The United States Criminal Justice System

The article by Meagan Flynn on the Wahington Post outlines the issue of suicides caused by criminal investigations and certain mistakes in the forensic investigation for criminal cases. Flynn (2020) illustrates the case of the San Diego police investigation on Kevin Brown, a suspect on the murder of Claire Hough, which happened back in 1984. The article presents the views of Kevin Brown’s widow, who blames the police investigation for her husband’s suicide. Flynn (2020) points out a possibility of a mistake in DNA tests that incriminated Kevin Brown after a trace oh his sperm was found on the vaginal swab. The police proceeded with the investigation and served a search warrant at Brown’s house even with the possibility of a mistake that led to the suspect’s semen getting mixed up with the items under investigation. According to Flynn (2020), male technicians in forensic labs kept their own semen to perform quality control testing in the 1980s before the DNA technology came into play. Despite John Simms, Brown’s former colleague at the crime lab acknowledging the possibility of him mistakenly swapping his own semen with Brown’s, the San Diego police continuously incriminated Kevin Brown, something that made his mental health deteriorate. The investigation led to the seizure of several personal belongings from Brown’s house. Eventually, Kevin Brown developed suicidal thoughts and later killed himself in what seems like a mistake in the criminal justice department. The credibility of investigations and the risk of mental illness on suspects is a serious matter that has attracted a lot of talk on the American criminal justice system. Flynn’s article seems to comprehensively prove the fact that the San Diego police and the criminal justice department ought to have allowed the argument of the possibility of a mistake. Instead, they seemed to be committed to incriminating the suspect. One weakness that is notable on the article is the fact that the author failed to pick enough information on the side of the police and the judicial system; any other reason that the police could have used to incriminate the suspect and validate the search warrant. 

References 

Flynn, M. (2020, February 5). Police suspected a crime lab technician of murder. Their mistake led him to hang himself, his widow says . Retrieved from The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/05/brown-sandiego-murder/