To James E. Starrs, a
professor of forensic sciences and law at George
Washington University - Hoover's alma mater - and a
longtime critic of the FBI lab, “There is no doubt that
Whitehurst is onto something; the only question is
whether the problems are deliberate or reckless. The
real issue is the lab's mind-boggling secrecy. In a
sample report on, say, paint analysis, there is no
method identified. There are vague, uncertain
conclusions, but no indicator of who did the tests,” he
says. “The FBI might say a certain fingerprint is less
than a month old, when in fact there is no science that
says that. The FBI waits until it is challenged, and if
it is not challenged, it doesn't have to do the
necessary research and get the supportive data. And it
doesn't ever back down.”
In general, Starrs adds, “the more secrecy, the less
reliability and integrity. The FBI puts itself on a
pedestal with its untouchable forensic science. The
requirements for scientific candor don't apply because
these cops in lab coats generally favor prosecuting.”
Some in the FBI resist the notion of an FBI lab that
could be used equally by defense attorneys. The ideal
lab specialist “stands in the shoes of the investigator
in the field, whom he is serving,” said John J.
McDermott, a senior FBI official. [10] Defenders also
argue that lab analysts have no incentive to cook their
conclusions because they often know very little about
the case surrounding the piece of evidence they're
handling.
“Obviously,” says former special agent McWeeney, “if the
lab has specific problems, they should be fixed - and
perhaps the lab should be opened up. I'm not a guy who
says 'Hey, the FBI's perfect.' But hundreds of men and
women work in the lab, and only a handful work in that
bombing analysis area where there are questions. And
Whitehurst, from what I've seen on TV, doesn't seem very
sharp to me.”
In response to the lab furor, Freeh released a statement
on Jan. 27 outlining recent changes the bureau had made
to improve performance. By 2000, the lab will have moved
from Washington to a larger facility at Quantico, Va. A
new director, possibly an outside expert, is being
sought. A panel of experts - including a British
specialist on terrorism in Northern Ireland - has been
assembled to review lab methodology. Some $30 million
will be spent on technological improvements. For the
first time, the lab will seek accreditation with the
American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors.
Finally, Freeh recused himself from deciding the fate of
Whitehurst and other whistleblowers, given his own stake
in the cases. “I pledge to you,” he told a House
Appropriations subcommittee on March 5, “that I will do
everything in my power to ensure that the FBI lab
remains, as I believe it is, the foremost forensic
laboratory in the world.”
Meanwhile, members of a violent paramilitary group went
on trial in February in Seattle, Wash., marking the
first case in which evidence from the FBI lab has
actually been questioned in court. [11] “It's time the
bureau stopped its narcissistic infatuation with its own
image,” thundered Sen. Grassley.
“It's time to stop selling an inferior product with
false advertising. The American people deserve from
[their] chief law enforcement agency a product with
integrity. . . . This is an issue of leadership.”
James E. Starrs
Professor of law and forensic sciences, George
Washington University,
From “Uninvited and Unwelcome Guests: Biases in the
House of Forensic Sciences,” Speech presented to
American Academy of Sciences, Feb. 20, 1997.
Forensic scientists are expected to keep abreast of the
times, especially when the times are changing under the
impetus of judicial decisions and statutory revisions.
As the front-runner in the field of forensic science,
the FBI lab could be expected to take the lead in
accommodating the old ways to the new rules.
Ruefully, that has not been the policy at the FBI lab.
Change resulting in more open and reviewable practices .
. . seems to cut against the establishment mentality of
the FBI laboratory. The hidebound attitude at the FBI
laboratory seems to be saying out with the new and on
with the old.
In this regard, the FBI lab suffers from a very acute
case of mural dyslexia, by which I mean it has failed to
see the handwriting on the wall. It is no wonder that it
is steeped in controversy at the present time. To be
hidebound is no guarantee that the slings and arrows of
criticism will be aimed elsewhere. Quite to the
contrary.
Closed doors, I would submit, lead to closed minds, and
closed minds are a substantial opening to inefficiency
and ineptitude and possibly worse . . . .
External proficiency testing is the norm for responsible
and accredited laboratories, but not for the FBI lab.
Its internal proficiency testing best serves its
fixation with bolting its doors to the peer review of
outsiders, even outsiders who are preeminent in their
scientific fields.
The studied refusal of the FBI lab . . . to countenance
a second opinion is indicative of the FBI's negative
posture toward peer review. Of course, it could be said
that the FBI's unwillingness to accept evidence that has
been or will be analyzed elsewhere is just a matter of
sensible conservation of its resources. In light,
however, of the determined refusal of the FBI lab to
stand the criticism of peer review in other
circumstances, it would appear that resource
conservation is a secondary motive against second
opinions of, or at, the FBI lab. . . .
Everything in the FBI lab is being played by the
adversarial book. All disclosures are made grudgingly,
and only when and in the terms required by the rules.
The forensic scientists at the FBI lab seem to be more
scrupulously lawyerlike in their close-to-the-vest view
of pretrial discovery than even lawyers would be. All
the better to squelch peer review and to advance the
cause of the prosecution, which, from every viewpoint,
seem to be the dual purposes of the FBI lab.
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Professor and Students Conduct
Archaeological Dig in Gettysburg
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Team Attempts
to Locate Graves of Two Long Lost Confederate
Soldiers
James E. Starrs, professor of law and forensic
sciences at GW, led a team of experts and
student volunteers in a weeklong archaeological
excavation at The Daniel Lady Farm in Gettysburg
May 12-16. The crew attempted to locate the
remains of two long-lost Confederate soldiers.
Caught in the crossfire of the American Civil
War, The Daniel Lady Farm served as a field
hospital and makeshift gravesite by the
Confederate Army during the historic three-day
Battle of Gettysburg. A total of nine burial
sites were created, seven of which were exhumed
and relocated 10 years later. Starrs and his
team intended to locate and examine the
remaining two sites and account for any
additional graves that may exist.
On a previous visit to the farm, Starrs and his
team discovered two human bones and identified
several promising dig sites. Starrs' team used
ground penetrating radar and Eagle, a specially
trained human-bone sniffing dog, which was most
recently used to locate the remains of Chandra
Levy in Washington's Rock Creek Park.
"The scientific goals of this project included
not only locating the remains of Confederate
soldiers who died in the Battle of Gettysburg,"
Starrs says, "but the identification of them by
DNA to Confederates whose units were embattled
in the vicinity of The Daniel Lady Farm and who
are still unaccounted for."
Starrs previously directed a number of other
scientific investigations into historic events,
including the Boston Strangler, the Lindbergh
kidnapping, the Sacco and Vanzetti
robbery-murders, the Alfred Packer cannibalism
cases, the assassination of Senator Huey Long,
the hatchet murders of the Bordens, the CIA-LSD
related death of Frank Olson, the identification
of Jesse James, the death of Meriwether Lewis
and the location of the remains of Samuel
Washington.
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