Audit Shows Problems With Colorado Blood Alcohol Tests
[Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
Dozens of convictions for drunk driving are suspect now that a routine audit of a crime lab in Colorado Springs showed that the results of those tests were typically overstated by the lab’s testing.
Prosecutors have begun contacting lawyers for 82 defendants whose drunken driving charges were based in part upon incorrect blood alcohol tests by the Colorado Springs police crime lab.
In each of the cases, test results reported by the forensic chemist unit of the Metro Crime Lab were higher that the actual results, police officials disclosed Friday.
[More]
People have an unreal idea of what really happens in forensic labs. There have been many, many instances of incorrect results over the years across America and it can be very hard to get all areas up to standard. Houston, for instance, had a huge scandal with the lab about 7 years ago. Even trying to upgrade the lab did not fix all the problems. Not only are there still a huge backlog of rape kits to be examined but a recent audit of the Houston fingerprint unit found that in over 500 cases randomly selected, there were problems with over half of them. In some cases, the fingerprint experts were not even analyzing the evidence. There is now a criminal probe underway. Houston is having to budget $3 million to pay for people to examine over 5000 previous cases to look for wrongdoing and mistakes.
And there was this interesting tidbit. “Under Texas criminal procedure regulations, fingerprints don’t need to be processed at an accredited lab in order for them to be admissible in court cases.” Wow! To my mind, how can any forensic evidence be admitted if the lab had not been accredited? Is this being done by some guy in his garage?
Not to pick on Texas. I just happen to have a little more knowledge of that region. I would expect many other states have similar regulations regarding the admissibility of evidence. But it continues to amaze me that the science of these labs can continue to be manipulated by the police and prosecutors in ways that completely deform the system. I guess I am just too naive.
I wish law enforcement was like an episode of Castle. They never get audited but then, they never arrest the wrong person either.
