The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina reports that at least in some cases that the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (NC SBI) lab has “ignored evidence” and “twist reports and court testimony when the trust threatened to undermine their cases.” “At the bureau’s crime lab, agents charged with using science to solve crimes have hidden test results or withheld notes that suggested the opposite of findings presented to the courts.”
The police anywhere must be above reproach incidents like this impact individual defendants and the trust that police officers have to rely upon. The North Carolina SBI should be embarrassed and must take steps to immediately clean up the mess. Power corrupts. North Carolina SBI Officers that took part in this should be charged and in jail themselves. Behavior such as this is completely unacceptable. Read the full story.
In a somewhat related story, the science of DNA test statistics has come under scrutiny. In part, the article states:
“The DNA analyst who testified in Smith’s trial said the chances of the DNA coming from someone other than Jackson were 1 in 95,000. But both the prosecution and the analyst’s supervisor said the odds were more like 1 in 47. A later review of the evidence suggested that the chances of the second person’s DNA coming from someone other than Jackson were closer to 1 in 13, while a different statistical method said the chance of seeing this evidence if the DNA came from Jackson is only twice that of the chance of seeing it if it came from someone else.”