For years, the State Bureau of Investigation has found a warm welcome and generous checkbook at the legislature, getting a new lab in Greensboro, dozens of new agent positions to investigate meth labs and child porn, more lab analysts, and money to process DNA and firearms evidence.
Next year will be different. Recent revelations about the bureau have legislative leaders ready to force big changes when they next go into session in January.
"The SBI is supposed to do good work and be fair, neutral and truthful," said state Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, a Chapel Hill Democrat who oversees the criminal justice budget. "It doesn't look like we got what we paid for."
A recent audit found that the SBI crime lab withheld or misreported the results of blood tests in at least 230 cases. A series in The News & Observer showed agents cutting corners and crafting experiments and testimony to fit the theories of prosecutors. The problems extend beyond the blood tests to the analysis of firearms, DNA and bloodstain patterns. Field agents obtained questionable confessions, ignored leads and withheld evidence favorable to defendants.
Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, a Manteo Democrat, wants to remove the lab from SBI control so that it does not report to police or prosecutors.
"You have to separate that connection," Basnight said. "There were people who did anything to secure a conviction. How many innocent people have been convicted?"
The revelations have spurred a crisis of confidence in courthouses around the state, said Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, a Republican from Eden. Berger hears it from his son, the district attorney in Rockingham County.
"When folks in law enforcement see something like this occur, it can really call into question everything they are doing," Berger said. "You've got to clear the air."
Counting the costs
Berger and other lawmakers support the recent call by the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys for an audit of the entire SBI lab. The recent audit, performed by two former FBI supervisors at the request of Attorney General Roy Cooper, concentrated solely on the lab's serology section, which analyzes blood and other bodily fluids.
Of six causes the audit cited as the source of the lab's problems, only one was specific to the blood unit. The others could be found elsewhere in the lab: lack of objectivity, lack of transparency, poorly crafted policy, absence of clear report-writing guidelines and inattention to reporting methods that left too much discretion to the individual analyst.
A full audit could be expensive. A thorough audit of the troubled Houston Police Department crime lab took two years and cost $5.3 million.
Basnight, Berger and other lawmakers said the need for faith in the judicial system trumps potential costs, even in today's economic climate.
"The absolute credibility of the judicial system concerns me more than any expense," said House Speaker Joe Hackney.
Hackney, a lawyer who has worked both as a prosecutor and a defense attorney, said he was dismayed at the SBI's behavior.
"The suppression of evidence favorable to the defense - I did not think that was occurring," he said.
One solution to the withholding of evidence would be to allow inmates full access to the files of prosecutors and police. Offenders convicted after Oct. 1, 2004, have had that right under state law, known as open file discovery. Of the 40,018 inmates in North Carolina prisons, 8,973, or 22 percent, did not have open file discovery when they were convicted.
Legislators don't return for a new session until January. But they will begin discussing issues surrounding the SBI as soon as Sept. 16, when the Joint Study Committee on Biological Evidence meets.
Charges may come
The committee will hear from the author of the blood analysis audit, former FBI supervisor Chris Swecker. The committee will discuss an audit of the entire lab, sharing of evidence and the independence of the lab, said Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat who co-chairs the committee.
"This notion that the lab is a sister of the prosecution is an idea that needs to be put to rest," Glazier said. "There are serious quality issues with the products of the lab that cannot continue to exist."
Besides funding an audit, lawmakers need to think about the cost of inmates appealing their convictions based on the SBI's credibility and conduct, Kinnaird said.
"There will be hundreds, if not tens of hundreds," she said. "Not only will it clog up the courts, but it will require lawyers because most of them are indigent. I think this is uncharted territory."
While the legislature is not in the business of trying cases or investigating crimes, a number of lawmakers expect criminal investigations of SBI agents who may have broken the law.
"Did they knowingly and willingly do it?" Basnight said. "I don't know. If they did, they ought to be locked up."
