Massachusetts crime lab botched 27 DNA results

Nearly twice as many as state found earlier

An administrator at the State Police crime laboratory mishandled DNA test results in 27 sexual assault cases, nearly twice as many as state officials' most recent count, according to a nearly completed internal review. In his first interview on the problems at the lab, Kevin M. Burke, the state's new public safety secretary, said yesterday that the DNA computer database administrator, Robert E. Pino, failed to tell law enforcement officials of DNA matches in 23 sexual assault cases. During the time Pino did not report the matches, the statute of limitations expired in the cases. Despite hope expressed by some district attorneys that they could prosecute some of those cases, Burke said they cannot be pursued.

In the four other cases, Pino prepared letters for law enforcement officials that presented apparent matches, even though they were near-matches between DNA evidence found at crime scenes and the genetic profiles of close relatives of convicted felons, Burke said. Neither the FBI nor the State Police perform searches for familial DNA links, he said.

Frederick R. Bieber, a medical geneticist at Brigham and Women's Hospital who coauthored an article in the journal Science in May on familial searches, said he knew of no Massachusetts or FBI regulations that prohibit administrators of DNA databases from making such searches. They are a controversial crime-fighting technique that has been used to solve a few homicides and other crimes in the United States and United Kingdom. Critics say that relatives not involved in any crimes can be unfairly targeted by investigators.

State officials had previously said that the four cases involved false matches, but Burke said yesterday that Pino had violated agency practices by making familial searches. Burke said investigators do not know why Pino let the statute of limitations run out on nearly two dozen matches, while conducting familial searches. "It's certainly a fair question, but it's one we don't have an answer to," said Burke, who served as Essex district attorney for 24 years and was appointed public safety secretary last month by Governor Deval Patrick. "It's only an answer he can give."

Neither Pino nor his lawyer, Michael J. O'Reilly, could be reached for comment yesterday. Pino's union has said that an overworked staff at the lab was partly responsible for any problems, but Burke denied that staffing levels were a factor. Colonel Mark F. Delaney, superintendent of the State Police, suspended Pino with pay Jan. 11 and the next day announced that he had begun an internal investigation of Pino in mid-November. Initially, the State Police said Pino bungled results in at least 10 cases and several weeks ago revised the number to 15. Delaney also asked the FBI last month to begin its own review of the state's Combined DNA Indexing System to determine whether the problems with DNA test results might be more widespread. In addition, Burke's office is seeking bids on Feb. 23 for as much as $300,000 for an outside consultant to do a top-to-bottom review of the crime lab

Yesterday, Burke said that the State Police review is almost complete and that he doubted it would find that Pino had mishandled more cases. Burke said that while it was alarming that Pino's lapses had made it impossible to prosecute suspects in 23 unsolved sexual assault cases, , none of those individuals had been arrested for serious crimes since the statute of limitations had expired. "The most serious offense committed by any one of those people was a stolen vehicle," said Burke, who said he could not legally identify any of the potential suspects.

He also said that none of the four relatives identified through the familial searches had been arrested. He said Pino mailed only two of the letters, one to the Middlesex district attorney and one to Boston police. Burke also said that the internal review had found no evidence that any of Pino's supervisors were at fault for his lapses. "He was in complete control of the process as the CODIS administrator," Burke said. "It's difficult to imagine why he would make the kind of errors he made."

One prosecutor has told the Globe he fears that the problems could damage juries' confidence in DNA evidence. And William J. Leahy , chief counsel for the state public defender agency, said the growing number of mishandled cases cannot help but make jurors skeptical. "Jurors aren't scientists," he said. "Jurors aren't going to say, 'Well, they're screwing up, but it doesn't influence this case.' "

But Burke stressed that the lab's mishandling of test results does not mean that the science of DNA evidence is flawed. "We're not implicating the quality of the testing or the tests themselves," he said.

Leahy said he wrote Burke's office last month seeking specifics about the cases that have been mishandled and has not received a reply. He said he is writing nearly 1,000 private lawyers who are appointed to represent indigent defendants to alert them to the potential DNA problems. "We're just accepting the assertion that mistakes in unnamed cases have caused no harm, and that's hardly satisfactory," he said.

State Senator Jarrett T. Barrios , who co- chairs the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, said the increase in mishandled cases makes it more urgent that the committee holds public hearings into problems at the laboratory. He said he hoped to schedule the hearings within weeks but would not do so until the FBI completes its audit of the lab. The FBI, which is focusing on 622 matches that have been made since 2001, has provided no timetable. "There are enormous implications to the failure of the State Police crime lab in this instance, not the least of which is the potential for innocent people being convicted," Barrios said

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