WEBVTT - #163 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Tool Mark Analysis 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:05.880 It's Valentine's Day, nineteen ninety one. You don't usually observe 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:09.320 the greeting card holidays. You think they're kind of silly, 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:12.440 and besides, most of the time, you and your partner 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:16.720 are both busy working. You're always buried in your client's cases, 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.920 and your partner is off and on call, running back 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:23.760 and forth to the hospital to treat patients. Your friends 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:27.360 are always remarking that you're the classic power couple, but 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.479 sometimes it seems like it's all power and not so 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.800 much couple. So this year, you make dinner, put out 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.760 a tablecloth, and even light a candle. At the end 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.320 of dinner, you do the dishes and your partner takes 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.440 out the trash. The TV is on low in the background, 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.880 but something makes your ears perk up. You glance over 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.120 and see the newswoman reporting from a parking lot not 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.600 too far away from your house. She says, an explosion 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.520 went off not long ago. A man was hit in 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.600 his leg by shrapnel that exploded off a pipe bomb. 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.440 It detonated thirty yards away from where the man was walking. 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.319 Listening to this, you slowly shake your head. It's not 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.440 uncommon in Grand Junction, Colorado, for people to mess around 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.920 with explosives. After all, it's a mining down and people 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:23.399 know how to use dynamite. The reporter says, the man 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.840 that was hit will probably be Okay. You hope this 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:31.000 is just some kids joke gone wrong. But then a 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:35.560 few weeks later there's another news report. A twelve year 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.320 old girl named Maria gets into a van with her 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.600 parents to go shopping, and as the family sets out 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.720 for the mall, a bomb hidden near one of the 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.960 rear tires explodes. Shrapnel is flung through the back of 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:53.040 the van's seat and into Maria's body. It wedges into 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.920 her heart. Her parents frantically pull her out of the car, 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:04.040 but she dies right there. Three months after that, husband 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:08.080 and wife Henry and Suzanne, finish dinner at a local restaurant. 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:13.280 They drive by a strange looking object. Henry slows the 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.520 car down and reaches out to see what it is. 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:21.080 His arms are blown off his body and he dies instantly. 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.480 After that third bomb goes off, everyone in Grand Junction 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:39.000 is extremely anxious. You check under your car every single 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.000 time before you get in, and you continue to follow 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:46.040 the news coverage as it unfolds. The police department declares 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.320 that out of thirty initial suspects for the bombs, they've 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.960 narrowed it down to just one person. They don't anounce 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.360 who it is, but a camera crew must have gotten 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.560 tipped off because they start following around a young man 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:04.160 with big glasses. Then you get a phone call from 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.400 a man who identifies himself as Jimmy. He tells you 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:12.600 he is the suspect in these bombing cases. His words 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:17.000 come quickly and in fragments of sentences, he sounds scared. 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.760 He says he hasn't done anything wrong, and he hasn't 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:24.400 been arrested yet, but with cameras following him, he thinks 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.480 it's a good idea to get an attorney, He asks, 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:32.079 will you help me? You take all of this in 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.480 and think, do I really want to be involved defending 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.760 someone who might have done something so horrific? But then again, 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:44.560 what if he's actually innocent? Everyone deserves an opportunity to 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:49.240 defend themselves. Ultimately, you agree to take on his case. 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.600 Soon after you become Jimmy's attorney, he gets a knock 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:57.240 at his door. The police enter his house with a warrant. 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.920 They turn his place inside out, detectives vacuum the couch 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.360 and carpet to see if they can pick up any gunpowder. 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:10.120 Nothing all they found or some everyday tools, some pliers, 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.440 wire strippers. The tools that are taken from Jimmy's house 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.719 are brought down to the police station and tested in 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:22.520 the forensics lab. When the results come back, police arrests 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:27.800 Jimmy and he gets charged with murder. Of all the 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.920 people to pin this on, you do understand why they're 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:35.560 targeting Jimmy. He's somewhat of a loaner, definitely an oddball. 