Virginia Cops Used Fake DNA Docs to Coerce Confessions. Somehow, That’s Legal

Virginia Police Used Fake DNA Docs to Coerce Confessions—Somehow, That’s Legal

DNA forensics, at their finest, are meant to deliver an air of scientific confidence to the legal justice system to hopefully stop the worst sorts of wrongful convictions. Those good intentions are made meaningless although when dangerous cops resolve to combat soiled.

Officers serving within the Virginia Beach Police Department reportedly did simply that by displaying suspects solid paperwork with faux DNA proof supposedly linking them to a criminal offense with a purpose to coerce them right into a confession or safe a conviction, according to state Attorney General Mark Herring.

Police reportedly used the cast DNA paperwork at the very least 5 instances between March 2016 and February 2020. The faux lab certificates, which purported to return from the Virginia Department of Forensic Science, seem to have appeared fairly convincing. The paperwork have been adorned with an official seal and letterhead from the company and in two instances, they featured a signature from a faux worker. In at the very least one case, DNA paperwork have been even introduced as proof in courtroom. (It’s unclear if the paperwork have been introduced as professional DNA proof.)

The observe was solely found in April of 2021 after an assistant commonwealth’s lawyer requested a duplicate of one of many solid paperwork from the state’s Department of Forensic Science. Of course, that request got here up empty as a result of the requested doc by no means existed within the first place.

“This was an extremely troubling and potentially unconstitutional tactic that abused the name of the Commonwealth to try to coerce confessions,” Herring stated in an announcement. “It also abused the good name and reputation of the Commonwealth’s hard-working forensic scientists and professionals who work hard to provide accurate, solid evidence in support of our law enforcement agencies.”

The revelations in regards to the forgeries are the results of an investigation launched by Herring’s Office of Civil Rights. Now, following the investigation, the police division has entered right into a two-year conciliation settlement with the lawyer normal that stops the observe from being repeated sooner or later and provides extra modest reforms. None of the officers who engaged within the misleading observe seem set to obtain any type of punishment for creating or utilizing the cast paperwork. Here’s the place we pause for a collective, lengthy sigh.

While Virginia’s Office of Civil Rights will reportedly notify people who have been interrogated utilizing the faux paperwork, there’s nothing suggesting there are any plans to overturn these convictions.

Incredibly, all of this wasn’t even technically unlawful. As the Washington Post explains, police are typically allowed to lie throughout an investigation with a purpose to solicit a confession as long as their ways don’t result in an “involuntary” confession. Illustrating this, The Post cited a 1997 case in Virginia the place an appeals courtroom upheld a homicide conviction after police coerced a confession by displaying a person faux fingerprints suggesting he was implicated within the crime. Talk about justice.

“Such ploys [falsifying DNA records] are just a factor to be considered in whether a confession was voluntary,” Defense Attorney Chris Leibig instructed the Post. “Reprehensible does not equal unconstitutional.”