NYC scientist fired after raising questions about a DNA test gets $1M settlement

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/nyregion/dna-testing-nyc-medical-examiner.html

by ekovarski • 7 years ago

279 92 7 years ago

nytimes.com

osrec• 7 years ago

Headline reads like Daily Mail clickbait.

Edit: thanks for updating the title.

stevezsa8• 7 years ago

Nah... Daily Mail headline would be 'foreigner taking away our DNA tests'

sophacles2• 7 years ago

May read like that, but its actually just a good summary of the actual article.

duxup6• 7 years ago

The phrasing fits some clickbait articles, but unlike clickbait articles the story seems to fit the title.

I think that's a significant difference even if I don't like the phrasing.

duxup6• 7 years ago

a novel form of DNA testing being used in criminal cases

I feel like any "novel form of" really shouldn't be evidence until it's proven.

Granted I also recognize how courts really struggle understanding the magical world of what science is proven and what isn't.

I do worry that it's up to each defendant to effectively fight these fights that are big topics and would be crazy expensive to "disprove" something the government says is proven, but isn't.

sametmax2• 7 years ago

Granted I also recognize how courts really struggle understanding the magical world of what science is proven and what isn't.

I don't understand how. Aren't you suppose to study logic to be a a judge ? Surely laws and argumentation are a central topic, and they all require a brain. How somebody unable to understand simple concept like probabilities can be judge ?

testvox• 7 years ago

Judges in many parts of the United States are elected, so there is no particular guarantee they have studied anything.

duxup6• 7 years ago

Logic isn't the hard part, it's knowing what to weigh and how.

I think like diving into an actual scientific paper, it's actually quite hard to take issue with various things and understand them if you're not familiar with the science itself.

I feel like I can logic out some stuff reasonably well as say some doctor studying DNA (speaking very generally) but as far as DNA goes i'm straight ignorant as to what to weight and conclude.... the doctor presumably better, but I'd have no clue if he was wrong.

HeWhoLurksLate2• 7 years ago

I don't understand how. Aren't you suppose to study logic to be a a judge ? Surely laws and argumentation are a central topic, and they all require a brain. How somebody unable to understand simple concept like probabilities can be judge ?

Some of this gets solved via the use of expert witnesses- people who weren't at the scene of the crime that have expertise in a related topic, and their job is, basically, to explain some part of what happened, or how something works, under oath- for instance, a computer forensics expert, who investigated the computer of a hacker, can, during testimony, explain how something works and why that's important. Because experts are under oath, and assumed to have a knowledge of the field they're representing, the judges (and jury, too) generally place trust in them. In this case, the defendant scientist was concerned because of a lack of data:

   Ms. Stajic, 69, said she felt vindicated.
   “As a forensic scientist, I am fully aware 
   of the importance of validating each study,” 
   she said in an interview. “My concern was if 
   that study was not done, there could be 
   wrongful convictions. And if the wrong people
   were convicted, that would mean the wrong person 
   would be walking free.”

This is especially important considering the following lines:

   Low Copy Number testing involves very minute amounts of DNA — 
   often lifted from crime scene surfaces, such as weapon handles 
   or bicycle handlebars, that multiple people have touched. 
   The city first adopted this technique in 2006, and it is estimated 
   to have been used in thousands of cases before it was phased out 
   in January 2017. New York was the only crime lab in the country 
   believed to have used the method.

This sounds a little fishy to me- like a computer forensics expert testifying in court that the only reason to use Tor is for bad-guy activities, shortcutting the process of finding what else they might need it for- for instance, I personally use Tor in a VM for looking at the occasional site that I just don't trust.

In conclusion- yes, logic is an important part of being a judge, and a part that you more or less have to have in order to get very far. Judges also trust expert witnesses to fill them in on what they don't know (such as how this exact model of car works, or what a particular weapon's spray is like, or if shells from bullets match the defendant's gun) and generally trust them. The problem in the article is that the NYC's science department was more or less in bed with its prosecutors, which is not fair, and that the science department was using less data than it ought to to produce often-damning evidence. It's not really the fault of the judge for not understanding that the shortcuts that the science department were using weren't good, especially when they're under oath, which is a HUGE psychological part of law.

