A recent arti­cle in the ABA Journal drew atten­tion to prob­lems in crime labs across the coun­try that have result­ed in wrong­ful con­vic­tions, includ­ing some in death penal­ty cas­es. Investigations in many states and of the nation­al FBI lab revealed a lack of writ­ten pro­ce­dures, improp­er mix­ing of sam­ples from dif­fer­ent cas­es, improp­er tes­ti­mo­ny, and even fal­si­fi­ca­tion of test results. An Oklahoma City chemist who tes­ti­fied in 23 death penal­ty cas­es was lat­er fired for giv­ing false or mis­lead­ing tes­ti­mo­ny. Twelve of the defen­dants in whose cas­es she had tes­ti­fied were exe­cut­ed. In North Carolina, an inde­pen­dent audit by two retired FBI agents showed that ana­lysts at the state lab had reg­u­lar­ly with­held or dis­tort­ed evi­dence in more than 230 cas­es over a 16-year peri­od, includ­ing three cas­es that result­ed in exe­cu­tions. Some experts are push­ing for bet­ter reg­u­la­tion of foren­sic labs. The National Academy of Sciences pre­sent­ed 13 rec­om­men­da­tions in a 2009 report, includ­ing call­ing for the cre­ation of an inde­pen­dent nation­al insti­tute of foren­sic sci­ence, and enforce­ment of accred­i­ta­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dards. Very few of the Academy’s rec­om­men­da­tions have been imple­ment­ed. Paul Giannelli, a law pro­fes­sor at Case Western Reserve University, who has stud­ied crime labs for 20 years, said foren­sic labs should be held to the same stan­dards as clin­i­cal labs that con­duct med­ical tests. ​“They’re both a mat­ter of life and lib­er­ty,” he said. 

In 2012, the American Bar Association adopt­ed two res­o­lu­tions aimed at improv­ing crime labs. The first urged gov­ern­ments to require labs to pro­duce clear reports of their pro­ce­dures, results, and the qual­i­fi­ca­tions of those who prac­tice in the labs. The sec­ond list­ed fac­tors to con­sid­er in deter­min­ing the valid­i­ty of expert tes­ti­mo­ny and how juries should be instruct­ed to eval­u­ate that testimony.

(M. Hansen, ​“Crime labs under the micro­scope after a string of shod­dy, sus­pect and frad­u­lent results,” ABA Journal, September 2013; DPIC post­ed Sept. 9, 2013). See Innocence and Studies.

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