Rhode Island Public Defender Collin Geiselman has concerns about the uncertainty surrounding the validity of toolmark testing on firearms submitted as evidence in gun cases after a pause on testing at the state crime lab. (Will Steinfeld/Rhode Island Current)
More than a month since the Rhode Island State Crime Lab suspended firearm examinations, the state’s chief public defender says his office is still in the dark about what happened, leaving cases slated to go to trial in the next couple of weeks in limbo.
“Unfortunately, at this time we have little, or no more information, than the press has,” Collin Geiselman said in an email to Rhode Island Current. “Besides being of public concern, this information is necessary for defense attorneys who are preparing to defend cases where the state is attempting to use toolmark evidence.”
Toolmark analysis, or how examiners determine if a cartridge or shell is fired from a specific gun, halted Aug. 20 after casings matched to a gun allegedly used in a crime in Pawtucket matched a different firearm in possession of the Boston Police Department. The pause was made public on Sept. 3 by the Rhode Island Office of Attorney General.
Officials initially declined to say what may have caused the discrepancy or if evidence was mishandled, but Attorney General Peter Neronha told WPRI on Sept. 11 that the state had narrowed its concerns toward cases using “particular technology” at the lab.
“It’s still too early to really handicap the whole scope of it, but we’re taking it very seriously,” Neronha said. “As we can share information with the public, and of course with defense counsel, we’re going to do that.”
Since then, the only update Geiselman said his office was given is where their evidence is getting tested.
Brain Hodge, spokesperson for the Attorney General’s office, confirmed that 20 criminal cases involving guns were sent out for independent testing by state crime labs in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. The AG’s office had initially estimated that 50 cases were affected.
Cases sent for retesting are being processed on a mutual aid basis — meaning no charge to the state, aside from the cost of overnight delivery, said Rhode Island State Crime Lab Director Dennis Hilliard.
“So far, in at least two of the 20 or so cases that have been sent out for retesting by other labs, the results came back confirming the test results by the Rhode Island State Crime Lab,” Hodge said.
All of the additional tests are still outstanding. Hilliard said a report on what happened at the crime lab is expected to be sent to the State Crime Laboratory Commission in the next two weeks.
Shell casings at the Rhode Island State Crime Lab in March 2023. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
What happened?
The discrepancy in the ballistic testing tied to the arrest of Karel Martinez-Scarlet was caught during a routine entry into the National Integrated Ballistic Identification Network (NIBIN) — the digital database that captures and compares images of ballistic evidence for police departments to find out whether there are connections between incidents.
Martinez-Scarlet was charged with the 2021 death of Keshaudas Spence in Pawtucket, who was a running back at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, between 2011 and 2014. The case is pending in Providence Superior Court, where a trial is tentatively scheduled to begin April 28, 2025.
Hilliard declined to state what caused the discrepancy. For the last two weeks, he said an independent assessor who formerly worked for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been at the lab inside Fogarty Hall at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, looking over everything in the facility’s firearms section.
Only three employees work solely on firearms forensics at the lab — all of whom were removed from casework as the firearms examinations get tested out-of-state, Hilliard said.
The exterior of the Frank Licht Judicial Complex in Providence. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
Making motions
One of the two affirmed results involves evidence for the upcoming trial of Shawn Mann, confirmed Providence-based criminal defense attorney Bill Dimitri. Mann is charged with the 2021 murder of Miya Brophy-Baermann, a 24-year-old Warwick woman who was shot while standing along Olney Street in Providence.
Dimitri said he received an email from the Attorney General’s office Tuesday detailing results from the New Hampshire state crime lab.
“They have told me it is the same result, but I will reserve judgment for now,” he said.
Dimitri said he still questions the reliability of the crime lab’s initial testing, which is why he filed a motion on Sept. 3 — the day the examination pause was announced — asking Neronha’s office to provide any reports describing what exactly went wrong at the lab.
Dimitri declined to comment on the case itself, but told Rhode Island Current his motion was to ensure that prosecutors turn over any evidence favorable to the defendant before trial as required by the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Brady” rule established in 1963.
“If there’s an issue of credibility and malfeasance, incompetence — anything that would call into question the opinion methods, equipment — we are entitled to fully cross-examine this,” Dimitri said.
Rhode Island State Crime Lab suspends firearms forensic testing pending review
A status conference is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 30, with trial slated to begin Oct. 15.
So far Dimitiri’s motion has gone unanswered in Providence Superior Court, as have similar filings by the Public Defender’s Office for the case of Marklyn Brown. Brown was among three men charged for the 2019 shooting death of 19-year-old Berta Pereira-Roldan outside the Noah Lounge in Providence.
The public defender’s motion asks for a copy of the crime lab’s toolmark examination protocols and chain of custody records for Brown’s case, along with co-defendants Johnny Veng and Jimmy Castillo.
“My office does not know if there was a problem with the way evidence was handled in one individual case, or if there was an issue with a particular examiner, or with the lab protocols, or if this is simply an indication that there is a problem with the toolmark discipline itself,” Geiselman said.
The Rhode Island Office of the Public Defender on Pine Street in Providence. (Will Steinfeld/Rhode Island Current)
Junk science?
The pause at the crime lab also raises a bigger question: Should prosecutors continue to rely on forensic evidence for most criminal cases?
“There are quite a number of things that for many years we have allowed into criminal trials that scientific discoveries now conclude mean that they aren’t what they’re purported to be,” said Roger Williams University School of Law Professor Andrew Horwitz. “There are serious questions about bite marks, hair follicles, and fingerprints — which were seen as the most reliable thing in the world — there’s significant evidence that’s just not the case.”
A major issue that stems from criminal forensics, Horwitz said, is there is ample room for confirmation bias — the principle that if you know what you’re looking for, you’re more likely to find it. He said forensic experts are too often exposed to contextual information due to their close work with prosecutors and local police departments.
Forensic testing typically involves laboratory staff working closely with prosecutors and local police departments, which involves the risk of confirmation bias, says Andrew Horwitz, associate dean for experiential education at Roger Williams University School of Law. (Courtesy of Roger Williams University)
“If you have evidence submitted to you with a hypothesis connected to it, then confirmation bias becomes a significant issue,” Horwitz said.
Hilliard said all evidence delivered to the Rhode Island State Crime lab is tested blindly.
Crime laboratory employees weigh and measure spent cartridges and shells, use microscopes to look at the tiny imperfections left by the manufacturing process on the weapons from which they were discharged. Guns are test fired in order to see if the casings match those found at a crime scene, Hilliard said.
The out-of-state labs retesting the 20 firearm cases were not provided with any previous results of analysis, he added.
Horwitz said forensics is mostly used for the jury’s sake because of what he calls a “CSI effect.”
“Juries watch TV and believe there ought to be science,” he said. “And some things can be verified, but some cases really do just rise and fall on what a person said happened — and we have to decide if we believe that person beyond a reasonable doubt.”
To Bill Devine, the Providence-based criminal defense attorney who formerly represented Martinez-Scarlet, the state’s use of firearms forensics is mostly the cherry on top of the rest of their case.
“A lot of evidence is cumulative,” he said. “Generally speaking, I don’t know of any cases where someone was convicted on just a toolmark.”
But Devine said he doesn’t believe the practice needs to be abolished. If the science is ever in doubt, he said it’s on the defense to get their own expert.
Rhode Island’s top prosecutor, meanwhile, feels there’s still plenty of merit to firearm forensics.
“The science has been accepted all over the country,” Neronha told Rhode Island Current. “I don’t think you’re going to set a precedent in this state that ballistics comparisons of this nature is junk science.”
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