Michigan crime lab system will lose its scientific credibility, and could even be shut down.

     In December 2011, the seven laboratories were examined by inspectors with the Laboratory Accreditation Board which issued 118 "Corrective Action Requests." (This information would not have been made public had The Detroit News not filed a Freedom of Information Act suit.) The crime labs have been slow or unable to address the problems. As a result, the board has given the state three accreditation extensions, the last and final extension granted last April. If the problems are not fixed soon, the entire Michigan crime lab operation, and the state's criminal justice system, will be in trouble. If this happens, Michigan's crime lab work might have to be farmed out to other labs, including the FBI laboratory which is itself overwhelmed and struggling with backlogs.

     While Michigan state police administrators have insisted that the problems in the crime labs are more clerical than substantive, many of the shortcomings involve issues of quality control. The accreditation inspectors found that some of the facilities were improperly storing hazardous chemicals. In the lab in Grand Rapids, food was being kept in a refrigerator that contained chemical supplies. There were also problems with measures to prevent lab contamination and evidence tampering. Inspectors saw unescorted visitors roaming the laboratories.

    Most of the lab inadequacies involved various forms of record keeping and lab result reporting, problems that reflect sloppy work, lack of supervision, and understaffing. In the Michigan Forensic Science Division, there is currently a backlog of 10,000 cases. Criminal investigators and prosecutors, to function effectively, need prompt crime lab results, especially in the fields of DNA and toxicology. Backlogs slow down an investigation, and in some cases, accrue to the benefit of suspects and defendants.

     The rates of violent crime across the country are dropping, but the rates of drug abuse are rising, cases that require crime lab analysis. Moreover, prosecutors, to meet jury expectations, are telling detectives to gather as much physical evidence as possible. Crime labs are having a difficult time keeping up with these demands. The public's high expectations for forensic science, thanks to the "CSI" TV shows (ten years ago no one knew what CSI stood for), the nation's crime labs are under a lot of pressure.       

The Houston Crime Lab: The Nation's Worst

     The fact that forensic science is a service commonly delivered by government agencies makes solving its problems a real challenge. Government is slow, resistant to change, and difficult to hold accountable. The stratified nature of our criminal justice system--federal, state, county, and local levels of law enforcement--and the adversarial nature of the trial process, exacerbates the difficulties of improving crime lab services. Most problems in forensic science can be placed into three general categories: personnel, jurisprudence (courts and law), and science itself. The principal source of the problems within the Houston Police Department's crime laboratory have involved personnel.

     Since 2003, the Houston Crime Laboratory has been a disgrace to forensic science. At times the lab's services have been so subpar the entire operation has been shut down. Physical evidence has been lost, tampered with, and contaminated. Convictions have been overturned due to discredited forensic analysis. Lab personnel have resigned, been suspended, and indicted. Because of a decade of scandal, corruption, and incompetence, innocent defendants have been convicted, and guilty persons set free.

     Forensic science is supposed to improve the quality of criminal justice, not make it worse. If you want to know what can go bad in forensic science, study the recent history of the Houston Crime Laboratory. It's a textbook of failure.  

     In the field of DNA analysis, the backbone of any major forensic science operation, the work of the Houston lab has been particularly atrocious. In 2008, plagued by backlogs, evidence contamination, and inaccurate test results, the DNA unit had to be closed. There have also been persistent problems in the latent fingerprint, firearms identification, and toxicology sections of the lab. In 2010, an audit disclosed 7,000 untested rape kits sitting in the evidence room. That year a lab supervisor quit over the number in inaccurate blood-alcohol test results.

     On June 6, 2012, the Houston City Council voted 15-2 to hand control of the crime lab to an independent 9-member board. The $21 million a year operation will be overseen by lawyers, academics, business people, and a state legislator. I would  hope that at least some of these board members know something about forensic science. Only time will tell if taking control of the crime lab from the Houston Police Department will end a decade of forensic science disgrace. Separating lab personnel from the direct influence of law enforcement should make these scientists more objective. Perhaps the reorganization will mark the start of a new era of forensic science in Houston.