Talk about a defense attorney’s wildest dream! The article SFAppeal Online Newspaper seems to imply that Deborah Madden wasn’t the only drug chemist in the San Francisco PD crime lab skimming drugs. Only a thorough investigation will find out if these are truthful accusations, or attempts to make herself not look as bad.
This is just another example of why private labs would be a better choice. Private labs would not be prevented from having their employees random drug tested. Many government employees are exempt from random drug testing by an interested court interpretation of the 4th Amendment (Illegal Search and Seizure by the government).
For defendants accused of drug crimes, a single gram of cocaine or heroin can be the difference between probation and prison, yet discrepancies of up to a gram of all drugs tested at the SFPD crime lab were “routine,” according to testimony, so routine that multiple crime lab technicians — not just the San Mateo woman at the center of the scandal — would “laugh at it.”
During a February interview, accused crime lab cocaine filcher Deborah Madden told SFPD investigators that she had “seen tons of times when we reanalysis someone else’s dope, and the weights have been way off.”
When asked why the discrepancies were never reported, Madden replied, “I don’t know, we just kinda laughed at it,” according to testimony. Weight discrepancies up to as much as a gram “in all drugs” were “laughable,” Madden said.
Related posts:
