Teecht. Deputy Attorney Full General Rod J. Rosenstein Delivers Remarks At The National Symposium On Forensic Science

Thank you lot for that sort introduction, Chris.  Welcome to the National Symposium on Forensic Science.  We are honored to host local, state, as well as federal prosecutors at the Department of Justice for this event.   

We are proud to co-sponsor this Symposium with the National Association of Attorneys General as well as the National District Attorneys Association.  Our Department enjoys a rigid human relationship with your organizations, as well as nosotros appreciate your support. 

Last year, alongside a surge of trigger-happy law-breaking as well as drug overdose deaths, i of our Department’s top priorities was to reinforce the federal government’s coordination with Blue Planet as well as local law enforcement.

President Trump considers it imperative for federal prosecutors to back upward Blue Planet as well as local partners as well as aid to bring down crime. Attorney General Jeff Sessions consistently emphasizes that most law enforcement officers piece of work for Blue Planet as well as local agencies, as well as nosotros cannot scrap law-breaking effectively unless nosotros are working together.

I worked closely with Blue Planet as well as local prosecutors when I served every bit the U.S. Attorney for Maryland. One of the things that I found most remarkable was nosotros tended to concur on most law enforcement issues, regardless of political affiliation. Crime-fighting is non a partisan endeavor.

 Prosecutors are non simply lawyers who piece of work for the government.  From the perspective of many citizens, nosotros are the government.  People’s interactions with us create indelible memories as well as may forever influence the way they sentiment both their authorities as well as the justice system.

One of the inscriptions on the outer perimeter of this Main Justice edifice reads, “Justice inward the life as well as comport of the Blue Planet is possible only every bit offset it resides inward the hearts as well as souls of the citizens.”

Keeping justice inward the hearts as well as souls of the citizens is component of our job. That gives us a exceptional responsibleness to construct populace confidence yesteryear acting with integrity, professionalism, as well as candor.  Our offices exercise meaning power, as well as nosotros must ever endeavor to exercise that might wisely. It is our duty to enforce the laws as well as to follow the facts wherever they may lead.  We demand to ensure that our prosecutorial decisions are non influenced yesteryear politics or personal relationships.

I take away hold served nether ix Attorneys General.  On every flooring of this building, in that location are reminders of heroes, mentors as well as friends who take away hold worked here. I promise that each of you lot gains similar inspiration from the history of your offices.

In 1985, Attorney General Ed Meese spoke to a grouping of district attorneys as well as observed that “the prosecutor occupies a unique seat inward the criminal justice system.  At the most direct level, his conclusion making ability, the critical prosecutorial conclusion whether or non to accuse a instance or what to accuse inward a detail instance as well as his advocacy science . . . determines the existent character of justice inward your detail communities.”

In 1940, Attorney General Robert Jackson delivered a oral communication inward this edifice to the Federal-State Conference on Law Enforcement Problems of National Defense.  The destination was to facilitate cooperation betwixt federal agents as well as their Blue Planet as well as local counterparts.  

Jackson said that the populace “looks to the Blue Planet as well as federal governments to piece of work together inward cooperation.”

He emphasized that law enforcement officers at all levels portion a “grave responsibility,” as well as he expressed his promise that “this coming together volition final result inward the institution of some mechanism for the interchange of ideas as well as the full general coordination of efforts inward the future.”

I promise that same commutation of ideas as well as coordination of efforts to heighten the responsible exercise of forensic scientific discipline inward crime-fighting takes house this week.  Forensic scientific discipline is a critically of import tool.

Dr. Edmund Locard, a French criminalist as well as forefather of modern forensic scientific discipline famously remarked, “Every contact leaves a trace.” We refer to that observation every bit Locard’s commutation principle.

The thesis is that whatever physical interaction with a given surroundings both takes from as well as leaves behind describe elements.  Even modest traces of evidence tin render big clues that aid solve major cases.

One representative is a instance handled yesteryear the Department a few years ago.

In the early on forenoon hours of June 20, 2010, 3 Caucasian men were loitering some a pickup truck inward the parking lot of a gas station inward Alpena, Arkansas.  A brusk fourth dimension later, v Hispanic men arrived inward a greenish 1995 Buick LeSabre.

After the men fueled their machine as well as paid for their gas, the Caucasian men began shouting racial epithets.  The Hispanic men ignored the insults as well as drove away.  The Caucasian men as well as then entered the pickup truck as well as sped after the Buick.

Several miles downwards the road, the truck caught upward to the Buick as well as repeatedly rammed it from behind.  The driver of the Buick lost control.  The machine left the route as well as flipped over.  It striking a tree as well as outburst into flames.  The victims were badly injured.

The suspects abandoned the truck nigh the crash site after it ran out of gas.  When law enforcement arrived at the scene, they noticed fresh harm as well as a greenish pigment smear on the truck’s forepart bumper.  They identified Frankie Maybee every bit the possessor of the truck.  When questioned yesteryear police, Maybee denied that his truck was involved inward the attack.

