You may not recognize the name - Dr. Henry Lee - but you have almost definitely run across his work, probably frequently. Dr. Henry Lee is a forensic scientist, some say the forensic scientist, most say the most famous forensic scientist in the world.
He made his name in the early 1980s by solving the Scarsdale Diet Doctor and the 'woodchipper murder." In short order, he was a regular on true crime shows, worked on the OJ Simpson trial, the JonBenét Ramsey murder, and many more sensational crimes, was a regular on Dateline, and has had the Forensic Science Center at the University of New Haven named for him.
A 1985 Murder Case
Last month, one of his oldest cases - from 1985 - was suddenly all over the media . . . and not in a good way.
A man was murdered in his home in what may have been a botched burglary. It was particularly grisly, he was killed in a hallway by dozens of knife wounds. Blood coated the floor and walls, the State Police had to build a ramp over the body so as not to disturb the crime scene. A towel with a few drops of what looked like blood. Dr. Lee confirmed that it was blood a short time later.
Two teenage men were picked up in short order. Occasional burglars, they lived in their beat-up car surrounded by stolen goods and fast-food wrappers. They were arrested for the murder. In those pre-DNA testing days only blood types were used on evidence. The drops on the towel were matched to one of the teens. There was no other evidence.
The teens were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Despite the fact that there was not a drop of anyone's blood on them or in their car/home. And they didn't have anything from the house. And a dozen other things. The teens were convicted by the scientific evidence and Lee's hasty assertion in court that they 'probably cleaned up and wiped the last of the blood off on the towel.'
They were released in 2019 after it was discovered that the blood on the towel wasn't human blood. In fact, it wasn't blood at all. A federal court judge found Dr. Lee liable for their wrongful conviction and decades in prison. Damages are expected to be in the tens of millions.
This is a high profile and latest example of lab and/or testing failures over the years that should put to rest the CBS CSI franchise's decades of myth making.
Dr. Lee is one of - if not the main - reason for all the CSI series. His reputation was that impressive. When he got on the witness stand in 1989 that reputation blinded the courtroom. Including the defendants' attorneys. They apparently showed no skepticism at all toward Lee's testimony, even when he rather preposterously explained how the teens would have been able do the killing without getting blood on themselves. Instead, they focused only on the teens' alibi and lack of physical evidence. They ended up ceding to Lee's authority as a star forensic witness without ever questioning the underlying science and his 'theory.'
I have a friend who took a class on forensic science with Dr. Lee not long after this trial. His observation: "the guy was so assured, funny, and charismatic that cross-examining him was a minefield because you knew the jury loved him."
The CSI Effect
This trial was an early - maybe the first - example of the CSI Effect: "the phenomenon resulting from viewing forensic and crime-based television shows. This effect influences jurors to have unrealistic expectations of forensic science during a criminal trial and affects jurors' decisions in the conviction or acquittal process," though it preceded CSI: Las Vegas by ten years.
In 2023, the CSI Effect is still out there despite the fact that studies conservatively estimate that 40% of the science in the shows doesn't exist. And despite a decade's worth of high-profile lab/forensic disasters.
Washington State Lab Issues
Washington has had its own share of biased witnesses posing as scientists. From providing test results for tests that were never conducted to their inability to follow their own rules, the toxicology lab has a regular pattern of identifying a problem and attempting to cover it up. When they're caught, the answer is always some version of "it doesn't matter".
As recently as last winter, a refrigerator storing blood samples from hundreds of DUI cases failed. There was apparently no alarm or other safeguard in place, so the blood sat at room temperature. Again, they said it doesn't really matter. That, of course, begs the question -- if it doesn't matter, why does the lab need to refrigerate it in the first place?
The defense attorney who doesn't understand that labs make mistakes and forensic scientists misinterpret facts shouldn't be defending anyone. We at Knauss Law understand. We're never, as the old Thomas Dolby song went, blinded by science.
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