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Reforms Urged At State Crime Labs

Posted on: Thursday, 10 July 2003, 06:00 CDT

A series of scandals, probes and new questions about old convictions are casting doubt on one of the foundations of the modern criminal-justice system - the crime lab.

Over the last year, laboratories at the FBI and in several states - Arizona, Florida and Texas among them - have come under new scrutiny, including criminal investigations, findings of mismanagement and accusations of falsifying evidence. So far, however, only a few convictions have been overturned.

Lab directors defend their work and their standards. But critics say the flurry of problems show the need for independent oversight, and for labs to be separated from the criminal-justice departments where most are based.

"There's major things that need to be changed. When people are dealing with someone's life, they need to be more careful, be more sincere," said Carol Batie of Houston, whose son Josiah Sutton was convicted of rape, largely on DNA evidence. A new analysis of that same evidence has now excluded Sutton.

He got a second chance after problems at the Houston Police Department lab sent evidence in hundreds of cases back for retests. Sutton was released on bond and the district attorney has recommended a pardon.

It is essential that the labs' work can be trusted, agree critics and the forensic scientists who run tests on DNA, blood, fingerprints, clothing and more.

Still, problems keep cropping up:

*In Phoenix, lab technicians mistakenly overstated the likelihood that DNA linked suspects to crimes in nine criminal cases, including a homicide case that brought a conviction and two other investigations in which suspects pleaded guilty.

*In Florida, a state crime lab worker in Orlando falsified DNA data.

*In Kansas, mislabeling of a blood sample 12 years ago let a man go free who now has been charged in a string of rapes and a 2002 slaying.

*In Houston, an audit of the DNA section in the police lab found undertrained staff, a leaky roof that may have contaminated evidence and possible mishandling of evidence.

"Labs are run by human beings," said James Alan Fox, a criminal- justice professor at Northeastern University. "Essentially, the management of labs may not be as foolproof as the science of forensics."

Better standards, better funding, better management - all may be necessary to ensure lab results do not wrongly convince juries of guilt, Fox said.

Law-enforcement officials and lab directors said the individual problems in recent months are taken very seriously. But sweeping criticisms are misguided, they said.

"There are always bad actors in any profession," said Paul Ferrara, director of the Virginia Division of Forensic Science. "The difference is that our mistakes do not get buried."

Ken Melson, U.S. attorney in eastern Virginia, said, "No one wants a Houston in their state." The best corrective, said Melson, Ferrara and others, is for every lab to be accredited under a system set up by crime-lab directors, so their practices are inspected and evaluated by independent inspectors.

But few states require accreditation and meeting those standards can be costly. Of 455 larger crime labs across the country, 225 are accredited, said Ralph Keaton, executive director of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors, Laboratory Accreditation Board.

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