Santa Clara County DA criticized for crime lab failures

Originally posted here.

The Santa Clara County dis­trict attor­ney has opened the door to the pos­si­bil­ity of wrong­ful con­vic­tions by fail­ing to objec­tively inves­ti­gate crime lab errors, the national Innocence Project charged this week.

The group, in a national report released this week, sin­gled out the local pros­e­cu­tor for fail­ing to hire an out­side agency to inves­ti­gate a for­mal com­plaint that fol­lowed the 2007 dis­cov­ery that Jeffrey Rodriguez had been wrongly con­victed of rob­bery based on faulty tes­ti­mony from a crime lab ana­lyst con­cern­ing a stain found on the defendant’s pants.

Agencies fac­ing alle­ga­tions of crime lab wrong­do­ing are both vio­lat­ing the law and risk­ing pub­lic safety by con­duct­ing their own inves­ti­ga­tions, the report con­cludes, cit­ing a 5-year-old fed­eral law that requires inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions of prob­lems in any crime labs accept­ing fed­eral grants. The report includes the results of a national sur­vey, which shows labs around the coun­try have failed to cre­ate pro­ce­dures for inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions of crime lab problems.

The risk in such inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tions is that “inno­cent peo­ple end up get­ting con­victed and per­pe­tra­tors of crime remain free,” said Stephen Saloom, pol­icy direc­tor of the Innocence Project, cit­ing the case of Rodriguez.

A spokesman for the District Attorney’s Office responded that District Attorney Dolores Carr, who over­sees the crime lab, has a strong inter­est in mak­ing cer­tain that any lab prob­lems are identified

“It’s in our best inter­est to make sure the foren­sic work is fair and con­sis­tent. It’s the DA’s rep­u­ta­tion and the rep­u­ta­tion of the office,” spokesman Nick Muyo said. “For peo­ple who are say­ing we can’t inves­ti­gate our­selves, our response is we stand the most to lose so it would behoove us to do a com­plete and thor­ough investigation.”

He noted that the U.S. Department of Justice, which over­sees the grant, has not sanc­tioned the District Attorney’s Office or any of the many other agen­cies that inves­ti­gate their own crime labs. “We answer to the peo­ple who give us the money,” Muyo said.

Rodriguez was con­victed at a 2003 retrial of being the rob­ber who took the wal­let of a man from a load­ing dock behind a Kragen Auto Parts store. One key piece of evi­dence in the case was the tes­ti­mony by crime lab ana­lyst Mark Moriyama that a stain on Rodriguez’s pants was “indica­tive” of the com­bi­na­tion of motor oil and cook­ing oil — a com­bi­na­tion that pros­e­cu­tor John Luft con­tended likely came from the mix of oils dumped at the load­ing dock.

The con­vic­tion later was over­turned, based on find­ing that Rodriguez’s pri­vate attor­ney had failed to prop­erly rep­re­sent him.

But before the case could be retried, state and fed­eral ana­lysts exam­ined the pants and con­cluded it was not accu­rate to say there was evi­dence of oil stain on the pants, since the chem­i­cals Moriyama ana­lyzed could have come from a wide vari­ety of sources other than oil — includ­ing laun­dry detergent.

The District Attorney’s Office then dropped the case, and Rodriguez was declared inno­cent by a Superior Court judge. After the Northern California Innocence Project direc­tor, Kathleen Ridolfi, filed a com­plaint under the fed­eral law — since the lab received $206,000 in grant money — an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion by the District Attorney’s Office con­cluded that Moriyama’s lab report and tes­ti­mony were more a prob­lem of lan­guage than sci­en­tific error.

That find­ing came under sharp crit­i­cism, and the Innocence Project as well as Michael Kresser, the direc­tor of a state agency that assisted in Rodriguez’s appeal, called upon Carr to reopen the inves­ti­ga­tion, which she declined.

Moriyama was reas­signed fol­low­ing that case from serv­ing as the crime lab’s fiber expert. His work had come under scrutiny in other cases as well. Moriyama had failed cer­ti­fi­ca­tion tests. And mur­der charges against Maurice Nasmeh, in the high-profile killing of Los Gatos woman Jeanine Harms, were dropped in 2007, after a defense expert chal­lenged Nasmeh’s find­ing link­ing fibers in the back of Nasmeh’s vehi­cle to a rug Harms was making.

Officials in the District Attorney’s Office said Friday they have not yet com­pleted their re-investigation of the evi­dence in that case.

District attor­ney spokesman Muyo said Friday that his office had re-examined Moriyama’s other cases and found “no evi­dence to sug­gest that he either tes­ti­fied wrong or com­mit­ted any errors.” He also said that the office reviewed crime lab pro­fi­ciency tests for all the lab ana­lysts from 2003 to 2006 — almost 643 tests — and that only six indi­cated any need for cor­rec­tive action, which he said was taken.

Muyo also said that fol­low­ing the inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, Carr insti­tuted other changes designed to guard against mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, includ­ing assign­ing a mem­ber of her staff as a lab liai­son, as well as pro­vid­ing extra training.