Jan
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Maura Dolan and Jason Felch of the Los Angeles Times recently wrote:
By far the most reliable forensic science, it still has limits: Samples can be contaminated and may go untested for years. And collecting it may violate privacy laws.
Using California’s Public Records Act, records were obtained to show how the crime labs were handling samples and some of the problems with the collection and preservation.
Through the California Public Records Act, The Times obtained documents from five state-run and three county forensic labs reporting scores of laboratory errors or “unexpected” results over a five-year period ending in 2007. Labs must track these outcomes and keep them on file under state and federal rules.
Thompson, who reviewed the records for The Times, said that “on a regular basis, laboratory personnel make mistakes that could lead to false identifications” of suspects.
The records show, for instance, that between 2003 and 2007, the Santa Clara County district attorney’s crime laboratory caught 14 instances in which evidence samples were contaminated with staff members’ DNA, three in which samples were contaminated by an unknown person and six in which DNA from one case contaminated samples from another.
Using the PRA to obtain and uncover records can help the public learn about the process and hopefully correct some of the many shortfalls.
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