Crime Lab Staff to Take the 5^th

Criminal defense attor­neys are always face road­blocks when they try to exer­cise their client’s con­sti­tu­tional right to con­front their accuser. In the case of breath alco­hol test­ing, this usu­ally means the defense isn’t allowed access to the “source code” for the breath tester…that is the com­puter pro­gram­ming that con­trols the behav­ior of the breath tester.

In a new twist, the state seems to have found an even bet­ter way to pre­vent the defense bar to con­front their accuser. The state’s wit­ness will exor­cise their con­sti­tu­tional right not to self-incriminate them­selves, by plead­ing the 5^th. Kudos to pros­e­cu­tors in San Francisco for find­ing a new, less con­vo­luted way to hide poten­tially excul­pa­tory evidence.

The retired crim­i­nal­ist at the cen­ter of San Francisco’s drug lab con­tro­versy said Tuesday through her attor­ney that she will refuse to tes­tify in a drunken dri­ving case, assert­ing her right against self-incrimination.

Deborah Madden’s inten­tion to invoke the Fifth Amendment is the lat­est fall­out from a grow­ing scan­dal that has forced local pros­e­cu­tors to drop hun­dreds of nar­cotics cases.

The attor­ney for the alleged drunken dri­ver had sub­poe­naed Madden — who is sus­pected of skim­ming drugs from the lab — because she had tested equip­ment used to mea­sure sus­pects’ intoxication.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/06/BAL11CQLFE.DTL#ixzz0krHCgz55

Read the entire arti­cle on SFGate.com.