What will it take to exonerate the R.I. State Crime Lab?

Evidence marked by year awaits testing at the Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory in this spring 2023 photo. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)

Rhode Island’s troubled state crime lab faces a full accreditation review this week, just as the state Senate considers a bill to restructure the commission overseeing the facility on the University of Rhode Island’s (URI) Kingston campus.

A six-person team from the ANSI National Accreditation Board started a three-day review of the lab on Tuesday, two years sooner than required in its standard accreditation cycle, said the lab’s director, Dennis Hilliard. He had asked for the review to be moved up after the lab suspended a type of forensic testing in gun cases last August to address a discrepancy with a Glock pistol linked to a 2021 Pawtucket murder case.

Since then, a second gun case, also from 2021, has been flagged by an out-of-state laboratory that has taken over some of the forensic testing, Hilliard said. 

Hilliard said the accreditation team is looking to assess policies, examine completed and ongoing casework, and observe examiners in the lab’s three sections: firearms, trace evidence, and latent prints. At the end of the week, the team will provide an assessment on what improvements the lab needs to make.

“I don’t expect anything major,” Hilliard said. “We’re doing everything in our power to make sure that we get everything corrected and we get back to where we should be in terms of firearms analysis.”

The lab at Fogarty Hall stopped conducting toolmark testing on firearms, or how examiners determine if a cartridge or shell is fired from a specific gun, last August after casings matched to a Glock pistol seized as evidence in the Pawtucket murder case matched a different firearm in possession of the Boston Police Department. 

The suspension of toolmark testing was made public on Sept. 3, 2024, by the Rhode Island Office of Attorney General.

A report published last October by California-based consultant Ronald Nichols, who formerly worked for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, found there was a lack of diligence and confirmation bias — the principle that if you know what you’re looking for, you’re more likely to find it — on the part of all three forensic examiners who performed toolmark analysis at the state lab. All three staffers have since left the lab.

Confirmation bias played role in invalid toolmark testing at R.I State Crime Lab, report finds

The suspension prompted delays in nearly two dozen criminal cases, which underwent re-testing at labs in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Most of the firearms-related work is finished, though Hilliard said some cases still require verification, technical review, or administrative approval.

Hilliard said testing at a Connecticut lab uncovered a problem in tying a Glock pistol to a 2021 shooting. He declined to name the municipality where the shooting occurred or share other details on the case.

The state’s public defender’s office was unaware of a second case being flagged, but the chief public defender says his team is usually kept in the dark by the lab.

“We’ve never really gotten a list of cases that were examined and confirmed,” Collin Geiselman told Rhode Island Current. “We kind of find out second-hand from some of the defense attorneys who are informed about it.” 

Reforming the crime lab commission

Geiselman said the lack of transparency also extends to the five-member commission overseeing the crime lab. The State Crime Laboratory Commission, which typically meets quarterly, includes the Attorney General, the Rhode Island State Police superintendent, a member of the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association, and two public members appointed by the governor.

Rarely are any defense attorneys picked for the commission that can meet behind closed doors to look over issues involving ongoing trials, Geiselman  said.

“A criminal trial happens in a criminal justice system that is, by design, an adversarial system ” he said. “And we only have one side of that adversarial system privy to that information that is supposed to be coming from a neutral body.”

But a remedy could be coming via legislation under consideration in the Rhode Island Senate. The bill sponsored by Sen. Sam Bell, a Providence Democrat, would raise the number of commissioners from five to nine: three with expertise in law enforcement or prosecution, three with backgrounds in criminal defense, and three with experience in scientific research.

Each commissioner would be appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the Senate. Geiselman said he supports the bill and was preparing to submit written testimony.

“The makeup here would make it more transparent and more neutral,” Geiselman said. 

Bell said he introduced the bill because the existing commission “isn’t working.” Reforming the panel would also allow experts to properly assess whether ballistic and fingerprint evidence should continue to be relied upon in criminal cases, he said

“There’s a wide array of academic studies that have come out really trashing the accuracy of forensic science,” Bell said in an interview. “The fact that the lab is at URI gives us a great opportunity to approach this in a more academic way.”

The Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association and Rhode Island State Police declined to comment on the proposal. Attorney General Peter Neronah’s office acknowledged a request for comment, but did not send a response.

Bell’s bill is scheduled to have its initial hearing before the Senate Committee on Judiciary on Thursday. 

Toolmark exams still handled out-of-state

Since last October, all new toolmark testing for gun cases have been handled by two former New York City police examiners working at the crime lab after the departure of the three in-house staffers — at the cost of $175,500 for a six-months contract that expires in April. But the exams conducted by Stria Consulting Group still require final verification by examiners at SCL Forensics in Texas and FoCoSS Forensics in New Hampshire. Hilliard said the commission wanted the verification done to avoid any further potential for confirmation bias.

Nichols’ report detailed that an examiner shared information about testing on the Glock in the Pawtucket case with a coworker who was still testing the gun, giving the other examiner a false lead.

Geiselman isn’t sold that outsourcing the work will lead to more accurate results.

“These other labs certainly aren’t receiving these samples in a vacuum — they’re probably hearing about what happened at the lab here in Rhode Island and know things have to be re-tested,” he said. “And that leads to confirmation bias.”

Hilliard lamented the reliance of third-party labs, mainly due to their slow turnaround times.

“Those people are doing other cases as well,” he said. 

Hilliard hopes the lab will return its toolmark verification fully in-house after passing the accreditation process, but that’s assuming the lab can hire two new examiners, one of whom is a supervisor for the toolmarks team. 

One of the lab’s firearms technicians is being trained to conduct toolmark examinations though Hilliard said that employee likely won’t be ready for the job until early next year. 

Hilliard said a candidate interviewed for the lead examiner role who passed a competency test and toured the lab turned down a job offer, saying the salary was too low. URI’s website lists a salary range of $70,971 to $107,830 for the lead examiner position which will supervise a new toolmarks team. Hilliard said the applicant sought upward of $150,000 to consider working at the lab.

“That salary range is above my salary range,” said Hilliard, who makes $143,627.

Hilliard said the lab will conduct a study whether to raise the pay rate, but he doubts doing so will attract any additional candidates.

“You’re looking for somebody with 10-plus years of experience,” he said. “And these days, people who do that can work as consultants and make their full amount of salary within half the time they’d normally work at the laboratory.”

 Hilliard is hopeful about a standard examiner candidate who is scheduled to tour the lab on March 25. 

The examiner salary ranges from $65,980 to $100,314, according to the online job posting.

As the lab continues to court applicants, Hilliard said he will likely extend Stria’s contract, which was slated to end in April. The State Crime Lab Commission is next scheduled to meet May 1.