Crime Labs Should Stop Catering to Police and Prosecutors

I’ve com­mented many times about the inher­ent prob­lem with crime labs being a part of, or directly super­vised by police or prosecutors.

Below is an arti­cle that gives evi­dence as to why.

But it’s been a long-standing prob­lem in Texas and else­where that med­ical exam­in­ers and crime labs tend to see police and pros­e­cu­tors as their clients. It’s under­stand­able since the foren­sic tech­ni­cians tend to see their jobs as being to help solve crimes, putting them, in effect, on the law-enforcement team. This is espe­cially true of crime labs that are part of police agen­cies, such as the DPS crime lab, and the Houston Police Crime Lab.
But, in fact, their job isn’t to solve crimes. It’s to pro­duce the best sci­en­tific evi­dence — whether that evi­dence helps the pros­e­cu­tion or the defense. There are moves toward mak­ing crime labs inde­pen­dent, espe­cially in Houston, home of the state’s most noto­ri­ous crime lab scan­dals, where Mayor Annise Parker this week laid out a plan to remove the crime lab from the police depart­ment.
Such moves and more are needed. Texas jus­tice will be served only when foren­sic pro­fes­sion­als work in a cul­ture that sees sci­ence as their clients, not police and prosecutors.

Read more on My San Antonio.