Judge Rakoff resigns from evidence committee

[L.J.Steele]

This is concerning:
From today's AAJ e-journal, news of Federal obstruction of evidence:

"Federal judge resigns from panel over proposed evidence rules.

The Wall Street Journal (1/30, Barrett, Subscription Publication, 5.67M) reports that US District Judge Jed Rakoff has resigned from a committee that advises the Justice Department on the use of scientific evidence. According to the Journal, Rakoff, a prominent Federal judge, resigned in protest after Justice Department officials prohibited the committee from examining how such evidence is made available before a trial. In a letter to fellow members of the National Commission on Forensic Science, Judge Rakoff said the department’s decision was 'unsupportable' and he wrote, 'I feel I have no choice' but to resign.

The Washington Post (1/29, Hsu, 5.17M) reports that Rakoff criticized the Justice Department for 'muzzling' the commission’s work 'to benefit prosecutors.' Rakoff 'said he quit because the Justice Department had barred it from recommending an expansion of the exchange of pretrial information to include more evidence from forensic experts.' Rakoff 'said in his resignation letter that the ban contradicts the panel’s charter and voids months of work.' Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce said in a statement, 'While the department is disappointed in Judge Rakoff’s decision, this was a basic disagreement about the scope of the commission’s work.'

Reuters (1/30, Ax) also reports this story."

[L.J.Steele]

And we're all friends again now...

Judge Rakoff returns to forensic panel after Justice Department backs off decision

By Spencer S. Hsu January 30 at 11:58 AM 

A federal judge Friday returned to a presidential commission on forensic science after the U.S. Justice Department reversed a decision to bar the panel from recommending changes that would give criminal defendants more information about forensic evidence before their trials, a federal official said.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York had resigned in protest Wednesday from the Obama administration panel, accusing the department of placing “strategic advantage [for prosecutors] over a search for the truth.”

However, Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sallie Q. Yates spoke with Rakoff and said the decision had been made by her predecessor, James Cole, before his departure Jan. 8, and she was unaware of objections by commission members, a department official said.

“After a friendly conversation. . . Judge Rakoff has agreed to return,” the official said on condition of anonymity before Yates meets with the National Commission on Forensic Science at 2 p.m. Yates “is gratified that Judge Rakoff has decided to continue to lend his insightful and valued counsel to the commission,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter in advance of Yates’s meeting with the commission.

Yates told the judge she “may not ultimately agree” with the commission’s views, but welcomes the debate and hoped new guidelines for the commission will identify conflicts or concerns in advance, the official said in a written statement.

Rakoff, who returned to Washington for the commission’s latest two-day meeting, did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Prosecutors routinely share evidence with defense lawyers, but Rakoff’s subcommittee had spent months preparing a recommendation to give criminal defendants the same access before trial to government forensic evidence that defendants in federal civil court cases enjoy. Rakoff said in his resignation letter, first reported by The Post, that the Justice Department abruptly announced its decision this week to bar such discussion, wasting months of work in violation of the panel’s charter.

In an e-mail to fellow commissioners, Rakoff wrote that it is only through pretrial disclosure of forensic experts’ data, conclusions and methods “that forensic science can be meaningfully scrutinized in any specific case” and that “trial by ambush” can be avoided.

The Obama administration commission began work last year in response to growing criticism by the nation’s top scientific organization and many legal experts about the quality of forensic evidence used in criminal courts across the country.

Citing crime lab scandals and hundreds of exonerations in recent years, critics have said that police and prosecutors exercise too much control over crime labs, which suffer from weak standards over research, testimony and examinations.

The commission is preparing recommendations for Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. or his nominated successor, Loretta Lynch, and has reorganized the scientific governing bodies for individual forensic techniques.

[Tazman]

Jed: "You blocked my shot. Sniff, sniff. I am going to take my basketball and go home."

Sallie: "Please don't take your basketball and go home. I will let you take your shot."

Jed: "Okay, then. I will stay and continue to play."

[NRivera]

Could someone elaborate on what it is he is proposing to change or improve? It is likely the media's fault for half-reporting (not that any reputable media source would ever do such a thing), but I'm at a loss on what the issue actually is. From the article in the Washington Post I gather it's a difference between discovery in criminal vs. civil trials but that's as far as it goes. I'm not aware of any such difference, at least we wouldn't do anything differently in terms of discovery regardless of what type of trial it is. That was the same when I worked for a local agency and it still holds true now in a federal setting. One of my co-workers suggested it may have something to do with costs associated with forensic testing in a civil case, which is not typically done in a publicly-funded forensic lab. Other than that we are just at a loss on the actual issue at hand.

If nobody knows I'll just take my ball and go home because I'm just here so I don't get fined.

[sandra wiese]

NRivera, the issue wasn't with the recommendations (to expand the ability of criminal federal defendants to examine forensic evidence before trial to match the ability of the defense to do so in a civil trial at the federal level), the issue was that the Justice Department came down and said, "oh, no, you aren't going to be allowed to do that!". Which directly violated the independent nature of the committee and basically would hamstring them from making any real, effective changes unless the people at Justice gave the A-Okay.

As with all of the committees, some of the recommendations will not be viewed as favorable to the prosecution, but the crux is to make recommendations that benefit forensic science and make forensic examinations accessible to all areas of the court system, not to have it just be a "police" (and therefore prosecutor) service. For any of this work to be meaningful, the committees HAVE to be independent. I applaud Judge Rakoff for taking a stand in this area and likely every other forensic scientist and practitioner will, too.