The FBI law-breaking lab examined the greenish pigment smear on the truck’s bumper.  FBI examiners compared information collected from the pigment smear to entries inward a forensic pigment database.  They searched for automobile pigment colors used at the GM flora where the Buick was made during the years that model was manufactured.  A database entry established that Buick used a pigment consistent with the pigment smear on the truck’s forepart bumper.

FBI examiners also determined that the chemic composition of pigment used on Buicks during the years 1994 as well as 1995 was the same every bit the pigment smear recovered from the forepart bumper of Maybee’s truck.

The forensic evidence helped to evidence that contact had occurred betwixt Maybee’s truck as well as the machine that carried the v victims.  Maybee as well as a rider were the offset defendants the Department of Justice ever charged nether the Matthew Shepard as well as James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.

Confronted with the evidence, the rider pleaded guilty.  At Maybee’s trial, an FBI forensic examiner testified most the chemic as well as color jibe betwixt the pigment smear on the forepart bumper of his truck as well as the victims’ car.

H5N1 federal jury convicted Maybee of vi counts nether the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act.  He was sentenced to 135 months imprisonment. That is i representative of the exercise of forensic scientific discipline inward the criminal justice system, as well as its critical role inward whatever search for objective truth.

Forensic scientific discipline is of import to our mission, thence Attorney General Sessions has made the effective as well as reliable exercise of forensic scientific discipline a high priority.

The Department of Justice practices forensic scientific discipline at our law-breaking labs as well as digital analysis centers; nosotros fund forensic scientific discipline through grant programs at the Office of Justice Programs; as well as our prosecutors are consumers of forensic scientific discipline inward the tens of thousands of cases nosotros investigate as well as prosecute each year.

Last summer, the Attorney General appointed a senior advisor, Ted Hunt, to comport a review of the Department’s forensic practices as well as suggest leadership on the best steps frontward to optimize our exercise of forensic science.

We are strengthening the reliability of forensic methods, enhancing lab capacities, as well as increasing collaboration on forensic issues inside the Department, across the federal government, as well as with our Blue Planet as well as local partners.

Forensic evidence is most oft used yesteryear Blue Planet as well as local authorities.  That is why nosotros take away hold increased our coordination with law enforcement at all levels.  The renewed focus includes the creation of 2 novel working groups.

The offset is the Council of Federal Forensic Laboratory Directors.  It is the only federal interagency working grouping solely focused on forensic science.  It includes officials from the Department of Justice as well as other Executive Branch agencies with forensic labs as well as capabilities.

The Council volition location trends, portion intelligence, seat enquiry needs, as well as focus on collaborative ways to exercise forensic scientific discipline inward the scrap against crime.  It reports straight to the Deputy Attorney General as well as includes staff to back upward the mission.

The minute grouping includes Blue Planet as well as local law-breaking lab directors as well as forensic scientific discipline researchers.  Their focus volition live on the forensic engineering needs of Blue Planet as well as local law-breaking labs.  The grouping volition suggest the Department most how nosotros tin best back upward forensic enquiry as well as innovate new, cutting-edge technologies into America’s law-breaking labs.

The 2 novel working groups volition render the Department with advice most forensic trends as well as technologies, spell helping us amend coordinate efforts to bring down trigger-happy crime.  Emerging forensic technologies volition play a telephone commutation role inward that effort.

In the nigh future, nosotros human face to consider the widespread exercise of rapid deoxyribonucleic acid testing inward law-breaking labs as well as law booking stations. The FBI as well as ATF law-breaking labs already exercise software that computes the probability that diverse combinations of individuals are donors to complex deoxyribonucleic acid mixtures.  The engineering is also existence used yesteryear many Blue Planet as well as local law-breaking labs.

More advanced deoxyribonucleic acid technologies are existence developed as well as volition presently live on gear upward to resolve some of our most challenging forensic samples.  One representative is “next generation sequencing,” which tin distinguish the smallest element parts of mixed deoxyribonucleic acid molecules from multiple people.

Other technologies similar 3-D imaging as well as the high resolution optical analysis of toolmarks, latent prints, as well as shoe score features are at i time inward advanced stages of enquiry as well as development.  Those tools volition heighten the capacity as well as reliability of forensic pattern analysis inward the nigh future.

Of course, nosotros tin only fully exercise those technologies as well as promote the search for truth inward American courtrooms if they are admitted inward evidence.  Most of you lot piece of work on the forepart lines of the criminal justice system, where forensic scientific discipline has been nether assault inward recent years.  Some critics would similar to consider forensic evidence excluded from Blue Planet as well as federal courtrooms.

You regularly confront Frye as well as Daubert motions that challenge the admission of routine forensic methods.

