North Carolina Prosecutor to Review Death Penalty Cases

It’s good to know the prosecutor’s office is going to review death penalty cases. Last thing peo­ple want is another case where an inno­cent per­son is put to death over faulty foren­sic analysis.

A North Carolina pros­e­cu­tor says he will scour all past homi­cide cases in his dis­trict for ques­tion­able work by the State Bureau of Investigations’ crime lab.

Union County District Attorney John Snyder esti­mated his office would have to double-check 100 to 200 cases.

Snyder says Attorney General Roy Cooper should set nation­ally rec­og­nized sci­en­tific stan­dards at the crime lab.

National experts have crit­i­cized some of the SBI lab’s work on blood­stain pat­tern analy­sis as junk sci­ence. Bloodstain analy­sis at the lab has been suspended.

Cooper’s spokes­woman says his office and the SBI are ready to help Snyder and every other dis­trict attor­ney in North Carolina.

New Hanover and Pender County District Attorney Ben David said he is con­sult­ing with mem­bers of the Attorney General’s office about the issue, though he is unaware of any cases where the SBI’s work would affect the guilt or inno­cence of a defendant.

Shouldn’t they look over other cases as well? Innocent peo­ple being incar­cer­ated due to faulty foren­sic evi­dence is also some­thing that should be avoided. Granted the puni­tive dam­ages to the state would be greater for an exe­cu­tion when com­pared to false conviction.

Isn’t look­ing over the death penalty cases an admis­sion that at least some peo­ple in the prosecutor’s office has lost faith in the crime lab?

Originally posted on WECT News online.