A memo addressed to fourteen major forensic science groups highlights the Granillo v. State case and proposes ten guiding principles for a professional response
A subjective allegation of misconduct does not constitute evidence of professional negligence by a forensic examiner, nor does it demonstrate a defendant’s innocence.”— John Morrey Collins
A memorandum has been dispatched by John Morrey Collins, the author of the recently published volume 'Valid Comparisons: The Forensic and Judicial Examination of Stochastic Patterns,' to the boards and leadership teams of fourteen prominent forensic science associations, urging them to address what he characterizes as an escalating and insufficiently recognized danger to the criminal justice system’s integrity: the emergence of strategic litigation.
The memorandum, bearing the date July 24, 2026, and directed to entities such as the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors, the International Association for Identification, and the Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science, scrutinizes the Hawaii Supreme Court's recent ruling in Granillo v. State. That decision overturned a thirty-six-year-old conviction for kidnapping and sexual assault after concluding that hair and fiber testimony delivered during the original 1990 trial exceeded what the underlying science could substantiate.
Collins contends that the judgment exemplifies a wider issue, wherein post-conviction courts assess decades-old expert testimony by isolating particular words and phrases rather than weighing the full context of the question-and-answer exchanges from which they originated. He differentiates this tactic from the conventional efforts of the innocence movement, which he acknowledges relies on direct proof of factual innocence, and sets it apart from what is termed 'strategic litigation' — a method that pursues exonerations mainly by discrediting entire categories of forensic evidence as "junk science."
"A subjective allegation of misconduct does not constitute evidence of professional negligence by a forensic examiner, nor does it demonstrate a defendant’s innocence," Collins writes in the memorandum. "Strategic litigation, as it is currently practiced, too frequently substitutes the denigration of a forensic technique for the more rigorous task of establishing facts — and that substitution itself taints the truth-seeking process that our justice system relies upon."
The memorandum lays out ten principles that Collins recommends forensic science organizations adopt and reinforce via professional codes of conduct, together with six practical steps for implementation. These steps include requiring internal review before an organization's name or publications are cited in support of a post-conviction claim, as well as expanded assistance for members who are individually named or criticized in post-conviction proceedings.
Collins is the author of Valid Comparisons (Critical Victories, 2026) and Crime Lab Report: An Anthology on Forensic Science in the Era of Criminal Justice Reform (Academic Press, 2019). He has addressed forensic science audiences around the world, including a 2015 presentation to scientists at the FBI Laboratory, and has produced extensive writings on the interplay between forensic science, professional responsibility, and the criminal justice system.
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