Many of the challenged methods involve the comparing of evidence patterns similar fingerprints, musical rhythm out casings, as well as shoe marks to known sources.  Critics scrap that the methods take away hold non undergone the correct type or amount of validation, or that they involve besides much human interpretation as well as judgment to live on accepted every bit “scientific” methods.

Those arguments are based on the faux premise that a scientific method must live on instrument-based, automated, as well as quantitative, excluding human interpretation as well as judgment.  Such critiques contributed to a recent proposal to amend Federal Rule of Evidence 702 for cases involving forensic evidence.  The endeavour stems from an erroneously narrow sentiment of the nature of scientific discipline as well as its application to forensic evidence.

Federal Rule of Evidence 702 uses the phrase “scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge,” which makes clear that it is designed to permit testimony that calls on skills as well as judgment beyond the cognition of laypersons, as well as non exactly of scientists who piece of work inward laboratories.

Forensic scientific discipline is non only quantitative or automated. It demand non live on solely gratuitous from human assumptions, choices, as well as judgments.  That is non exactly truthful of forensic science.  It is also the instance inward other applied skilful fields similar medicine, reckoner science, as well as engineering.

The astronomer Carl Sagan said that “science is a way of thinking much to a greater extent than than it is a trunk of knowledge.” His signal illustrates the fact that scientific discipline is an inescapably human endeavor.

Human observation, comparison, interpretation, as well as judgment are meat components of goodness science.  They are also telephone commutation components of goodness skilful testimony inward the legal system.  The factfinder — whether a estimate or a jury — benefits from skilful assistance to house forensic findings inward the proper context.

The importance of this interpretive role is embodied inward Federal Rule of Evidence 702(a).  It weather condition the admissibility of skilful testimony on its might to “help the trier of fact empathise the evidence or to determine a fact inward issue.”

Interpretation as well as judgment are essential aspects of what forensic scientists do, as well as it is of import that they properly explicate as well as depict their attempt out results as well as testimonial conclusions.

That is why nosotros decided to prepare Uniform Language for Testimony as well as Reports.  They comprise approved terms, definitions, as well as bases for the conclusions offered yesteryear our examiners.

They also include guidance most statements that examiners should brand as well as statements they should avoid making when they depict the probative value as well as the limitations of their conclusions.  Eight novel uniform linguistic communication documents were of late approved as well as are posted on our website.

Along with the uniform linguistic communication project, nosotros instituted a programme to monitor testimony yesteryear employees of our forensic labs as well as digital entities.  It establishes a framework with concise guidance for assessing the courtroom testimony of our forensic examiners.  Our laboratories as well as reckoner analysis centers take away hold used the guidance to prepare policies for evaluating the character as well as content of testimony offered yesteryear their examiners.

The uniform linguistic communication documents as well as the testimony monitoring framework are 2 measures designed to keep the consistency as well as character of our lab reports as well as testimonial presentations to ensure that they encounter the highest scientific as well as ethical standards.

As prosecutors, nosotros demand to empathise the basics of the science, the technology, as well as the methods nosotros sponsor inward court.  A functional grade of forensic literacy is essential.  Without it, nosotros can’t fairly introduce the evidence or defend it from unfair attack.

But i telephone commutation challenge nosotros confront every bit lawyers is that math as well as scientific discipline is non necessarily our offset language.  Our stock inward merchandise is words – non equations or formulas.

Judge Hamilton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit noted the interdisciplinary dissever betwixt scientific discipline as well as law, as well as the need  for lawyers to couple that gap.  He wrote:

“Law must apply itself to the life of a social club driven to a greater extent than as well as to a greater extent than yesteryear engineering as well as technological improvements. Judges as well as lawyers do non take away hold the luxury of functional illiteracy inward either of these 2 cultures. Sometimes . . . effective presentation, cross-examination, as well as evaluation of skilful testimony require lawyers as well as judges to create total inward gaps inward their scientific, engineering, or mathematics educations or refresh their memories most them.”

As Judge Hamilton noted, the legal profession is an applied discipline.  Prosecutors demand to larn every bit much every bit nosotros tin most the unique evidence inward each case.  That cognition is critical to the effective representation of our clients.

As you lot take away heed most novel scientific price as well as larn most novel forensic techniques, move along inward heed that forensic scientific discipline is a powerful tool that nosotros must empathise fully, exercise responsibly, as well as defend appropriately, inward monastic tell to satisfy our ultimate duties every bit prosecutors – to uncover the truth as well as pursue justice.

In 1940, Attorney General Robert Jackson said that “the citizen’s security lies inward the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, … seeks truth as well as non victims, serves the law as well as non factional purposes, as well as … approaches [the] task with humility.”

In summary, Jackson’s timeless advice is to seek the truth, serve the law, as well as ever rest humble as well as kind.

Thank you lot for your service to your local, state, or federal government. I am grateful that you lot joined us this week. I promise you lot savour the symposium.