Also, if it helps, here's a good overview of how a court case works, in the form of a movie scene critique (legitimately the best primer on how a court with a jury generally functions, or at least ought to):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1I7QBCHqng

jcranmer• 7 years ago

How somebody unable to understand simple concept like probabilities can be judge?

How many smart people struggle with the Monty Hall problem? It's a fairly simple probability problem, overall, but it is very much unintuitive (mostly a matter of the difficulty of setting up the problem in the first place). Most people aren't very strong in mathematics, and even most scientists struggle to apply statistics correctly (see the commentary around the fMRI of a dead fish for an example). It's not surprising that judges and juries are going to have these same struggles.

lenticular• 7 years ago

A huge amount of "forensic science" is complete bunk. Scientific validity doesn't matter, you just have to be able to sell it to a jury.

duxup6• 7 years ago

Sadly that is where judges should be stepping in but the barn doors were left open so who gets to be the first to say "you can't use fingerprints that 'match' because your noob deputy thinks they kinda look alike..."?

sophacles2• 7 years ago

The people who criticized her and fired her need to be removed from their positions and barred from working in the public sector ever again. Further any action they've taken in the name of "the public" needs to be validated by an independent group.

It's a hard-line stance I know. Anything less tho is just externalizing the damage done by these fools and their "win at all costs" mentality. It's easy to have that mentality when the "costs" to the actor are - at worst - keeping ill gotten gains and some slap on the wrist, while the real consequences are borne by people who are effectively collateral damage.

Sure I'm a crazy hippie, but the fact that this woman got a settlement does nothing to help the real problem. If anything, it makes it worse - the people are distracted by the bread and circuses of a person getting a pile of money, while the NY medical examiner's office gets to purge a person fighting for actual correctness. I'm sure her absence will make it easier for prosecutors to "win" more, since there are fewer people arguing to do silly things like trying to follow the prinicple of "prosecute the actual offender".

hn_throwaway_995• 7 years ago

Before pulling out the pitchforks, I'd encourage you to investigate with more than just one article. It may very well be everything you recommend is warranted, but be aware that once reporters decide on the narrative for a story, they pull out quotes and data in a manner that specifically supports that narrative.

I know I've been burned in the past by just reading one side of the story and getting angry before understanding the entirety of what happened.

alexandercrohde• 7 years ago

Okay, great, but if it is found to be a cut and dry case, you agree a firing and bar from public office are the correct course of action?

jrockway2• 7 years ago

I typically read both the NYT and the WSJ, and they very often agree on news stories. When I subscribed to the WSJ, I was expecting to be blown away at how the NYT was sticking me in some sort of liberal media bubble. But it turns out, they both pick the same topics and both relay the same facts.

Even the opinion columns are the same -- "I support the position of the political party to which I am aligned, no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT."

magashna• 7 years ago

They stated they had proven this controversial technique worked, then it came out it was never tested. That seems pretty clear cut to me.

stale20023• 7 years ago

People always make claims like "oh, innocent until proven guilty!", "Let's just wait for the evidence!'.

But apparently we are here right now, where the state was proven guilty, and they paid a million dollars to someone for their crimes, and the evidence does show that something bad happened, and yet people are still ignoring the evidence.

Yeah, no. They paid a million dollars to someone. That is good enough evidence for me to condemn them.

mannykannot• 7 years ago

I have been following this case for some time in various sources, and there is essentially no way to spin this as other than a determined and long-running attempt to pervert justice. Deliberately falsely imprisoning someone is the moral equivalent of kidnapping in my book.

drugme• 7 years ago

Before pulling out the pitchforks,

And yet -- Occam's Razor, and lengthy enough observation about how things operate in various city agencies in NYC prudently suggests:

At the very least, do keep those pitchforks ready at your side - and freshly sharpened.

kmlx• 7 years ago

The city and the Office of Chief Medical Examiner said Monday that the settlement did not mean that Ms. Stajic was treated inappropriately. In pretrial papers, its directors had argued that there had been some unrelated concerns over how she managed her laboratory.

