Free Republic

Massachusetts is reeling from a massive scandal in its state crime lab. Details are still emerging about what officials call a "rogue chemist" who may have mishandled evidence in as many as 40,000 cases over 10 years. It could mean the unraveling of countless convictions. Even lawyers prone to hyperbole may not be overstating it when they call the scandal a catastrophic failure and unmitigated disaster. "Any person who's been convicted of a drug crime in the last several years whose drugs were tested at the lab was very potentially a victim of a very substantial miscarriage of justice," says...

Gov. Bill Richardson's administration and Gov.-elect Susana Martinez continued to play tug-of-war Wednesday over a state operation that is charged with processing DNA samples and maintaining related records on thousands of criminals across New Mexico. The incoming Republican governor, Democratic legislative leaders, prosecutors, defense attorneys, victim advocacy groups and others have opposed the department's plan to relocate the lab.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Thursday that criminal defendants have a constitutional right to cross-examine the forensic analysts who prepare laboratory reports on illegal drugs and other evidence used at trial. The court on Thursday ruled 5-4 for a defendant who was convicted of cocaine trafficking, partly because of crime lab analysis. Luis Melendez-Diaz challenged lab analysis that confirmed cocaine was in plastic bags found in the car he was riding in. Rather than accept the report, Melendez-Diaz said he should be allowed to question the lab analyst about testing methods, how the evidence was preserved and other...

Houston Police Department crime lab analysts fabricated findings in at least four drug cases, an independent investigator reported Tuesday, including one in which a scientist performed no tests before issuing conclusions that supported a police officer's suspicions. The allegations of so-called "drylabbing" — concocting results without conducting analyses — may be among the most serious leveled thus far in the more than two years since the crime lab came under scrutiny. The report, released Tuesday, also casts doubt, for the first time, on the laboratory's largest division, controlled substances, which tests substances suspected of being drugs and performs about 75...

FBI Scientist Probed On OKC Blast WASHINGTON, Aug. 28, 2003 The internal FBI probe is only the latest indication that the defense team was deprived of potentially important evidence. (CBS/AP) The FBI internal affairs office is investigating their crime lab's chief of scientific analysis about his conduct in the Oklahoma City bombing case, according to people familiar with the investigation. The Associated Press reported last spring that a transcript of a Justice Department interview showed that FBI scientific analysis unit chief Steven Burmeister initially had alleged in 1995 that his lab colleagues performed shoddy work in Timothy McVeigh's case, but...

The FBI has a new tool to crack down on criminals with a new high-tech crime lab. KMBC's Jim Flink reported that when Branson Perry, 20, disappeared two years ago, police and FBI agents were stumped until they uncovered an alleged Internet chat-room confession by Jack Wayne Rogers. The FBI seized Rogers' computer as evidence in the case. "A good portion of crime, there's going to be a computer involved. Either the evidence is on the computer or some evidence on a crime," FBI Special Agent Jeff Lanza said. The FBI officially opened this computer-related crime lab in Kansas City...

9 on City Council say he should quit Houston City Council members and police union officials Thursday pressured Police Chief C.O. Bradford to resign amid the latest revelations that he has known about the problems in his department's crime lab for four years. Bradford has called a news conference for 11 a.m. today. A majority of council members said a series of problems beyond the crime lab at HPD has damaged their confidence in Bradford, including last summer's mass arrests at a westside Kmart and his trial on aggravated perjury charges, for which he was acquitted. "He should take the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Ten days before Timothy McVeigh was executed, lawyers for FBI lab employees sent an urgent letter to the attention of Attorney General John Ashcroft alleging that a key prosecution witness in the Oklahoma City bombing trial might have given false testimony about forensic evidence. The allegations involving Steven Burmeister, now the FBI lab's chief of scientific analysis, were never turned over to McVeigh or the trial court, though they surfaced as the judge was considering whether to delay his execution because the government withheld evidence. The letter, however, was recently turned over to bombing conspirator Terry Nichols...

A prominent FBI science witness told federal investigators that his lab colleagues had performed shoddy work in the Timothy McVeigh case, then abruptly retracted several statements before appearing as a prosecution witness at trial, a transcript shows.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Reformed after controversy in the mid-1990s, the FBI crime lab is dealing with new wrongdoing by employees that has opened the door for challenges of the lab's science in scores of cases involving DNA and bullet analysis, internal documents show. One FBI lab scientist, who connected suspects to bullets through lead analysis, has been indicted after admitting she gave false testimony, and a technician has resigned while under investigation for alleged improper testing of more than 100 DNA samples, according to records and interviews. In addition, one of the lab's retired metallurgists is challenging the bureau's science...

March 10, 2003, 12:29PM New DNA test casts doubt on man's 1999 rape conviction By ROMA KHANNA and STEVE McVICKERCopyright 2003 Houston Chronicle New DNA tests have proven that Josiah Sutton could not have committed the rape for which he has served four and a half years in prison after evidence originally processed at the Houston Police crime lab incorrectly linked him to the crime. "The results found essentially that he was not an assailant," said Sutton's attorney, Bob Wicoff, today confirming the results of DNA retesting conducted last week. "They found the DNA of two assailants, neither of...