Legal Commentary

Inspector General Report Blasts NYS Crime Lab

By Jeralyn

The New York Inspector General's Office has released its report (available here) on the trace evidence section of the New York State Crime lab and it's chilling.

The New York State Police’s supervision of a crime laboratory was so poor that it overlooked evidence of pervasively shoddy forensics work, allowing an analyst to go undetected for 15 years as he falsified test results and compromised nearly one-third of his 322 cases, an investigation by the state’s inspector general has found.

The examiners in the trace evidence section examine fibers, arson residue, footwear impressions, glass, hair, and other evidence. It finds that State Police Forensic Scientist Garry Veeder, who committed suicide in 2008 while under investigation, "failed to conduct required tests while examining fiber evidence and falsified records to conceal his misconduct." [More...]

The Inspector General determined that Veeder’s longstanding violations of laboratory protocol escaped detection because laboratory staff’s technical, or peer, reviews of Veeder’s fiber examinations were substandard, overlooking obvious indications that Veeder had omitted the required fiber test.

Those who reviewed Veeder's work are also critized. The report recommends they be investigated.

Despite Mr. Veeder’s claims that he had been taught how to falsify test results and had been given inadequate training poorly, State Police investigators and the lab’s management “minimized and precipitously discarded the seriousness and extent of problems” of fiber analysis at the lab.

....“There exists no doubt that laboratory management possessed sufficient information that Veeder’s individual misconduct implicated potentially broader systemic issues, but failed to take appropriate action,” the report said.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 17, 2009 (boomark / email).