Your Latest Forensics Scandal: The U.S. Army

Radley Balko | March 21, 2011

For nearly three years, the military held the key to Roger House's exoneration and didn't tell him: A forensics examiner had botched a crucial lab test used in the Navy lieutenant's court-martial.

In fact, the military had begun second-guessing a decade's worth of tests conducted by its one-time star lab analyst, Phillip Mills.

Investigators discovered that Mills had cut corners and even falsified reports in one case. He found DNA where it didn't exist, and failed to find it where it did. His mistakes may have let the guilty go free while the innocent, such as House, were convicted...

But the problem was bigger than just a lone analyst.

While a McClatchy investigation revealed that Mills' mistakes undermined hundreds of criminal cases brought against military personnel, it also found that the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory, near Atlanta, was lax in supervising Mills, slow to re-examine his work and slipshod about informing defendants. Officials appeared intent on containing the scandal that threatened to discredit the military's most important forensics facility, which handles more than 3,000 criminal cases a year.

The military has never publicly acknowledged the extent of Mills' mistakes nor the lab's culpability. McClatchy pieced together the untold story by conducting dozens of interviews and reviewing internal investigations, transcripts and other documents.

That sounds about right. When the FBI was informed by the National Academy of Sciences a few years ago that the lead-composition tests it has used for decades was based on flawed science, the agency stopped using the tests, but also declined to inform the thousands of defendants who had been convicted based on the evidence.

My column last week discussed ways to reform the forensics system.

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Paul|3.21.11 @ 1:00PM|#

So can we believe any convictions in any of the current war-crimes trials?

Reason|3.21.11 @ 1:09PM|#

They are guilty until proven innocent.

Gregory Smith|3.21.11 @ 1:10PM|#

Shit happens.

What's wrong with American Exceptionalism?
http://libertarians4freedom.bl.....rican.html

Citizen Nothing|3.21.11 @ 1:18PM|#

"...if you can’t tell a Mexican to learn English, pretty soon he’ll be telling you to learn Spanish."
Fiku vi mem.

Citizen Nothing|3.21.11 @ 1:21PM|#

vin mem. Pardonu min, me petas.

Ted S.|3.21.11 @ 4:22PM|#

Ni fiku vin!

|3.21.11 @ 1:43PM|#

http://www.xkcd.com/84/

Cyto|3.21.11 @ 2:03PM|#

Stop - Jacket time!

Ted S.|3.21.11 @ 4:25PM|#

http://xkcd.com/191/

Gregory Smith|3.21.11 @ 2:08PM|#

Eso es exactamente lo que paso en Miami, en esa ciudad tienes que hablar español para conseguir trabajo, especialmente en el sector de servicio.

See? I speak Spanish BY CHOICE, but if you live in Miami and you want to find work, good luck if you don't know Spanish.

|3.21.11 @ 6:37PM|#

I work in downtown Miami and can barely speak enough spanish to order lunch at Versailles, so I'm getting a kick out of your reply.

Gregory Smith|3.22.11 @ 11:09AM|#

Thanks Andrew, I also lived in Miami and had to play interpreter whenever a monolingual friend visited me.

Why is it so politically incorrect to tell people to learn English? Israel gets immigrants from all over the world and the first thing they have to do is spend 6 months or more learning Hebrew.

The French legion takes volunteers from all over the world, and they're also required to learn French.

Yet tell an illegal alien to learn English and people call you racist. How so? Are brown people biologically unable to learn English? Of course not! So how the hell is it racist to tell the browns to speak English?

|3.21.11 @ 1:39PM|#

Hey Greg, which car of Sonny's on Miami Vice did you like better, the Spider or the Testarossa? I have to go with the Spider.

|3.21.11 @ 1:54PM|#

Me too. The huge armature to hold the side mirror on the Tessarossa looks stupid.

I've always liked the 328. Little dated 80s, but it works for me.

|3.21.11 @ 2:13PM|#

Wasn't that Magnum's car?

|3.21.11 @ 2:23PM|#

Yes. Although this is a later model.

Miami Vice? I was born in 1975 dude, I barely remember that show.

So when Sheena Easton was on, did you feel her acting was up to par?

Paul|3.21.11 @ 2:49PM|#

I thought Phil Collins was was top-notch.

Paul|3.21.11 @ 2:51PM|#

And I mean really, what were we thinking in the 80s?

Citizen Nothing|3.21.11 @ 2:14PM|#

Foriru mian herbon, infanacxo!

kinnath|3.21.11 @ 2:50PM|#

Come back when you've grown up.

mad libertarian guy|3.21.11 @ 3:30PM|#

I was born in 76 (in Miami), and can say that I saw EVERY EPISODE!

I had the Don Johnson hair, clothes, you name it.

Gregory Smith|3.21.11 @ 3:54PM|#

Yeah well, I'm more of a "Married with Children" type of guy. Pretty boys fighting crime is not my style.

WHY YOU CAN'T TRUST THE UN.
http://libertarians4freedom.bl.....tions.html

|3.21.11 @ 1:41PM|#

Cripes. You're worse than anon-bot. At least the bot's posts are marginally on topic.

|3.21.11 @ 1:17PM|#

Moronism is contagious.

BakedPenguin|3.21.11 @ 1:36PM|#

Did Mills intern under Steve Hayne?

|3.21.11 @ 1:45PM|#

Radley, I hope you have the rest of the week off. I've only two nuts to be kicked and you've hit both square already. Is it Friday yet?

|3.21.11 @ 2:08PM|#

The linked to article is worthless. It mentions the case against Roger House who was apparently a Navy Lt. but then doesn't explain how the subject matter of the article applies to his case, nor does it give any details about his case.

Does anyone know anything else about that case?

|3.21.11 @ 3:17PM|#

I think he was a pilot who hurt his leg and was abusing prescription drugs and they caught him on a drug test he was forced to take because he never shaved.
And he was having an affair with the hospital administrator and something about a perky goth lab tech.

NCIS|3.21.11 @ 2:38PM|#

This kind of shit doesn't happen on TV

Cyto|3.21.11 @ 5:12PM|#

Speaking of problems in the military - aparently Der Speigel has obtained photos taken by US military posing with "trophy kills" in Afghanistan.

Is the learning curve really that flat in the military? Did we learn nothing from Gitmo? Aside from the allegations that the shootings were unjustified, who thought it was a good idea to take pictures grinning over dead bodies? I understand the soldiers themselves, they've got to have a twisted sense of humor and dulled sense of horror. But their commanders should be on high alert for this kind of crap, if for no other reason than to cover their own ass.

Gregory Smith|3.22.11 @ 11:12AM|#

Shit happens, Cyto. Stop expecting our military to be 100% perfect. NOTHING is 100% perfect.

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