Washington, DC—They say DNA and fingerprint evidence does not
lie and that’s for the most part a correct statement. However those government officials involved
in the investigation, collection, preservation and examination of evidence
occasionally do some horrible things.
When that happens often it is a perfect crime, because proving such a
case is almost impossible.
In 1990, Shirley Kinge was convicted in an arson/murder case
that where four people perished. The
investigator involved was truly a Golden Boy, New York State Police Trooper,
Robert M. Lishansky. He was an 11 year
veteran of that agency and considered one of their brightest and best
investigators.
Lishansky was lifting prints from plain paper copies of
filed inked fingerprint cards with standard lifting tape and then claiming he
lifted them at crime scenes. At crime
scenes latent prints are made visible by dusting them with a fine black powder
that sticks to the latent print oily material.
The tape is then used to lift the print image and then placed on a white card where it can be
clearly observed, photographed and classified for comparison with the prints of
potential suspects.
The prints “collected” by Lishansky always looked identical
to those normally found at crime scenes.
However under special, non-routine scientific analysis the chemical makeup of the black
material was copier toner, not fingerprint dusting powder! Lisansky walked into courtroom after
courtroom and gave perjured testimony with a straight face destroying lives
along the way. Lishansky was schooled in
the frame-up procedure by his police supervisor, David Harding.
While being considered for a CIA position Lishansky’s supervisor
David Harding was proving his skills as a secret agent to CIA official. Harding bragged that he could frame anyone for
murder and explained his techniques with some recent examples. Harding may have been delusional in that he
felt that this conduct was acceptable, or was he? Just what did Harding’s superiors really
know? The CIA blew the whistle on
Harding and before it was over he confessed to fingerprint tampering in
numerous cases.
Lishansky was convicted and sentenced from 6 to 18 years in
prison. Harding was sentenced to from 4 to 12 years.
The real rub here is that the victims of the frame-ups all
were put in prison for much longer terms on the basis of the falsified
evidence. Thankfully New York abolished
the death penalty or Shirley Kinge would have been sent straight to Death Row. Kinge was released from prison soon
after the tampering came to light.
Lishansky and Harding were dangerous serial criminals with
police badges. Under the laws of our
states and the Federal Government a single incident of evidence tampering and
perjury would normally allow for probation even if it involved a death penalty
case. Since this and many other cases
involving corrupt crime lab technicians the penalties have not been increased.
We must change our laws to at least make perjury and
evidence-tampering crimes carry the same penalty that the falsely accused and
prosecuted victim was facing. Here the
cops framing innocents got prison only because it involved numerous cases.
