Sessions’ Justice Dept. will end forensic science commission
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions will end a Justice Department partnership with independent scientists to raise forensic science standards and has suspended an expanded review of FBI testimony across several techniques that have come under question, saying a new strategy will be set by an inhouse team of law enforcement advisers.
In a statement Monday, Sessions said he would not renew the National Commission on Forensic Science, a roughly 30-member advisory panel of scientists, judges, crime lab leaders, prosecutors and defense lawyers chartered by the Obama administration in 2013.
A path to meet needs of overburdened crime labs will be set by a yet-to-be named senior forensic adviser and an internal department crime task force, Sessions’ statement said.
The announcement came as the commission began its last, two-day meeting before its term ends April 23 and as two of its most wide-reaching final recommendations remain hanging with the department. Two officials said no decision has been made on calling for the Justice Department to set written standards for examining and reporting forensic evidence in criminal courts across the country. A second proposal to more fully disclose the statistical limits of results is to be voted on by the commission this week.
“The availability of prompt and accurate forensic science analysis to our law enforcement officers and prosecutors is critical to integrity in law enforcement, reducing violent crime, and increasing public safety,” Sessions said in the statement. “We applaud the professionalism of the National Commission on Forensic Science and look forward to building on the contributions it has made in this crucial field.”
The action marked the latest break by Sessions, a former federal prosecutor, with Obama-era priorities. The former Alabama senator last week announced top aides will review agreements reached with troubled police forces nationwide to ensure the pacts to overhaul departments do not counter the Trump administration’s goals of combating violent crime and promoting police safety and morale.
Obama, a constitutional law scholar, had championed changes to forensic science.
In September, a White House science panel called on courts to question the admissibility of four heavily used techniques, including firearms tracing, saying claims about their reliability had not been scientifically proven. The Justice Department last year also announced a wider review of testimony by experts across several disciplines after finding that nearly all FBI experts for years overstated and gave scientifically misleading testimony about two techniques the FBI Laboratory long championed: the tracing of crime scene hairs based on microscopic examinations and of bullets based on chemical composition.
The wider review has been suspended, according to two Justice officials tracking the effort, pending a strategy to be devised by the internal task force with input through public comments. Options could include using a different commission, a Justice Department office or a group composed of representatives from many agencies.
Sessions has made clear quality forensic evidence is important for the entire criminal justice system, “enabling us not only to convict the guilty but to clear the innocent,” Associate Deputy Attorney General Andrew D. Goldsmith noted in remarks prepared to begin Monday’s commission meeting in Washington.
In his statement about the future of forensic sciences, Sessions highlighted the need to survey crime lab workloads, backlogs and equipment needs as a way to increase the labs’ capacities to do work, and the need for reliability and “specificity” of results.
Even before the announcement not to renew the national commission, several commission members from outside the Justice Department warned against ending its work, saying the Trump administration has made several moves to reduce the role of science and independent scientists in policymaking.