Rating: 
Summary: Well put together
Review: The Inspector General's Report on the FBI Laboratory found a number of problems: examiners had given scientifically flawed, inaccurate, and overstated testimony under oath in court; altered the lab reports of examiners to give them a pro-prosecutorial slant; failed to document tests and examinations so their conclusions could not be properly checked. FBI lab management failed to check examinations and lab reports, allowed and inadequate record system, and had covered up incompetence instead of investigating them. This book goes beyond the IG's report thru reporting documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI lab has never agreed to real external scrutiny, never published the research data used for its forensic tests, never revealed the results of its own internal proficiency tests. This book is both educational and entertaining.Most forensic scientists are not independent experts; most are affiliated with police or prosecutions agencies. Their job is to build a case for the prosecution. The authors mention the TV show "Quincy"; "CSI" is a better and current example, though a drama. One example given is "voiceprints" - a unique pattern for any single individual's speech. But research by the National Academy of Sciences concluded there is no validity to this claim. Another fault is to use overstated conclusions using undefined terms such as "match" or "identical to". Its purpose is to hide information that is "discoverable". The FBI interpretation of the adversarial approach of the justice system serves neither science nor truth. The FBI system is to let a civilian scientist do the tests, but have an FBI agent testify about them in court. This prevents a defendant from confronting the witness! And their lab does not meet ASCLD/LAB accreditation criteria. Chapter 7 says that DNA typing is NOT a genetic fingerprint; to portray is as such is scientific fraud. Fingerprints are unique, DNA profiles are not. DNA typing produces a random probability match, not a definitive match. There are 3 problems in its use. It came out of regulated, pristine medical labs, but was adapted to unregulated crime labs; making a match is far from scientifically certain, it can be highly subjective; and, the means of computing statistical probability of a match was disputed. And evidence could have been both contaminated and planted. The odds of a match are created subjectively. Chapter 4 on Ruby Ridge explains it all.
Rating: 
Summary: A dull read, rescued by valuable information
Review: There is a great need for the information in this book, for those facing trial on fabricated or planted evidence and for those studying misconduct in the Department of Justice. The immediate response I received from peers when giving the alert on this book was, "How can any serious book on tainting evidence exclude the most important event on tainting evidence?" This means you will not find anything on the burning, destruction and classification of the evidence of Waco here. This is a book on Frederic Whitehurst and his efforts to address incompetence and fraud within the FBI crime lab. Whitehurst is weaved into six different cases, notably Oklahoma City and World Trade Center. The authors are not men of science and make the mistake of claiming that Oklahoma City hinged on a few crystals of Ammonium Nitrate which the FBI crime lab lost. Better evidence shows that the bomb in this case could not have been Ammonium Nitrate. The most valuable message of this book is that the FBI crime lab does not understand true science and the policemen who run it do not care about their scientific ignorance or incompetence. The sloppiness of FBI serves as exemplary conduct of the most negative sort, poisoning the already low standards of state and local government crime labs. The value of this book is in description of documents to be requested by counsel during the process of discovery and techniques used by government to have expert witnesses perjure themselves in court.
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