A REVIEW OF APPALLING "SCIENTIFIC" EVIDENCE FROM GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

Government crime laboratories should be abolished and all analyses farmed out to private laboratories under "double blind" conditions

A decade ago, as Earl Washington Jr. neared his execution date, a leading DNA expert first suggested an analyst in the vaunted Virginia state crime lab might have erred in the case. The lab's director, Paul Ferrara, rejected the criticism as unfounded. In April, when a second expert hired by Washington 's lawyers questioned another round of tests, Ferrara dismissed him as a "hired gun" and rebuffed calls for an outside review. Several months later, three other experts--this time not paid by the defense --reached the same conclusion. The lab's analyst, they said, had misinterpreted the evidence, but Ferrara again balked at an outside review. "I'm not going to admit error when there is none," Ferrara said in a recent interview at the highly regarded Richmond facility, the first state lab to build a database linking evidence from unsolved crimes to suspects through their genetic profiles.

Within days of that statement, the lab experienced another first. On Sept. 30, the governor of Virginia ordered an audit of the lab's work on the Washington case. That it took a governor's edict to force one of the nation's most-respected labs to allow such a review illustrates the broader problems undermining confidence in the nation's crime labs. Revelations of shoddy work and poorly run facilities have shaken the criminal justice system like never before, raising doubts about the reputation of labs as unbiased advocates for scientific truth.

The far-reaching crime lab scandals roiling the courts are unlike other flaws in the criminal justice system--the rogue prosecutor, the incompetent defense attorney, the unscrupulous cop--because for years the reputation of the labs had been unquestioned. But the consequence of lab errors, whether due to incompetence, imprecision or fraud, is frequently the same--an innocent person behind bars. A Tribune examination of the 200 DNA and Death Row exoneration cases since 1986--including scores of interviews and a review of court transcripts and appellate opinions--found that more than a quarter involved faulty crime lab work or testimony.

In recent years, evidence of problems ranging from negligence to outright deception has been uncovered at crime labs in at least 17 states. Among the failures were faulty blood analysis, fingerprinting errors, flawed hair comparisons and the contamination of evidence used in DNA testing.

Scandal also has hit the FBI crime lab, long considered the nation's top forensic facility. In the mid-1990s, a lab whistle-blower touched off a broad inquiry over allegations of improper handling of evidence. It led to the firing of several lab officials and the overhaul of protocols and procedures. In May of this year, an FBI analyst, Jacqueline Blake, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of making false statements about following protocol in some 100 DNA analysis reports. Though the FBI said its review found no wrongful convictions resulting from her work, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded that the lab's failure to detect her misconduct "has damaged intangibly the credibility of the FBI laboratory." Blake was dismissed from the lab and last month was placed on 2 years of probation.

Veteran lab directors around the country contend the exposure of such scandals is evidence that labs are policing themselves. In most cases, however, lab problems have come to light only after defendants have challenged their convictions. "Virtually every major lab scandal has been broken by a post-conviction DNA exoneration," said Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic that has helped exonerate dozens of inmates.

Given the sheer volume of cases that labs handle, the discovery of even a single flawed analysis raises the prospect of re-examining hundreds, if not thousands, of cases. In many jurisdictions, the task of re-evaluating that many cases is so daunting that authorities have declined to conduct broad audits, despite evidence that analysts have committed errors or engaged in fraudulent practices. One of their well-placed fears: that uncovering additional problems in a lab would spawn lawsuits or unravel an untold number of convictions.

Two of the nation's highest profile crime-lab scandals--involving analysts Fred Zain in West Virginia and Joyce Gilchrist in Oklahoma --resulted in the exonerations of at least 10 defendants, millions of dollars in settlements and broad reviews of hundreds of their cases. Both were accused of falsifying test results and giving false testimony; both denied any wrongdoing.

Earlier this year, in response to the DNA exoneration of a man who served 13 years in prison for rape, the city of Cleveland appointed an independent special master to review all the casework and, if necessary, retest the evidence handled by one analyst, and conduct a random audit of others in the lab. But such a response has been uncommon. In Texas , Gov. Rick Perry has rejected a plea from Houston 's police chief to halt executions of inmates convicted in Harris County until the scope of problems at the police crime lab can be determined.

Two inmates from Harris County have been executed in recent weeks since Chief Harold Hurtt announced the discovery of 280 boxes of evidence from at least 8,000 Houston cases spanning 25 years. The boxes contained everything from clothing and weapons to a fetus. Even before the latest crisis, revelations of incompetent analysts in the police lab's DNA section forced Houston authorities to shutter it. The new questions cover everything from firearm identification to blood typing in a jurisdiction that has sent 75 people to the death chamber, more than most states.

Earlier this year, Boston police admitted that two fingerprint examiners had linked Stephan Cowans to the 1997 shooting of a police sergeant, even though a later review found that the comparison, in the words of Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Thomas Reilly, "wasn't even close." An outside consultant then conducted a broader examination of thousands of prints in the Boston police fingerprint unit, "and the only error he found was in the Cowans case," said police spokeswoman Beverly Ford. Last week, the department turned over all fingerprint examinations to the state police until it can get its own lab accredited.

In Montana , the state Supreme Court narrowly voted last month to dismiss a petition seeking an independent audit and retesting of evidence in hundreds of cases handled by a former state crime lab examiner whose erroneous hair-comparison testimony contributed to three wrongful convictions. Among other revelations, the scandals have exposed the lack of independent oversight and the often-ineffective standards governing the labs that analyze forensic evidence. Lab directors contend that the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors' accreditation board, which will review Virginia 's work in the Washington case, are sticklers for quality and accuracy. But even some tough-on-crime politicians question the effectiveness of the board's review teams. "Everyone boasts that their labs are certified by them," said James Durkin, a former Cook County prosecutor and former Republican state representative. "I believe they are more of a fraternal organization than an authoritative scientific body.".....

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