Tenth Circuit: Municipality Not Liable for Employing Badly Trained Forensic Expert

In Bryson v. Oklahoma City, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Oklahoma City had no liability for its failure to properly supervise and train an expert forensic chemist who had testified in a trial that DNA from the plaintiff was found on a rape victim even though the tests clearly exonerated the plaintiff. As a result of the testimony of the expert, the plaintiff had spent twenty years in prison.

      Despite the Tenth Circuit’s sympathy to the plaintiff and the fact that if found “it deplorable that the conditions that led to his unjust confinement were permitted to continue for so long a time after the City was put on notice of the deficiencies in its forensic laboratory program,” the court was not “persuaded . . . that it was highly predictable or plainly obvious that a forensic chemist would decide to falsify test reports and conceal evidence if she received only nine months of on-the-job training and was not supervised by an individual with a background in forensic science.” Therefore, the court concluded the city was not deliberately indifferent and could not be liable for the employee’s acts.