Motor City Injustice Episode 4 - Bad Science

Sins of Detroit

In 2008, the Detroit Police Crime Lab was shut down after a Michigan State Police audit found rampant problems with evidence. Auditors randomly selected 200 cases and found problems with 10 percent of them. David Moran, director of the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic, says there was widespread fraud in the Detroit crime lab, which he said is summed up by the case of Desmond Ricks. Crime lab detectives are accused in a lawsuit of writing a report falsely stating two bullets used to murder a Detroit man matched a .38 revolver police took from Ricks’ house — but after Ricks was convicted and served 25 years in prison, Michigan State Police during an appeal re-investigated the bullets and proved they could not have been fired from the gun taken from Ricks’ house. Moran said that sort of thing went on regularly at the Detroit crime lab.