No Bone Unturned: Inside the World of a Top Forensic Scientist and His Work on America's Most Notorious Crimes and Disasters by Jeff Benedict

Author:Jeff Benedict [Benedict, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Science, Non-fiction, History
ISBN: 9780061857164
Google: 3Cohp36yFXEC
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 10241116
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2003-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

21

ABOUT-FACE

Friday, October 18

National Museum of Natural History

Washington, D.C.

“This is bullshit!” Dennis Stanford said to himself, banging down the receiver. Lauryn Grant, a lawyer in the Smithsonian’s general counsel’s office, had just informed him that the Justice Department vehemently opposed Owsley’s and Stanford’s participation in the lawsuit. The Justice Department, citing federal conflict-of-interest statutes, insisted that it was against the law for Stanford and Owsley, as federal employees, to sue the Army Corps. Unless they voluntarily withdrew from the suit, the Justice Department planned to bring charges against them.

Stanford telephoned Schneider immediately and told him the news.

Stunned, Schneider started laughing. “I’m gonna be real pissed off if the Smithsonian takes us off this case,” Stanford said. “That will leave the other scientists hanging in the wind—alone.” The reason the other scientists signed on to the lawsuit was largely due to Owsley and Stanford. “Just a minute here,” Schneider said, still laughing. “The Smithsonian is telling you to withdraw from a lawsuit when the only purpose of the lawsuit is to study a new discovery that’s very important for scientific reasons?”

After Stanford explained Grant’s phone call, Schneider was perplexed.

“I can’t conceive that what they’re saying is true,” Schneider said. “They’re telling you that you can’t exercise your civil right in order to get access to that skeleton. How are they going to explain that to the world?”

Stanford asked Schneider to investigate whether the information that the Justice Department had given Lauryn Grant was correct.

Schneider agreed to look at the statute. But if what the Justice Department was saying was correct, that would mean that if an employee is wrongfully terminated by a government agency or if an employee is injured by another government agency, he’s lost all of his civil rights. Schneider couldn’t conceive of that. “Dennis, what specific conflict-of-interest law are they saying that you’ll be breaking if you sue?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, let’s find out. Go back to Lauryn.” Schneider advised Stanford to avoid being aggressive and to get the Smithsonian to explain a couple of things, one: what they want you to do; two, why they’re making this demand. Three, what’s their legal basis for saying you can’t participate in this lawsuit? And four, what are the consequences if you continue with the lawsuit? “Let’s get them to confirm all of that in writing,” Schneider said.

“All right.”

Schneider laughed again, though he hardly thought the situation was funny. “I mean, this would be a tremendous public relations nightmare for the Smithsonian if two of its top scientists are forced to withdraw from a case that is designed to protect and advance the interests of science.”

“Tell me about it.”

After hanging up with Schneider, Stanford stormed down to Owsley’s office and informed him that they were being ordered to withdraw from the lawsuit.

“Can they do that?” Owsley asked.

Stanford told him what Schneider had said about the importance of getting the demand in writing and instructed Owsley to write a letter to Grant at once.

“Dennis, we’ve got to hang in there.”

“Oh, I intend to.

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