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California – Crime Lab Confidential: DA and San Francisco Police Department Withheld Damaging Memo About DNA Lab Failings
Crime Lab Confidential: DA and SFPD Withheld Damaging Memo About DNA Lab Failings SF Weekly – August 24, 2011 On Feb. 9, 2010, San Francisco residents Emon Brown and Joc Wilson were acquitted of all charges in a double murder trial that had lasted five months. The outcome was undoubtedly a relief to the two men and a coup for the defense lawyers who had represented them. But it was a serious blow to prosecutors in the office of then-District Attorney Kamala Harris. The case against Brown and Wilson had been lost despite the testimony of multiple eyewitnesses to the killing and DNA evidence from the crime scene that matched the genetic profiles of both defendants. The case’s unexpected conclusion caught the attention of Rockne Harmon, a retired prosecutor who worked for decades in Alameda County. Harmon is recognized as one of the country’s foremost experts on the use of DNA evidence in criminal cases. He was employed in the winter of 2010 as a consultant on DNA prosecutions for the San Francisco DA’s office. At the time of his hiring in 2007, Harris had praised him as a “guru of DNA evidence.” [For full story follow this link: http://www.sfweekly.com/2011-08-24/news/dna-lab-san-francisco-rockne-harmon-memo-peter-jamison/