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.920 He often goes on late night walks by himself. He 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.960 can be found sitting alone at bars and getting pretty drunk. 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.440 Prior to the trial, the prosecution discloses the evidence they 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.920 intend to use against Jimmy to prove their case, and 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:55.159 it looks pretty bad. You spend countless days pouring over 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.719 the main piece of evidence, the conclusion of a tool 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.960 mark examiner. The report of this examiner says that the 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.520 impressions taken from the tools they found in Jimmy's apartment 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.760 can be scientifically linked to the tool marks left on 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.360 all three of the bombs. In all your years as 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.600 a criminal defense attorney, you've never heard of this type 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.640 of forensic analysis. You didn't even know it existed, But 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.800 you studied science and undergrad before you decided to become 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.680 a lawyer, so you know how to analyze these scientific documents. 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:36.120 You dig up everything you can find on tool mark evidence, data, statistics, studies, experiments. 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:40.560 You find nothing. How are you supposed to defend against this? 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:45.240 If someone has a standard set of needlenosed pliers, aren't 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.640 they likely to match up with the impressions made by 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:52.640 other needlenos pliers. At trial, the jury has shown a 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.560 video by the prosecution. A tool mark expert walks the 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.920 jurors through it. He tells them each tool has un 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:04.440 unique microscopic characteristics. You can see how the tools we 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:09.080 found in the defendant's home align perfectly with marks found 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:14.640 on fragments of the exploded bombs. The jury is mesmerized 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.719 by the videotape shown by the tool mark examiner. After 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.880 closing arguments, when they begin their deliberations, the first note 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.040 they send out is a request to see that video. 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:31.640 They view it over and over and over again, and 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.720 then the bailiff informs you that the jury is done deliberating. 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.520 Jimmy is brought back into the courtroom from a holding cell. 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:42.960 You see the trepidation in his face as he takes 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.520 a seat, and you can actually hear him take a 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:51.000 big nervous swallow. The jury files into the courtroom, and 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.120 a vein on your temple begins to pulsate and twitch. 0:06:56.120 --> 0:07:00.760 Jimmy is convicted of multiple counts of murder. He is 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:06.640 sentenced to life in prison. The story you just heard 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:08.920 is based on the true events of the bombings and 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.880 Grand Junction, Colorado in nineteen ninety one and the subsequent 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.640 trial of Jimmy Genrich. Jimmy has been in prison for 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.520 more than twenty five years, serving a life sentence. His 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.720 latest appeal has been taken up by the Innocence Project. 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.720 I'm Josh Dubin, civil rights and criminal defense attorney, an 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.800 innocence ambassador to the Innocence Project in New York. Today, 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:39.520 on Wrongful Conviction junk Science, we examined tool mark analysis. 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.800 It turns out that the crime that popularized tourl mark 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:50.280 analysis was also committed on Valentine's Day over ninety years ago. 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.800 When three dozen former Brooklyn Navy yard workers found themselves 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.240 irreparably poisoned by the asbestos they used in the construction 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.160 of the battleships that won World War Two, Perry Whites 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.680 and Arthur Luxembourg literally putting everything on the line to 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.320 successfully represent them. Since then, they've championed the rights of 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.440 over fifty thousand regular Americans injured through the negligence and 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.800 malfeasance of mainly large corporations. Their ability to level the 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.400 playing field against seemingly insurmountable odds has led them to 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:27.560 litigate against opponents as diverse as Big Pharma all the 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.880 way to those responsible for rendering the water of Flint, 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.840 Michigan undrinkable. Whites and Luxembourg ticket personally when there's a 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:38.520 miscarriage of justice anywhere, and therefore they feel a sense 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:42.240 of responsibility to support Braunfel conviction podcasts. You can learn 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:47.200 more about them by visiting Whiteeslux dot com. That's weitz 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:56.640 Lux dot com. 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:01.400 You've all heard of the legendary mobster Al Capone. During 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.720 the Roaring twenties, he was the leader of the Chicago Mafia. 