Failed Forensics

The Fort Lauderdale police department got it wrong when they arrested the wrong man thinking he was a burglary suspect.
But the Florida police department still kept him in jail for eight months for the crime he did not commit.
Dmitry Lyubimov was not released until authorities finally acknowledged that they lacked physical and DNA evidence.
Now the city has reached a wrongful arrest settlement of $150,000 with the 26-year-old man.

Eyewitness testimony from a 7-year-old girl who saw her mother stabbed to death was the “linchpin” that put Rodney Lincoln behind bars for life for the April 1982 murder of a St. Louis woman.
The deciding factor for the outcome is now doubting her own story, and she wants her mother’s supposed killer to go free.
On Tuesday the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District denied Rodney Lincoln a writ of habeas corpus that would have forced a retrial of his 1983 conviction.

Earlier this month, Utah police arrested an 18-year-old Subway worker on charges that he drugged a police officer by placing THC and methamphetamine in his drink, causing the officer to become sick and hospitalized.
The story quickly went viral with the media taking the word of police at face value with many commenters calling for the death penalty for Tanis Ukena.
Commenters also blamed the incident on Black Lives Matter, even though the teen does not have a single black Facebook friend nor does he appear to be involved in any type of activism.

A New Jersey Crime Lab technician was suspended with pay, after he was found writing down results of suspected marijuana, before the tests were even completed, throwing 7,827 criminal cases into doubt, damaging confidence in the workings of that state’s criminal justice system.
Criminal charges have yet to be filed against Kamalkant Shah, but falsifying even a single test would be grounds for indictment.