DoofusOfDeath• 7 years ago

I suspect that parallel construction is very common in situations where management wants someone fired for illegal reasons.

I think I'd need to see the results of an independent investigation before reaching any conclusions in this case.

winter_blue3• 7 years ago

I absolutely agree. I think we need laws that hold those working in the public sector to extremely high standards, and moreover we need laws that allow private individuals and groups to take action (incl. lawsuits) against corrupt agencies and officials, and have changes in the agency enforced upon it by the courts, and corrupt individuals fired and subject to punishment.

I'm sure her absence will make it easier for prosecutors

The whole police and prosecution system is need of major reform. Most importantly, eliminate rewards for catching offenders and putting them in jail -- instead: (1) ensure job security, while (2) awarding the lack of crime / low crime rates. At the same time, the agency that crimes are reported to is separate and independent, so that there is no incentive to not record crimes / under-report.

JamesWebb• 7 years ago

Are they still using the test she questioned?

hn_throwaway_995• 7 years ago

busterarm• 7 years ago

How many times are we going to let junk science poison our judicial system?

HeWhoLurksLate2• 7 years ago

How much longer until we start investigating prosecutors for potential misconduct by an outside source that's not tied to their organization?

Edit: formatting.

jrockway2• 7 years ago

We are trying to add state-level oversight in New York. Prosecutors believe that oversight is “marred by constitutional defects.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/nyregion/ny-prosecutors-c...

jniedrauer• 7 years ago

So the city claimed that a study had been done but refused to release it. When pressed to release it, they fired those involved. How is this not career ending for anyone who knew the study didn't exist but claimed it did?

4ntonius8lock8• 7 years ago

Look up a book called Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure

It's produced by the Federal Government as a way to show people the 'grave consequences' of misbehaving as a government employee.

I'm not a government employee, but it was recommended to me and it floored me. The amount of shit you can get away with if you are a government employee is mind boggling.

I think this book should be read by every school child so they know the type of double standard and corruption that is rampant in government.

telchar• 7 years ago

It sounds like the book had the exact opposite effect on you as was intended. Why do you think that was?

vkou• 7 years ago

I think this book should be read by every school child so they know the type of double standard and corruption that is rampant in government.

As anyone who has ever spent any time working in a private sector job knows, corruption and double standards are the status quo in life.

Unlike with the government, you rarely have any recourse when your manager, your director, your landlord, your bank, your utility, your grocery store, your accounting firm, or any of the other organizations that have power over you succumb to it.

(You can sue them, but you can also sue the government.)

dredmorbius• 7 years ago

Listed among numerous other references:

http://ogc.osd.mil/defense_ethics/ethics_counselors/resource...

Direct link (PDF0);

http://ogc.osd.mil/defense_ethics/resource_library/eef_2019....

petre• 7 years ago

Maybe she wanted to uncover rampant corruption, knew they'll fire her for this and guessed they'll try to settle for a high amount, because what they're trying to cover up is huge. She's 69, $1M is quite a good get out of this hornet nest ticket and this is unlikely to end here. Lawsuits from people wrongfully convicted based on DNA evidence will likely follow.

dontbenebby• 7 years ago

The city and the Office of Chief Medical Examiner said Monday that the settlement did not mean that Ms. Stajic was treated inappropriately.

Weird - I thought the lottery was run at the state level.

DiseasedBadger• 7 years ago

Give her a medal! We need to get serious about celebrating whistleblowers.

NYC scientist fired after raising questions about a DNA test gets $1M settlement

Related Stories