False evidence

In June 1970 a Pukekawa, Lower Waikato, couple were killed and their bodies dumped in the Waikato River. Arthur Allan Thomas, a local farmer, was twice convicted of their murders but following massive publicity was later given a Royal Pardon.

Two bullet cases presented by senior policemen Hutton and Johnston were crucial evidence for the conviction. In 1980, after Thomas's pardon a Royal commission into the convictions concluded "Mr Hutton and Mr Johnston planted the shellcase, exhibit 350 in the Crewe garden, and that they did so to manufacture evidence that Mr Thomas's rifle had been used for the killings."[2]

In 1975, after the shooting death of Bernard Whitehurst by a Montgomery, Alabama police officer who mistakenly thought Whitehurst was the suspect in the robbery of a neighborhood grocery store, there was a police cover-up that included police officers planting a gun on him from the police evidence room. The coroner relied on police reports that Whitehurst was killed by a bullet fired through the chest.[3] After an investigation by the local newspaper and local attorney Donald Watkins raised questions about the facts of the case, six months later, the District Attorney James Evans ordered the body to be exhumed and an autopsy to be performed.[3] The results of the autopsy showed that Whitehurst had been shot in the back.[3] The attempted cover-up led to the resignation of eight police officers, the city’s mayor, James Robinson and the Director of Public Safety, Ed Wright.[4][5] No police officer was convicted of a crime.[6] Forty years later, the Montgomery City Council passed a resolution that formally expressed regret for the shooting and cover-up.[4]

In 1992, 11-year-old Holly Staker was raped and murdered while babysitting in Waukegan, Illinois. A local man named Juan Rivera was convicted of the murder solely on the basis of a confession, one that he claimed was coerced. No physical evidence linked him to the crime scene and many details of his confession contradicted known evidence from the crime scene. DNA testing done in 2004 on semen taken from the crime scene ruled out Rivera as the source, however, the prosecution argued that the semen sample came from previous consensual sex with another man. Rivera was convicted again. His conviction was overturned by the appellate court who took the unusual step of barring prosecutors from retrying Rivera and he was released.[7]

After his release, Rivera's attorneys asked the courts to order genetic testing on a piece of evidence the prosecution had tried to use at his trial in 1993. Rivera's shoes had blood on them, which the prosecution argued belonged to Holly. The prosecution withdrew them prior to his first trial when it was discovered that the shoes were not available for sale anywhere in the United States until after the murder. In 2015, Juan's attorney sought further forensic testing on the shoes. DNA analysis indicated that the blood indeed belonged to Holly, but also contained another genetic sample; one that matched the semen sample. Rivera's defense team insists that this is proof not only that the blood was planted, but that the real killer's DNA was inadvertently planted as well. The DNA has yet to be matched to an individual, but has been linked to DNA from another home invasion and murder. The man convicted of that crime also claims to be wrongfully convicted.[8][9]

Following his exoneration, he was awarded $20 million USD, the largest wrongful conviction settlement in US history.[10][11]

In the New York State Police Troop C scandal of 1993, Craig D. Harvey, a New York State Police trooper, was charged with fabricating evidence. Harvey admitted he and another trooper lifted fingerprints from items the suspect, John Spencer, touched while in Troop C headquarters during booking. He attached the fingerprints to evidence cards and later claimed that he had pulled the fingerprints from the scene of the murder. The forged evidence was used during trial and John Spencer was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.[12]

After the truth came out, it was discovered that they had been falsifying evidence in cases for many years. At least three officers were convicted. Every case the department had been involved in had to be reinvestigated.

In the 1990s, the fingerprint, DNA, and explosive units of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory had written reports confirming local police department theories without actually performing the work.

Such laws and regulatory procedures stipulating the conditions under which evidence can be handled and manipulated fall under a body of due process statues called chain of custody rules. It is crucial for law enforcement agencies to scrupulously collect, handle and transfer evidence in order to avoid its falsification. In most jurisdictions, chain of evidence rules require that the transfer of criminal evidence be handled by as few persons as possible. To prevent error or improper tampering, chain of evidence rules also stipulate that those authorized to experiment with collected evidence document the nature, time, date and duration of their handling.

Alternatively, a drop weapon or other item is left in the open; any individual who picks it up may be fired upon; a process known as baiting.[13] The use of drop weapons is controversial.[14] The Asymmetric Warfare Group is said by Captain Didier to have sent boxes of the kind normally used to hold ammunition filled with "drop items" to his unit, the 1st Battalion 501st Infantry Regiment in order "to disrupt the AIF (Anti-Iraqi Forces) attempts at harming coalition forces and give us the upper hand in a fight."[13]