Rhode Island state crime lab faces full accreditation review amid forensic errors

Yahoo

14-03-2025

SOUTH KINGSTOWN - A state laboratory that examines and analyzes gun-related evidence in Rhode Island criminal cases is scheduled for its own full-blown examination by an accrediting board this weekend.
Last year, the Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory suspended certain in-house forensic work after it became clear that employees in its facility had linked spent bullet shells from the scene of a 2021 Pawtucket homicide to the wrong gun.
Since then, the lab has relied on mutual aid from other New England states and private contractors for certain work that involves identifying connections between bullets and the guns that fire them.
The lab has also learned about another case of misidentification, akin to the Pawtucket case, that also dates back to 2021, said Dennis Hilliard, the lab's director.
Two examiners from a private contracting company will help at the lab during the upcoming accreditation assessment on the weekend of March 17, Hilliard said.
Those same outside examiners, Hilliard said, have helped with the lab's workload following the departure of three employees who were involved in the "misidentification" in the Pawtucket case.
The ANSI National Accreditation Board, which is a subsidiary of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), is expected to carry out the accreditation assessment next month.
ANAB assesses forensic laboratories, forensic services and police crime units for compliance with internationally recognized standards.
The Rhode Island lab, which went through a full assessment in 2023, was due for a partial assessment this year. But due to the recent issues, the accreditation board is providing another full assessment, Hilliard said.
Some work performed in Connecticut, Hilliard added, brought attention to another previous misidentification by Rhode Island's in-house analysts.
Like the situation in Pawtucket, the misidentification involved a shooting that took place in 2021, Hilliard said. He declined to identify the particular shooting case.
The office of Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha has been notified of the misidentification, Hilliard added.
The particular work initially handled by some other state facilities received priority status due to the court schedule. It involved 17 cases, Hilliard said.
Massachusetts' state police lab handled 13 of the cases, New Hampshire's state police lab handled one and a lab administered by Connecticut's state Department of Public Safety handled three, Hilliard said.
The previous lab work that has drawn scrutiny falls into a discipline known as toolmark analysis.
A bullet is a projectile. But before its discharge through the barrel of a gun, it's part of an assembly known as a cartridge, which includes not only the bullet but other components, such as the propellant, and the case that holds it all together.
Many people casually refer to such cases as bullet cases, but experts scrupulously refer to them as cartridge cases.
When someone fires a bullet, different components within the gun, such as the firing pin, leave distinctive marks on the case, which typically falls on the ground.
Then, if the shooting itself is a crime, investigators are likely to collect the cases as evidence at the scene.
The mark left by the firing pin is like a fingerprint. If detectives recover a suspected gun, analysis at a crime lab with microscopes can often determine, very authoritatively, if the firing pin of that particular gun, and only that gun, created the toolmark on the case.
Due to its reliance on contractors right now, the lab is not positioned to do as much work with microscopes, Hilliard said. In general, a full examination with the scopes is not happening in non-homicide investigations when investigators haven't identified a suspect or they haven't seized a gun as evidence, he said. The lab is open to making an exception in a special circumstance, he said.
The lab continues to process evidence into a system maintained by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network catalogues images of the marks on cartridge cases. The system detects similarities in the images. It can tip off investigators if a particular gun is responsible for cases discarded at a particular crime scene or at multiple crime scenes.
The work handled by counterpart labs in other states was part of an overall caseload of about 30 pending cases, involving 36 defendants, which the lab focused on last year after suspending its in-house firearms examinations and analysis.
Most of the firearms-related work is complete although some of it awaits verification or technical review or administrative review, Hilliard said.
The presence of outside examiners represents a deliberate strategy to shift away from certain firearms-related lab assistance that the counterpart-labs in other states provided to Rhode Island last year without charging for it on a mutual aid basis.
The only expense to Rhode Island taxpayers stemmed from shipping the firearms or other types of evidence, Hilliard said, adding that Rhode Island must cover any travel costs for out-of-state examiners who appear in local court.
But Hilliard didn't want to abuse the good intentions of such mutual-aid support.
The lab has taken steps to rely more heavily on private contractors and to pay for that it has tapped money that became available after the departure of three in-house staffers.
New York-based Stria Consulting Group has supplied the two examiners working under a six-month contract.
The lab, which has a budget of $1.7 million, in the fiscal year that ends June 30, continues to seek qualified candidates for jobs requiring firearms examination and analysis.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Fallout of forensic errors: RI crime lab faces accreditation review