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:11.439 Anything corrupt or illegal. He controlled it, from bootlegging to speakeasies, 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:16.840 gambling to prostitution. Capone owned it all. But there was 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.880 one rival gang that Capone couldn't quite shake the Irish 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:26.120 mafia led by George bugs Moran. They were manufacturing and 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:31.760 selling alcohol, stepping on Capone's business. Now Capone wasn't going 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.920 to have it. He got hold of some police uniforms 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:39.840 and on February fourteenth, Valentine's Day, nineteen twenty nine, four 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.600 of Capone's men, dressed as police officers, went over to 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:47.160 the garage where bugs Moran's gang was producing and selling alcohol. 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.360 Capone's crew took the Irish mob by surprise. They started 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:55.720 screaming with their guns drawn, line up against the wall, 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.840 hands where I can see him. You're all under arrest. 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:03.079 All seven of the Irish gangsters lined up against the wall, 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.240 hands on their heads, while Capone's crews shot them all 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:11.160 dead in broad daylight. By the time the real police arrived, 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:16.280 Capone's gang was long gone. The cops had more than 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.439 a hunch about who was responsible for this, but they 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.800 needed the hard evidence to prove it, so they raided 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.440 the home of one of Capone's top guys, who went 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.720 by the name of Frank Killer Burke. They took his 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.240 gun and sent it off to what was one of 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:36.200 the first crime labs in the country. There, an examiner 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:39.240 named Calvin Goddard shot some test bullets out of the 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:43.120 confiscated gun. He put one of the test bullets and 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.840 one of the bullets found at the massacre under a 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.520 special microscope that allowed him to compare two images at once. 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:55.920 This examiner actually invented this technique of comparing bullets. He 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.600 claimed that no two revolvers leave the same mark, and 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.800 that by examining the grooves on the bullets, he claimed 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:07.320 he could identify the gun that shot them. According to Goddard, 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.200 the bullets of the confiscated gun indeed matched the bullets 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.000 found at the scene of the crime, but the police 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.000 couldn't do much with that evidence. They couldn't prove that 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.480 the owner of the gun, Frank Killer Burke, had been 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.640 at the scene of the crime, and so no one 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.520 was ever charged for what became known as the Valentine's 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:32.520 Day massacre. The analysis that Calvin Goddard invented is now 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:36.719 known as tool mark and firearm analysis. Forensic analysts that 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.760 follow in his footsteps believed that just as each gun 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.160 leaves a unique mark on every bullet that it shoots, 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.679 each tool leaves unique mark on the surface it's used on, 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.720 but no one had closely examined the false assumptions behind 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:54.200 tool mark identification. What was being presented to jury's was 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.840 this notion that a tool will leave a unique mark 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:01.400 on a surface. But it turns out not necessarily the case. 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.120 If two people own a similar wrench, for instance, both 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.960 wrenches will leave behind a similar mark, so matching a 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:12.559 mark to a tool owned by a suspect has very 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:17.720 limited value. Nevertheless, these experts were claiming that a tool 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.000 found at the home of a suspect was the precise 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.720 tool that was used, for example, to cut wires during 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.880 the construction of a bomb. This kind of flawed evidence 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.600 continued to be presented in courtrooms across the country to 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:37.880 link suspects to crimes, leading to several wrongful convictions, including 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.560 that of Jimmy Genrich in nineteen ninety two. 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:48.120 It was just so obvious to me that this was 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:52.800 not you know, this was not a foundationally strong field, 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:57.400 and I was absolutely stunned because the consequences of this 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.480 stuff can't be higher. You know, people go to prison 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:05.240 for years, they're sentenced to death. I mean, essentially, for 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:08.680 this to be totally unproven science, I just absolutely could 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:09.360 not believe it. 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:14.760 Today, we're talking to Tim Requarth. Tim's a freelance journalists 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.720 who often writes about the intersection between science and criminal justice. 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:22.520 He's also a lecturer in science and writing at NYU. 