Forensic identification science begins with comparing a questioned item of evidence to a sample of a known source to determine if they match. Then, the examiner must determine the probability of the questioned item and the known item coming from the same source. Needless to say, this two-step process has enormous risks of error. Writing in the Vanderbilt Law Review (Vol. 61/Issue 1/2008), law professors Michael J. Saks and Jonathan J. Koehler explain why:

“Different risks of error are present at each stage. The risk of error in the first step is that a reported match between a questioned and a known sample might not really match. Even if the method used to compare question and known samples were flawless, an error could occur if, for example, one of the samples had been mislabeled or mixed up with a different sample. The risk of error associated with the second step is that, while accurate, the reported match may have arisen through coincidence and not because the samples share a common source. The risks of error at both steps affect the ultimate inference that can be drawn about the identification in a case.”

Flawed forensic evidence of any kind lends credence to the term “the fallacy of forensic evidence.” Popular television shows like Forensic Files and the CSI drama chain have perpetuated the myth that forensic science is the gold standard by which all evidence must be measured. If a criminalist or any designated forensic science “expert” determines that there is a match between the questioned and known evidence, prosecutors, judges, and juries accept their determination as the holy grail of evidence, particularly when it is the primary source of evidence against one accused of a crime—such as DNA, fingerprint, or ballistic matches.

Done deal, guilt sealed.

These overseers of the truth routinely make this conclusion in criminal cases—many times with disastrous results.

Take Tracy Jordan, for example.

The former Philadelphia police officer was exonerated on October 31, 2024, for a crime he did not commit. The exoneration came after Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s renowned Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) disclosed that the district attorney’s office concealed evidence pointing to other possible perpetrators of the murder for which Jordan was convicted. That conviction involved the shooting death of 57-year-old Harold Wexler inside his check-cashing business on the morning of November 14, 2004, just after he opened the Cash Plus store for business.

A lone gunman entered the store with the intent of robbing it. A struggle ensued between Wexler and the gunman, during which a gunshot was fired. The bullet from the .40-caliber Smith & Wesson struck and killed Wexler. Crime scene technicians recovered at the scene a fired cartridge case from the weapon and the medical examiner’s office recovered a bullet jacket from Wexler’s body during its autopsy.

Crime scene technicians also pulled a fingerprint from a white bag at the crime scene and another fingerprint from the store’s door handle. The fingerprint from the white bag was identified as belonging to Jordan and the one from the door handle to Frank Bagley. Homicide detectives determined that Bagley had an alibi that precluded him from being a viable suspect.

Homicide detectives then turned their investigative attention to Tracy Jordan.

On November 18, 2004, the detectives interviewed the former Philadelphia Housing Authority police officer who had recently been terminated from his job because he was involved with the union representing the Housing Authority’s police force. A former Marine with no criminal record, Jordan’s fingerprints were in the law enforcement fingerprint database because he was a former police officer.

Nanette Jordan, Tracy’s wife, was also a police officer. In a consensual search of the couple’s home, law enforcement seized her service weapon for testing. That testing, conducted by two Philadelphia Police Department examiners, concluded that the cartridge case recovered from the crime scene and the bullet jacket recovered from Wexler’s body had been fired by Nanette Jordan’s service weapon.

Jordan was arrested for Wexler’s murder on November 24, 2004, despite having credible alibi evidence.

Before trial, Jordan’s attorney hired a forensic expert to examine the firearm evidence. Concerned about this maneuver and that one of its original co-examiners of the firearm evidence had retired, the state asked the remaining co-examiner to re-test the evidence. This re-examination led the co-examiner to conclude that he could no longer say that Nanette Jordan’s service weapon was, in fact, the murder weapon. After two other forensic experts reached the same conclusion, the trial judge ordered the firearm evidence sent to the FBI for analysis.

The FBI testing could neither conclude that Nanette Jordan’s weapon was the murder weapon nor could it exclude the firearm as the murder weapon.

Jordan’s trial took place in November 2006. One of the state’s initial co-examiners of Nanette Jordan’s service weapon testified that the original testing of the firearm evidence determined that there was a “match” between that evidence and Nanette’s weapon but that the re-examination could not reach that same “match” conclusion.

The examiner testified that he could find no evidence that Nanette’s weapon had been recently fired. However, he did find that the “bunter marks”—a mark left by the dye that produces a stamp on the cartridge head—made on the shell casing found at the crime scene and those found in the cartridges of Nanette’s service weapon were made at the same factory. The examiner further testified that a call to factory revealed that the same “bunter” is used on between 120,000 to 150,000 cartridges—all of which could have been used in the crime.

The prosecutor nonetheless told the jury that the state’s forensic evidence was strong, telling jurors that: “I would suggest to you there should be no doubt that he’s the person who took this weapon, who pointed it at Harold Wexler’s head, who pulled the trigger and who killed that man.”

After seven days of trial, the jury convicted Tracy Jordan of second degree murder and the trial judge sentenced him to life without parole. Nearly two years later the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld Jordan’s conviction, finding that there was “sufficient” evidence to warrant his conviction. Post-conviction habeas proceedings through the state and federal courts over the next fifteen years following the denial of his direct appeal by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2008 resulted in denials of relief.

Then, in 2023, the Philadelphia district attorney’s CIU opened an inquiry into Jordan’s case. That inquiry uncovered massive police and prosecutorial misconduct, including the deliberate suppression of exculpatory evidence and the knowing use of false testimony; namely, that the state’s firearm’s examiner testified falsely about the firearm evidence being “inconclusive” when there was credible evidence showing there was no match.

Jordan’s attorneys, the Phillip Black Law Firm, filed a motion for a new trial based on this false “bunter marks” evidence and a sweeping array of other official misconduct in the case.

On October 31, 2024, Judge Rose Marie Defino-Nastasi granted the new trial motion, along with a motion to dismiss the charge against Jordan, exonerating the former Marine of any connection to the Wexler’s murder.

The massive official misconduct notwithstanding, Tracy Jordan spent 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit based on not only flawed forensic evidence but false testimony given by a forensic “expert.”

Reputable studies have shown that when errors are made in forensic science, they fall into three categories:

  • Incompetent or fraudulent examiners.
  • Disciplines with an inadequate scientific foundation (sometimes called “junk science”).
  • Organizational deficiencies in training, management, governance, or resources.

These studies show that 9 out of every 14 forensic cases examined showed an error of some sort. Astonishingly, only 1 out of every 14 cases showed no error. Falsity and overstating the certainty of forensic evidence are the two most common errors contributing to the “fallacy of forensic evidence.”

That is what happened to Tracy Jordan and it cost him twenty years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

 

 

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