Laboratory Analyst Falsifies Lab Report

A foren­sic lab­o­ra­tory ana­lyst dry-labs cases. That is, they didn’t actu­ally per­form the foren­sic test­ing they are sup­posed to, and instead just sim­ply authors reports that indi­cate a crime has occurred.

A for­mer chemist with Erie County’s crime lab­o­ra­tory admit­ted she failed to con­duct the proper foren­sic tests in a local drug case, but author­i­ties say they don’t believe what was described as “sloppy” lab work had influ­enced the out­come of crim­i­nal cases.

Kelly McHugh, 36, of Hamburg, pleaded guilty last week in Buffalo City Court to second-degree attempted tam­per­ing with pub­lic records, a Class B mis­de­meanor, which car­ries a max­i­mum of 90 days in jail, accord­ing to the Erie County dis­trict attorney’s office.

McHugh was fired from the Erie County foren­sic lab­o­ra­tory after issues with her work came to a head in February, trig­ger­ing inves­ti­ga­tions by lab offi­cials, the dis­trict attor­ney and state inspec­tor gen­eral to deter­mine the scope of the problem.

“I wanted to make sure no one was sit­ting in jail because of a false report she gave,” said Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III. “That was a top pri­or­ity for me.”

It’s rather impres­sive she was fired. Usually it takes an act of con­gress to get an gov­ern­ment employee fired!

Lab offi­cials, mean­while, exam­ined a sam­pling of 564 of McHugh’s 1,420 cases from 2007 and 2009.

The lengthy inves­ti­ga­tion didn’t reveal any major dis­crep­an­cies that would affect a pend­ing or past crim­i­nal charge, Sedita said.

“We looked at all the cases and found no one was wrong­fully con­victed,” Sedita said.

But the inves­ti­ga­tion did uncover other inci­dents of lab mis­con­duct, the state report pointed out.

In the most bla­tant exam­ple, McHugh exam­ined a sub­stance that tested pos­i­tive for cocaine but failed to report that a retest showed no cocaine. In the end, the test didn’t have an impact on the case, but author­i­ties called her action “inexcusable.”

McHugh wasn’t try­ing to falsely con­vict any­one, Sedita said, but she cut cor­ners in her lab work.

I always LOVE it when a pros­e­cu­tor states “no one was wrong­fully con­victed”. First of all, most pros­e­cu­tors think every­one charged should be con­victed, regard­less of how they go about obtain­ing that con­vic­tion. It’s all very Machiavellian (the ends jus­tify the means). Secondly, how do the pros­e­cu­tors know how the jury would have ruled, had they not had the false testimony/lab report to use as part of delib­er­a­tion.
Next time some­where like Virginia com­plains about the Melendez-Diaz rul­ing, requir­ing the lab­o­ra­tory ana­lyst to tes­tify and be sub­ject to cross-examination, due to the extra “costs”, remind them the defense needs this right, so that char­la­tans like this can be weeded out early.

Read the whole arti­cle in the Buffalo News.