News: Nassau County Shuts Down Crime Lab
(Long Island, N.Y.) Last Friday Nassau County‘s crime lab was shut down as a precautionary policy due to indications that some of the drug testing performed in criminal cases did not produce accurate results. This affects cases that have already been taken to trial and have received verdicts. The recent information may force the county to reexamine past proceedings.
Not surprisingly, Nassau County is arming themselves with a team of defense attorneys. Assuming that the county will have to reconstruct an improved crime lab at the end of the investigation, many Long Islanders are wondering where Nassau County will be getting the finances to complete the project. Just weeks ago, Nassau County announced a state takeover of the 2011 budget and a lawsuit challenging the validity of such an action.
Legally, Nassau County will try to establish a set of rules and create laws to ensure that future crime labs will never again fall under question. The Nassau County Bar Association, which will be creating a task force to make recommendations going forward, has over six thousand members. It is the largest group of suburban law staff in the country.
Most of the criminal cases mishandled by the crime lab were for faulty measurements in drug charges. However, some say that police and lab officials knew about inaccuracies months before the investigation. In admitting to the attempt at a cover up, at least one worker testified to having known about the potential problem with drug measurements since 2006.
What’s being called into question is a grouping of roughly nine thousand cases over the three year period of 2007-2010. These cases will undergo re-measuring and examining to insure the correct findings. In addition to providing the measurements for drug cases, the crime lab deals with cases involving alcohol. The lab determines blood alcohol levels, analyzes DNA samples in homicide cases, and deals with ballistics.
In the testing of nine cases, the lab has already proven that six are responsible for the faulty measuring of ecstasy and ketamine, causing those prosecuted in the cases to be the victims of inaccurate information. The discrepancy in amount could mean the difference between a felony and misdemeanor charge against those convicted. This has led to lengthier sentencing for the guilty parties than what is normally given in cases involving similar amounts collected for the charge.
As a result of the inaccuracies, some prisoners may get to see reduced time behind bars or an overturn of their sentence. Lawyers in sixteen separate cases have already begun to process the challenges of previous convictions. These procedures also apply to convicted persons who are serving time as the result of plea bargains – had facts in the case been altered, the parties involved may not have chosen to plead guilty.
With Nassau County‘s crime lab closed down, county officials are looking to outsource their forensic work to lab agencies in Pennsylvania. Not surprisingly, the expenses involved in outsourcing cases pose an issue for the county budget. Nassau County‘s crime lab was put on probation twice; the last time was in December of 2010, which resulted in findings that sparked the grand-scale investigation. There are over four hundred crime labs in the country, and Nassau County is home to the only one to be under current probation.
Another allegation that came out of December’s probation is that the lab did not keep updated maintenance work on its equipment. It was also reported that there were issues with the lab’s recordkeeping and the storage of evidence used in a variety of cases. The previous probation came less than three years prior to December’s fiasco.