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.840 We're particularly excited to talk to him today because he 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.160 wrote about Jimmy Genrich's case for an article published by 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:34.560 The Nation. He and his co author extensively researched the case, 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.920 along with the toolmark evidence that was used to convict Jimmy. Now, 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.800 a lot of this episode is based on this article 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.120 that Tim wrote, So after listening to this episode, if 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.360 you want to learn more about tool mark evidence in 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:52.600 Jimmy's case, you can find the article in our show notes. So, Tim, 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.320 tell us about your background. How did you get into 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:56.600 writing about science? 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:02.360 Except for undergraduate I studied literature and writing, and it 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.560 wasn't until after I'd graduated. I happened to be living 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.960 across the street from a medical school in Chicago, and 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.199 at the same time, my father was suffering from dementia, 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:15.440 and the books and articles that I was reading on 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:19.480 dementia didn't quite satisfy me, and so I decided to 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.280 volunteer in a lab that studied dementia. And it was 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:25.480 at that point that I was first introduced to research, 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:27.920 and I was hooked. So I went back to school, 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:30.960 took all of the basic science classes that I hadn't 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:34.280 taken an undergrad, and eventually enrolled in a masters, And 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:37.880 you know, ten years later, I found myself, probably with 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:43.440 a PhD in neuroscience. The sort of breadth of questions 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:47.200 and material that you could really dive into as a 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.800 journalist or a writer just felt so much more expansive 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:53.360 than what I could do as a scientist. And so 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.560 I sort of had the realization later on in my 0:14:55.600 --> 0:15:00.000 PhD that research heavy, investigative type of pieces were really 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:04.880 good fit for somebody who's trained in answering big questions. 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.560 So before writing this story about tool mark evidence, what 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.320 did you know about any forensic science? 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:15.760 Before that the first story I did about forensic science, 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.200 I didn't know a lot about it at the time. 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:22.040 Then anybody might from watching Law and Order or CSI. 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.440 We profiled the specific case and it involved tool mark evidence, 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.680 and we looked at all of the research in the 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:34.720 forensic journals. I mean, we went through and found every 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:41.000 single study, and most of them were very small sample sizes, 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:45.800 very theoretical or had all kinds of methodological design problems. 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.040 And I was absolutely stunned because this is like a 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.240 solved problem, Like we know how to do strong empirical 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.640 scientific studies to see if something works or not. Like 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:58.680 take a medical study, which if you want to see 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.480 if a drug has an effect, you randomly select two 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:06.040 groups of people and you assign one of them to 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:08.320 get the drug and another one to get a placebo 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:12.160 which has no effect. You blind both the people so 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:14.680 they don't know that they're getting the drug, and you 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.360 also blind the researchers so they don't know who is 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.840 getting the drug. You decide ahead of time what analysis 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.600 you're going to do, what outcomes you're going to look for, 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:28.520 and then you test those using rigorous hypothesis testing and 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:33.000 statistics to see what happens. And in forensic sciences that 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.480 just it doesn't exist. The practitioners doing them are often 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:42.520 not blinded, the sample sizes are very low, there's conflicts 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:46.480 of interest, so it's not following some of the most 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:52.360 basic tenets that you would be reflexive to your typical 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:53.640 scientists in the university. 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:57.720 I mean, most people, especially lay people on a jury 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:02.239 hear the words forensic science, and you know, they imagine 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:06.480 this very pristine process in which things are tested and retested, 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:10.040 because you know, we all think of the scientific method 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:13.000 that we learn about in school, and it's kind of 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:17.239 startling to know that that's not actually the case. So 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:20.840 what you said really underscores what we've been saying throughout 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:23.400 the show and how big of a problem it can 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:28.879 be when jurors confuse what's really junk science presented in 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:35.280 courtrooms with traditional science that's used to develop medicines, for example. 