Posted on 06/01/2005 3:07:47 AM PDT by CrawDaddyCA
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 percent of HPD's forensics work. The latest problems bring to five the number of crime lab disciplines where errors have been exposed — including DNA, toxicology, ballistics and the blood-typing science of serology.
" 'Drylabbing' is the most egregious form of scientific misconduct that can occur in a forensic laboratory," Michael Bromwich, a former U.S. Justice Department official leading an investigation of the HPD lab, wrote in the report.
"In the crime lab, the instances of drylabbing took the form of controlled substances analysts creating false documentation intended to reflect analytical procedures that were never performed."
Investigators reported finding four instances between 1998 and 2000 in which two analysts, whom they do not name, issued findings for tests they never conducted.
In each case, the analysts' supervisors caught the misrepresentations before the evidence could be introduced in court.
"We can't say for certain that we have found every instance, but my confidence level is boosted by what seems to have been the competence of first-level supervisors," Bromwich said Tuesday.
Still working at lab
One analyst resigned in March 2001, but the other still works at the crime lab. Police internal investigators recommended disciplinary action in each case, but supervisors in the controlled substances division were disappointed when neither analyst received more than a four-day suspension, Bromwich reported.
"At least one of the supervisors believed strongly that both analysts should have been terminated immediately once the frauds were identified," he wrote.
Department spokesman Lt. Robert Manzo acknowledged that one of the workers cited in the report — whom he would not name — continues to work in the lab. The employee has been retrained and his work is closely monitored, Manzo said.
"I can fully understand the concern that a person would have," Manzo added. "But I'm also aware of the fact that not all cases of misconduct should result in the termination of that employee."
HPD's attempts to fire or issue lengthy suspensions for analysts in the DNA division also have been overturned on appeal. One analyst, who performed tests that sent an innocent man to prison for more than four years for rape, was reinstated after the police chief recommended she be fired.
The controlled-substances analyst who fabricated conclusions to support an investigating officer's theory identified tablets from a 1998 case as a date-rape drug, of which possession is a felony, Bromwich's team reported. A supervisor discovered the pills actually were another drug, of which possession is a misdemeanor.
"The supervisor determined that the analyst never tested the tablets recovered from the defendant but, rather, tested a standard sample of (the date rape drug) and reported those results ... as though the tests related to the tablets possessed by the defendant," the report says.
The defendant's charge was reduced.
Two years later, the same analyst printed out a co-worker's test results from another case and put them in his own case file, the report states. The analyst resigned after a supervisor discovered the misconduct and the police chief considered termination.
The second analyst, who remains at the crime lab, was accused of falsifying results in two 1999 cases. In one, the analyst identified tablets as a controlled substance without performing tests and falsified data to support the incorrect conclusion, according to the report.
The analyst received a written reprimand in that instance.
In the second case, the analyst tested only one of two tablets from an evidence sample and used the data from the first tablet for the second. The analyst was suspended for three days.
The revelations raise questions about numerous cases handled by the crime lab's busiest division, said Stanley Schneider, past president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association.
"This is incredible," said Schneider. "How do you go back and prove someone is innocent? The people whose cases were tested by those lab workers: Are they innocent?"
Quality-control debate
District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal pointed out that the misconduct was caught before the cases went to trial.
Police Chief Harold Hurtt was unavailable for comment Tuesday, but Executive Assistant Chief Martha Montalvo noted that the drug-testing problems are years old.
"There are new checks and balances in place, as well as quality control measures," she said through a spokesman.
The investigation team's report also highlights problems that led to the shuttering of the crime lab's DNA division, which has been closed since December 2002.
The report cited the absence of strong leadership and quality-control procedures as major reasons for DNA lab problems. Analysts in the crime lab complained to then-Police Chief C.O. Bradford about the lack of supervision as early as 1999, according to documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle in June 2003.
Bromwich and his team are expected to complete the first stage of their investigation by the end of June.
When innocent people are thrown in jail, it should damn well result in termination...and prosecution, but it won't. LEO's protect their own against 'the little people'.
Disgusting.
They were watching too much CSI while doing their work.
So much for the spin-off "CSI: Houston"
So much for the spin-off "CSI: Houston"
Yeah, they botched their auditions so they decided not to do it.
I doubt any innocent persons went to jail because of what these employees did. However it is possible. Howvere that being said look at the recriminations, the costs of going back to all of the cases in which these people were involved, The DNA lab still being closed. Termination.? It isnt good enough these people should serve out the time that was given out to a victim of their laziness.
Some more professionalism exhibited by government workers. Hey, if your promotions are based on politics and not professionalism and you can't be fired, why be professional at all?
Note: Rule applies to ALL government workers from the Federal level down to city and county levels.
The powder was in a small zip lock bag about big enough to hold a coin or jewel. I asked the chemist how she knew what to test for and she said she could tell by the smell.
Being inexperienced, I opened the bag, held it up to my nose and tried to see what it smelled like. Before the startled chemist could run over and grab it out of my hand there was no evidence left. But for some reason I didn't care.
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