Rhode Island State Crime Lab Director Dennis Hilliard says he is still struggling to fill three open positions for firearms examiners, nine months after an investigation found discrepancies in testing conducted at the troubled lab.
But the State Crime Laboratory Commission put Hilliard’s job performance under the microscope during a 90-minute closed-door meeting Thursday at the Cranston office of the Rhode Island Attorney General.
Hilliard, who earns $143,628-a-year as lab director, a position he’s held since 1992, waited in the lobby while four of the five commissioners met in a conference room.
“Just to let you know, the person they’re going to discuss is me,” Hilliard, 70, told reporters.
The lab in Fogarty Hall on the University of Rhode Island’s (URI) Kingston campus temporarily suspended toolmark testing last August after discrepancies were found in lab results for casings from a Glock pistol seized as evidence in a 2021 Pawtucket murder case. The casings were flagged as matching a different firearm in possession of the Boston Police Department.
That led to delays in nearly two dozen criminal cases, which underwent re-testing at labs in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Hilliard told the commission that all those cases have since been verified.
Commissioners had copies of a report by an assessment team from the ANSI National Accreditation Board, which visited the lab in March. The report found “no issues with the competency of the examiners” who now handle evidence for firearms, trace evidence, and latent prints at the lab.
But it did find the lab did not conform with 15 of 172 professional standards or 8.7%. Hilliard said the issues were mostly paperwork-related and that staff were working to address them in order to maintain accreditation.
The executive session took up half the commission’s quarterly meeting. Deputy Attorney General Adi Goldstein, who chairs the panel as a designee of the AG’s office, announced that no action was taken following the commission’s return to open session.
Hilliard moved up the lab’s accreditation review two years sooner than required in its standard accreditation cycle after it had to halt how examiners determine if a cartridge or shell is fired from a specific gun last August.
The lab in Fogarty Hall on the University of Rhode Island’s (URI) Kingston campus temporarily suspended toolmark testing after casings to a Glock pistol seized as evidence in a 2021 Pawtucket murder case matched a different firearm in possession of the Boston Police Department. The suspension prompted delays in nearly two dozen criminal cases, which underwent re-testing at labs in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Hilliard told the commission that all those cases have since been verified.
A report published last October by California-based consultant Ronald Nichols, who formerly worked for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), found there was a lack of diligence and confirmation bias on the part of three forensic examiners who performed toolmark analysis at the state lab. The three firearms examiners have since left the lab.
Nine months later, Hilliard said it’s been nearly impossible to find replacements. Most experienced examiners, he said, can work as consultants where they can make far more money in a shorter amount of time compared to what they’d receive at URI.
“We’ve got a really limited pool,” Hilliard told the commission.
Hilliard said only one serious candidate had applied to be a lead examiner position when the position was first up between November and early 2025. That applicant had toured the facility and passed a competency test, but turned down a job offer, saying the salary was too low.
At the time, URI offered a salary range of $70,971 to $107,830 for the lead examiner’s position. The new job listing posted on URI’s website May 16 lists a salary range between $82,082 to $125,379.
No applications have been received as of last Thursday, Hilliard told the commission.
Goldstein questioned why the lab has only recently updated the salary range when Hilliard told the commission in January that a pay bump would likely be needed to attract applicants.
Hilliard explained that it took that long for URI to reclassify the job’s pay grade.
“It wasn’t until last Wednesday that I was informed that they would accept, recruit, and update,” he told the commission.
A similar pay update will be required for the position of a standard examiner, which initially had a salary range of $65,980 to $100,314. A technician from Baltimore had been offered a job, but Hilliard said the candidate declined due to family issues.
He told Rhode Island Current the new salary will likely range between $76,159 and $116,529.
Of the two standard toolmark examiners, Hilliard told the commission one will be filled by an in-house candidate being trained by the ATF. He is expected to begin work early next year, Hilliard told reporters.
In the meantime, new toolmark exams will continue to be handled by two former New York City police examiners from Stria Consulting Group contracted by the lab.
Any toolmark case still requires final verification by examiners at SCL Forensics in Texas and FoCoSS Forensics in New Hampshire. Additional verification was deemed necessary by the commission to minimize the risk of confirmation bias — the principle that if you know what you’re looking for, you’re more likely to find it.
But Hilliard said third-party labs have slow turnaround times. He told the commission it often takes six to eight weeks to receive the external verification since the labs handle other cases from their own states as well. Hilliard asked the commission to allow the lab to reduce the number of cases verified out of state.
Goldstein denied that request, telling Hilliard to come up with a formal proposal for a “statistically valid sample of cases” for the commission to consider at a future meeting.
“Until that is proposed,we proceed with the current process,” she said.
After the meeting ended, Hilliard said he’s proud of what he’s done for the lab.
“I’ve done everything in my power to expand this lab,” he said in an interview. “This was a dream job up until this issue.”
As Hilliard’s lab remains under scrutiny, the Senate Committee on Judiciary Thursday held its initial hearing for a bill that would put the crime lab directly under the purview of the Rhode Island Office of Attorney General. The bill was introduced on behalf of the AG’s office by Judiciary committee chairman Matthew LaMountain, a Warwick Democrat who previously served as a state prosecutor.
LaMountain’s legislation was held for further study by the committee, as is standard procedure for a bill’s first hearing. Companion legislation sponsored across the rotunda by Rep. Matthew Dawson, an East Providence Democrat, was heard by the House Committee on Judiciary April 24.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