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.480 And I'm not sure that our listeners are aware of this, 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.240 but I want you to think about this for a moment. 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.600 In cases where people were later proven to be innocent 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:51.800 based on DNA, forty five percent of those wrongful convictions 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.840 are based on some misapplication of forensic science. 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:59.560 Imagine if this were the FDA, right Imagine if a 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:02.000 drug didn't work fifty percent of the time and had 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.919 horrible side effects, they wouldn't just say, well, you know, 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:07.080 we already approved it, so let's just leave it on 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.600 the market. That's not how it works in medicine, but 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:10.960 that is how it works in the law. 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.480 So let's get into Jimmy's case. I want you to 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.800 tell us about the crime that led to his arrest 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:20.000 and the town that had happened in. Why did they 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.159 even decide to zero in on Jimmy in the first place. 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.720 Grand Junction is a sort of mining town of about 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.520 thirty thousand people at the time, and there was a 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:34.000 series of pipe bombs that went off in the town. 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:36.320 There were three of them, and one of them killed 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.919 a twelve year old girl. It was it was very tragic, 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.760 and they had they were seemingly random, and they had 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:48.280 no suspect, and so the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco on 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.360 Firearms was called in and they helped the local police 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:54.719 force do a bomb investigation to try to figure out 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.239 who this was. They had a list of something like 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.480 thirty suspects. There was this guy, Jimmy, who was sort 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:04.639 of a loner. Lived in a boarding house near downtown 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.600 in a twelve by twelve room. I think he was 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:09.720 a busboy in a restaurant, but was on and off 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:14.320 of jobs. His mother would bring him, you know, meals 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:19.119 in a cooler, and he was a little bit you know, 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.880 he had some problems with mental illness. There was one 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:25.960 event in particular that put him on the police's radar, 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:28.240 which was he walked into a bookstore one day and 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.960 asked them to order a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook, 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:35.000 which contains a diagram of a pipe bomb, and the 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:38.800 bookstore owners had called the police, and once they sort 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.199 of pieced all of this together, that put him at 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:45.119 the top of the suspect list. They then raided his 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:52.040 boarding room and found some electronic parts, some wire strippers 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:56.160 and pliers that could conceivably have been used to construct 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.760 a bomb, and at that point they worked to link 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:03.320 him to the bomb. They didn't find any other physical evidence, 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.960 never found the Anarchist Cookbook. They painted a picture of 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:09.959 him as the kind of person who would do this, 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:13.200 But you have to have physical evidence that links people 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:18.359 to crimes in very the objective ways, and they didn't 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:20.760 have that in this case other than the tool mark analysis, 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.520 which both the prosecutor and the judge acknowledged in the 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:27.200 trial transcript. They both acknowledged that the entire case hinged 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.080 on the tool mark analysis, and if it were thrown out, 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:31.399 there would be no case. 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:45.520 So how did they claim to identify Jimmy's tools as 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:48.680 the tools that were used on these bombs? 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:53.639 They look at these microscopic scratches or striations on the 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.600 bomb parts, and then they look at the suspects tools 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:01.000 and they make a mark on some other piece of 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.840 metal using a microscope. They compare the marks on the metal, 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.840 like their test marks, to the marks on the actual evidence, 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.720 and if those line up in the examiner's you know, 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:16.399 subjective judgment, they declare to match, and they say that 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.040 this was you know, the only tools that could have 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.480 made these marks, and therefore the owner of these tools 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:23.800 must have been the person who built the bombs. You know, 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:28.000 they use the word certainty, and that's very compelling to jurors, 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.600 but the truth is they don't know how certain it is. 