Bank of America’s billion dollar involvement with wrongful conviction

Dear Rainforest Action Network,

Thank you for the opportunity to address the major reason I’m miffed with Bank of America. Unfortunately, I’m unable to make my submission graphically dynamic.

Given their other activities, I wasn’t surprised to learn that BoA was willing to get involved with LabCorp despite LabCorp being required to pay California back a significant chunk of change and despite LabCorp potentially being in more serious jeopardy in regards to Medicaid receipts.

Every fear I expressed to the FTC and DoJ prior and subsequent to their allowing already-too-big LabCorp to acquire already-too-big Orchid Cellmark last month is made concrete in today’s Akron Beacon Journal Online article, “Scheduled March retrial of Denny Ross probably headed for long delay.”

The $45,000 price tag indicates that demand is not bringing down DNA test prices, as normal competition would cause. The ludicrous length of time claimed for performing tests is not based on how long it actually takes to perform tests, it is instead a further indication of the industries failure to competitively concern itself with having adequate facilities to meet demand — Connecticut has a backlog of 4,000 cases awaiting DNA testing, larger states likely have larger backlogs. Backlogs lead to rapists not being prosecuted (5 year statute of limitations) and contribute to wrongful arrests.

Just as LabCorp had potential liabilities that Bank of America should have run from, Orchid Cellmark had potential liabilities that LabCorp should have run from. That post and others on my Wobbly Warrior blog indicate that when I initially protested LabCorp’s acquiring Orchid Cellmark, I didn’t put sufficient thought into how competition would drive prices down and make testing timeframes reasonable, etc; I was concerned only with frame-ups, which is what I suspect happened to Denny Ross.

There is no reason to believe that DNA from his 1999 case will be too degraded for STR (Short Tandem Repeat) testing. The Mito testing the court ordered, unlike STR, points only to maternal lineage… it does not identify a specific individual. As to the likelihood of degradation, Y-STR testing was successfully performed on Wilton Dedge’s evidence from the early 80’s in 2004.

If Rainforest Action Network can hold Bank of America’s feet to the fire for being involved with LabCorp, it will not only help ensure that medical tests are affordable enough to allow early detection of disease and affordable monitoring of chronic conditions, it will be holding corrupt public servant’s feet to the fire at every level of government, bringing us closer to ending conviction and peripheral corruption than ever… I would know nothing about Wilton Dedge and scores of related decades-old frame-ups if one of Dedge’s prosecutors had been disbarred instead of becoming a judge.

Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson once lived in that locale; he was launched into space there. Republican U.S. Representative Bill Posey still lives there. I’ve spoken to both men in person about the area’s entrenched conviction corruption — they each nodded sympathetically and did nothing. The past seven years has taught me that there is nothing more bipartisan than conviction corruption, and little as deadly. It keeps lawless miscreants in powerful public positions that are content to leave rapists and killers on the streets while innocents serve their sentences. When taxpayers pay to warehouse innocents, they sometimes pay with their dignity or their very lives.

I realize that you will receive submissions that are more entertaining and easier to address, but I don’t believe that you’ll receive any others that will save thousands of lives — a far more prolific discredited dog handler than the one used for Dedge’s and hundreds of other frame-ups took part in over 2,000 Texas criminal investigations, and the FBI had used both handlers. Over 2,000 were convicted at least in part but the FBI now-debunked Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis, and the FBI opted to contact only prosecutors, not the convicts. That’s only the beginning; there are discredited labs and medical examiners, outdated fire and blood splatter forensics, and much more.

LabCorp is seeking to make another acquisition that will make matters worse in medical and forensics laboratory testing; please don’t let Bank of America facilitate it.

I’m tickled that the mention of your Bankrupting America endeavor apparently prompted a fast response from the DoJ Antitrust Division earlier today. Thanks for that giggle and this opportunity, and thanks for everything else that you do.

Regards,

Susan Chandler