An edi­to­r­i­al by Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, past pres­i­dent of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, notes that crime labs are over­whelm­ing­ly back­logged with work and that defi­cien­cies of per­son­nel, space and equip­ment in foren­sic sci­ence labs often lead to shod­dy prac­tices and erro­neous test results, as recent­ly exem­pli­fied by the prob­lems uncov­ered at the Houston Police Department DNA lab (see below). Dr. Wecht notes:

There can be lit­tle doubt in the minds of trained, expe­ri­enced foren­sic sci­en­tists that test­ing defects, back­log pres­sures, inad­e­quate­ly qual­i­fied per­son­nel, and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al bias exist in many oth­er DNA labs even though they have not yet been uncov­ered and pub­licly report­ed.

Until these glar­ing defi­cien­cies are iden­ti­fied, objec­tive­ly reviewed, and care­ful­ly cor­rect­ed, soci­ety can­not expect that jus­tice will be served.

State law­mak­ers should care­ful­ly scru­ti­nize DNA labs that use infe­ri­or test­ing meth­ods that lead to inac­cu­rate results. An imme­di­ate freeze on exe­cu­tions is essen­tial until scrupu­lous fed­er­al and state reviews of all DNA labs have been accom­plished. This is the only just way to pro­ceed. Close atten­tion to this crit­i­cal prob­lem will not only low­er the risk of exe­cut­ing inno­cent peo­ple, it will also facil­i­tate the cap­ture and con­vic­tion of the guilty. (Emphasis added).

(Knight Ridder Tribune — Tallahassee Democrat, June 15, 2003) See New Voices.

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