Investigative Policy and Oversight Report
12-21-2012 |
What We Did At congressional request, we reviewed misconduct allegations against Mr. Phillip R. Mills, a forensic analyst at the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory (USACIL), to determine whether:
We reviewed 482 criminal investigations involving 676 investigative subjects or suspects dating back approximately 20 years. What We Found No law, rule, or regulation specifically required the Services to notify individuals about possibly compromised DNA evidence developed in their cases. Even so:
Each Service developed separate, ad hoc processes for identifying individuals and completing notifications. Standard policy or guidance would have ensured individuals were treated consistently across the Services. What We Recommend
Management Comments The DoD General Counsel concurred with developing standards for “testing integrity” notifications. The Services indicated the recommendation should be addressed to the DoD General Counsel for Joint Service Committee (JSC) for study and action. We addressed the recommendation to DoD General Counsel, who can decide how to involve JSC and the Services. He can also decide whether adopting new American Bar Association (ABA) Rule 3.8 would further our recommendation. Although indicating its intention to send the courtesy notifications involved in our second recommendation, the Army stressed that our report should not imply a requirement for the notifications. We ensured our wording did not imply such a requirement. |