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:35.280 These aren't exotic bomb making tools. They're three dollars pair 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:37.879 of pliers that you know, were sold at the local 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:42.320 hardware store. Perhaps so you could imagine that, you know, 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:44.800 a tool mark. Examiner could say something like, oh, it 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.320 was a really large pair of pliers versus a small one, 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:49.959 or you know, it's consistent or something like that, but 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:52.879 they don't say that they individualize it. They say that 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.119 this is an exact match. And this isn't really a 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.639 possible conclusion to come to, because you'd either have to 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.440 a test every other tool in the world and see 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.960 if this indeed was a unique mark that was being made, 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:11.280 or you would have to know the kinds of variations 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:14.719 that we see in tools, like how common is it 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:18.399 that two tools can look about the same but aren't 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:20.879 the same? Is it you know, two tools that are 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:23.159 made by the same brand. Is it two tools that 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:26.960 come off the same you know, lot in a factory. 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:30.000 So there's all of these things that you'd need to quantify, 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.680 And even if you did do that, you'd have to say, 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:35.480 you know, there's a one in one hundred chants that 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:37.440 this is a different tool. There's a one and two 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:39.440 hundred chants, right, something like that. 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:43.720 Right, So you're saying that one issue is how many 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:46.399 tools can be said to match a mark left behind? 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:48.280 And we really don't know the answer to that. But 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:51.879 I guess another issue is the examiners doing the matching. 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.879 And the fact of the matter is that these examiners 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.000 never really have to prove whether or not they can 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:02.640 effectively match it tool to its mark. And there are 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:05.359 possible ways to test this, right, I mean, if a 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:08.000 lab wants to test how good someone is at this 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:11.080 kind of tool matching, they would send a tool mark 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:15.600 examiner some tools along with some wires or pieces of 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:19.320 metal with tool marks on them, and the examiners would 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:22.320 then be asked to match the correct tool to the marks, 0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:25.920 and the lab would have all of the correct answers, 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:29.440 so they'd be able to tell how good these examiners 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:34.240 actually are. That kind of testing, which would show how 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:38.400 good these tool mark examiners are at their job, seems 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:39.840 like a simple thing to do. 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:43.440 Right, right, The real test is how well do you 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:47.560 examiners actually do in reality? And you would say, you know, 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:50.560 toolmark examiners make a mistake one out of ten times, 0:23:50.560 --> 0:23:52.280 one out of one hundred times, one out of a 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:55.439 thousand times. That's what you really want to know is 0:23:55.480 --> 0:23:57.040 how often do they make a mistake? 0:23:57.440 --> 0:23:59.440 So why don't they actually do these tests? 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:04.320 If that comes back and it's really, really, it's not 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:06.639 so good, Right, you make an error fifty percent of 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:10.000 the time or twenty five percent of the time, you're 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:13.120 out of a job. You know, what are these examiners 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:16.879 going to do if this becomes a technique that is 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:20.840 no longer a valid technique in court? And you know, 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:23.239 I think that it's easy to have this narrative that 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:29.000 you know, these are unscrupulous scientists who are manipulating data 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:32.360 in a bloodthirsty way to get convictions. And I think 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:35.520 that's a very cartoonish way to think about it. There 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:38.600 are certainly cases of misconduct, and there are cases of 0:24:39.280 --> 0:24:42.399 you know, bad motives, but in reality, these are people 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:46.560 who really believed that what they were doing is true. 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:50.200 And you actually talked to the tool mark examiner in 0:24:50.280 --> 0:24:55.080 Jimmy's case while you were researching your article. So what 0:24:55.160 --> 0:24:58.680 impressions did you have after talking to someone that actually 0:24:58.800 --> 0:25:00.359 specializes in this stuff. 0:25:01.480 --> 0:25:03.280 I guess the thing that struck me the most as 0:25:03.320 --> 0:25:06.440 a scientist is that there was an extreme lack of humility. 0:25:06.760 --> 0:25:10.360 There is an extreme lack of acknowledging that these could 0:25:10.520 --> 0:25:15.320 not be as infallible as they thought. They have a 0:25:15.480 --> 0:25:19.880 very strong interest in proving that these techniques are very powerful. 0:25:20.400 --> 0:25:22.760 There's a very strong sense of justice. There's a very 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:27.520 strong sense of righteousness. The posture of the forensic scientists 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:31.680