SBI technicians shouldn't be hired guns

Problems with crime labs follow a depressing pattern: a technician makes mistakes or deliberately fudges data. When the errors are eventually discovered, the police and prosecutor scramble to minimize or cover up the problem, out of concern for the viability of both previously adjudicated and pending cases. Eventually heads roll, the lab is reorganized, some innocent individuals go free (or not), and it's back to business as usual. We've seen this in Texas, Washington, New York, currently in San Francisco and even at the FBI and now, here.

Why does it happen, time and again? Part of the problem is the personal integrity of individual lab technicians. While the vast majority of techs are dedicated professionals, the bad apple problem persists. Little can be done to protect against the bad apples, other than very careful screening and hiring practices and ongoing scrutiny.

But there is another, broader, more systemic problem with crime labs that rarely gets discussed, outside of the rarified air of professional meetings and criminal justice classrooms. Your front-page story gave (perhaps inadvertent) attention to the issue in this sentence, discussing the role of certain lab technicians: They examine the patterns left by a victim's or suspect's blood ... and they testify on behalf of the state.

To have the inherent bias of being paid, essentially, to support some investigator's theory of the crime is contrary to both good scientific practice and any rational view of objectivity. After all, that is what crime lab technicians are - they are scientists, conducting scientific experiments. They are trained primarily in biology and chemistry. They shouldn't be hired guns for the prosecution, but that's often how they come to view themselves. The television show "CSI" in its various iterations supports this wrongheaded notion.

The solution? Take taxpayer-funded crime labs out from under the control of the police and prosecutor, and set them up as independent entities available to both the prosecution and defense and beholden to neither. This may not be the complete solution, but it would go far to reinstate the kind of scientific professionalism and objectivity these labs need to be able to provide.

Tom Cadwallader, Ph.D.

Assistant professor, Department of Criminal Justice

N.C. Central University

Durham