Is this a case of legitimate problems in a crime lab? Or a case of a new employee who couldn’t cut it lashing back through a lawsuit? The accusations are pretty serious. We’ll keep our attention on this one.
Dallas County terminated Nulf in May for insubordination, saying he displayed unsatisfactory progress as a trainee, was unproductive and did not follow procedures at the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Science, also known as SWIFS.
But in a lawsuit to be filed Wednesday, Nulf says he was terminated for pointing out problems inside the lab, including:
• an outdated protocol manual used by analysts to conduct their daily work
• equipment that isn’t calibrated
• analysts using expired chemicals
• criminal case files stored in an unsecured hallway
• a box fan which blew over areas where evidence is examined
“The evidence may have blood flakes on them or hair and fiber on them,” Nulf explained. “If you have a box fan going in the background, those fibers could be blown across the evidence, lost forever or cross-contaminated into someone else’s evidence.”
Expired Chemicals on the Shelf
Read the whole article on the “Grits for Breakfast” blog.
With the understanding that these are simply allegations at this point, here is my take for what it is worth.
1. These allegations highlight the need for meaningful random, unannounced, spot audits conducted by accredited truly independent third party Quality Assurance and ISO trained/certified Quality Lab Auditors. Not CLIA, ASCLD or even the state.
2. There is a need for meaningful third party method and protocol validation for all tests conducted in a forensic environment before a single result makes it way into Court.
4. Additionally, we must insist that all results are reported in a metrologically accepted manner with all sources of error identified and accounted for in an empirical way and reported in a true uncertainty budget.
5. We must also insist on meaningful double blind and truly random proficiency based testing monitored by third parties that are above question and reproach not just for the lab in general, but for each and every technician in the lab.
6. Everything must be totally transparent, documented and most of all traceable.
This is science. What happens now in Courts all across the United States is not science. It is a presentation of science fiction.
For as long as we in America accept the Wizard of Oz hiding behind the curtain of secrecy when it comes to police/Government based forensic science in America, there can be no truly meaningful assurance as the validity of the procedures used, the specificity of the results reported let alone the accuracy and the precision of the expressed opinions/conclusions of the technicians.
Who disagrees?
[…] highly of the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences (SWIFS). If you recall, we posted an entry a while back about SWIFS. Briefly an employee was terminated for purportedly not passing training milestones. The […]