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Post Conviction Evidence Challenges

Overcome challenges in criminal evidence management. Accurately locate, test, and validate evidence. Implement a strategic stakeholder team and advanced inventory system. Effortlessly track one case or streamline the global investigation process. Address comprehensive crime data and prioritize probative evidence. Enhance DNA extraction efficiency and reporting accuracy. Manage personnel and resources effectively. Adopt a systematic approach to evidence retrieval from multiple storage locations. Foster team commitment and communication for mission success.

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Post Conviction Evidence Challenges

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  1. Post Conviction Evidence Challenges William Vosburgh Laboratory Director Metropolitan Police Department Consolidated Forensic Laboratory

  2. The Warehouse

  3. So you want to test something? • MONEY! Who is paying for what and how? • Finding evidence often the big problem • Establish stakeholder team: detective, attorneys, crime scene personnel, warehouse manager, evidence coordinator, laboratory • Without computerized case management systems you are chasing file cabinets. • Our Challenge: find everything and account for it. Computerized bar-coded inventory needed: 1 million plus items!!!

  4. Global Approach to Problem • Finding one case • Or solve the global problem • Start with the universe of possibilities • All major crimes for each year by CCN #, Homicides and Rapes. (UCR stats) • Categories: closed, open, conviction, evidence collected, stored, tested? • Spread sheet shared by stakeholders

  5. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly • All crimes per year going back 40 years • Detective case Jacket located • Evidence run book located • Evidence was/was not collected • Go find it (bring a lot of people) • Condition? Intact package • Chain of Custody? • LOST?!

  6. In the Lab • What is most probative? Crime reconstruction • Condition? Previously examined (cut)? • Screen for biological material • May find, may not work: degraded due to storage conditions • Extraction challenges, extended incubations • Low copy number DNA • Results? Do they match known? CODIS • Reporting

  7. Challenges: Got People? • LABOR! Army of interns (from all stakeholders), light duty personnel, hired recruits who aren’t in academy yet, reserve officers, volunteers. • We are all busy! Improve lab throughput by keeping supply of these cases as fillers to a rack of tubes going through the DNA system, special teams, overtime/comp.

  8. Evidence Easter Egg Hunt • Evidence Warehouse, • District Stations storage, • Detective Bureau, • Case files including archives off site, • Prosecutor’s offices, • Courthouse Evidence Rooms, • Retired detectives (attics!)

  9. Drive the bus backwards • If you find some evidence of the type you are looking for (e.g., Rape kits), inventory and go back to detectives, case jackets. • Be methodical and persistent • Communicate regularly with your team, post information on intranet server.

  10. Be persistent • Biggest Challenge is the functional management of people. • Your team must buy in to the mission and be seriously motivated to carry this through. • From stakeholder management to the smallest worker bee, include everyone in the vision for success.

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