For Immediate Release: December 12, 2006

Contacts:
Michele Nethercott, MOPD
410-223-3790

Meredith Curtis, ACLU-MD
410-889-8555

Shawn Armbrust, MAIP
202-274-4199

While applauding outgoing Governor Robert Ehrlich’s recent attention to the need for crime lab reform in Maryland, the Maryland Office of the Public Defender and several criminal justice reform groups are disappointed that his December Executive Order acknowledges the need for improved funding and accountability but takes no action to improve public safety by combating the problems with Maryland’s crime labs. The groups call on Governor-elect Martin O’Malley to reduce the risk of unreliable criminal convictions and boost needed federal funding for the State’s crime labs by embracing a plan that actually reforms the system, rather than continuing to study it.

“A cholesterol test is subject to more oversight than a DNA test used in a homicide or rape prosecution,” said Michele Nethercott, Chief Attorney for the Maryland Innocence Project, a program of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. “Maryland’s crime labs need both additional funding and accountability. This is a public safety threat that Maryland can no longer afford to ignore.”

The Governor’s Executive Order 01.01.2006.11, entitled Maryland Forensic Sciences Advisory Board, establishes an advisory board to assist with collaboration among crime labs, and to promote funding, training and technology improvements. It asks the new advisory board, composed primarily of representatives of the state’s eight crime labs, to review and update the recommendations of a 2001 gubernatorial task force on crime labs. Currently, there are no mandatory quality assurance standards for crime labs and no independent, external oversight of their operations.

“The fox is still guarding the hen house,” said Cindy Boersma, Legislative Director for the ACLU of Maryland. “Despite repeated calls for standards and independent enforcement, despite wrongful convictions based in part upon problematic crime lab evidence, and despite prosecutions jeopardized by poor forensics, Maryland has failed to address the real issues. We ask that Governor-elect O’Malley establish independent standards and accountability together with adequate funding for crime labs as part of his public safety agenda.”

Crime labs that lack funding, oversight, and standards are more likely to produce erroneous evidence that is used to prosecute and convict the wrong people, allowing the guilty to remain in the community and pose a public danger while subjecting innocent people to the possibility of convictions for crimes they did not commit.

“Governor Ehrlich has created a task force charged with reviewing the work of a task force,” said Shawn Armbrust of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project. “Crime lab scandals across the country underscore the need for standards and accountability for crime labs, just like we provide for clinical laboratories.”

Federal law enacted in 2004 in response to concerns about the nationwide problems with inadequate oversight of crime laboratories requires independent crime lab oversight. Without it, Maryland is not eligible for specific types of federal funding for crime labs. Currently, Maryland’s forensic labs operate without any mandatory standards for the scientific validity of their procedures, the quality of technician training or performance, or the quality of the equipment used to forensic analysis. They operate without any licensing or inspection of the lab or lab work product, including DNA testing, blood testing, and gunshot residue testing – all evidence used to identify and convict violent offenders. Gov. Ehrlich’s executive order does not bring Maryland into compliance with federal law or mandate any quality assurance.

There are two reasons the integrity of crime lab analysis is jeopardized. One is funding: Maryland’s crime labs are understaffed with insufficient funds for recruitment, training, employee retention, adequate facilities and equipment. The other is accountability. There is no organization charged with setting or enforcing minimal quality assurance standards in Maryland and as a result there is no incentive for improved funding or improved quality. Again, Gov. Ehrlich’s executive order neither increases funding to crime labs nor imposes any quality assurance standards.

Continued Armbrust: “It has become abundantly clear that self-regulation by forensic labs has failed nationally and here in Maryland. We need to stop studying and start solving the problem.”

Advocates are preparing draft legislation for the 2007 session of the Maryland General Assembly to create a state forensic lab oversight body modeled after the state’s clinical lab oversight statute.

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