TheAgitator.com
Report: New York State Crime Lab Tainted by Incompetence, Corruption, Indifference
Friday, December 18th, 2009This week, New York State’s inspector general issued a blistering critique of the state’s crime lab. The report came after a private accrediting organization found significant problems with one particular lab worker who had so little training that he couldn’t operate the microscope he was supposed to be using for hair and fiber analysis. Armed with a cheat sheet from a former supervisor, Gary Veeder managed to fake lab reports in criminal cases for 15 years. He killed himself last year.
A wayward crime lab worker who fakes his way into the job is one thing. A fraud who manages to stay on the job for 15 years is a symptom of mass institutional failure. And that’s the most disturbing part of the story. The institutional failure continued even after the embarrasing episode was exposed. From the New York Times:
…when the State Police became aware of the analyst’s misconduct, an internal review by superiors in the Albany lab deliberately omitted information implicating other analysts and suggesting systemic problems with the way evidence was handled, the report said. Instead, the review focused blame mostly on…Veeder…
Mr. Veeder’s allegations involving other lab workers were never part of the final report to the State Police’s internal affairs division. State Police investigators and the lab’s management “minimized and precipitously discarded the seriousness and extent of problems” at the lab, the inspector general’s report said.
It said that one State Police investigator, Keith Coonrod, mischaracterized Mr. Veeder’s responses implicating other lab scientists and skewed Mr. Veeder’s statements to give the impression that it was his incompetence — not widespread misconduct — that led to the problems.
The IG’s report, on the other hand, took direct aim at Veeder’s superiors, noting, “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 lab’s director, George Zeosky, is still on the job. Assistant Director Richard Nuzzo—whom the report also accuses of intimidating another lab technician—was promoted to a position in the New York State Police Department’s internal affairs office. Which means the guy in part responsible for turning a blind eye to incompetence and misconduct in the state’s crime lab is now investigating other misconduct and incompetence within the department.
New York criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield predicts the report will have no effect at all on the way New York judges treat crime lab reports.
Once the prosecution gets its results from the crime lab, everything after that is all a big joke. The defense testing is viewed as a desperate grasping at straws, making life difficult for the cops and prosecution, and just another waste of time for the court. Sure, judges will acknowledge that state crime labs have their issues, but the “real” problem is always in some other case, before some other judge. Every judge believes that the lab results before him or her are routine. There’s no problem here, counselor. Move along.
What makes scientific results different, however, is their conclusive affect on a judge and jury. If the lab report says so, then so it is. As much as judges and lawyers aren’t scientists, neither are most jurors. We all bow to the god of science, even when we know that it’s not omnipotent.
So the state, at least the Inspector General, acknowledges that the State Police Lab, sucks. Do you think there will be a single judge across the State of New York who refuses to admit a lab report into evidence as a result? I don’t. Not one. Even if it was written in crayon.
The scandal in New York is yet another argument for several of the forensic reforms Roger Koppl suggested in a 2007 report for the Reason Foundation (publisher of Reason magazine and Reason.com). One is to send forensic evidence to private labs for testing and verification of the state crime lab’s results. Even if it’s only on every fourth or fifth or tenth case, as long as state lab technicians don’t know when they’re being checked, you eliminate the bias toward pleasing bosses and prosecutors. You also strengthen the incentive for accuracy.
And that’s the other incentive problem, here. The state crime lab is run by the state police. That isn’t a recipe for objective science. If you’re going to have a state forensics laboratory, it ought to be wholly independent of police agencies and prosecutors.
This episode is also further evidence of the importance of the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, which established that the Constitution’s Confrontation Clause gives defendants the right to cross examine the authors of crime lab reports. That decision had prosecutors across the country raging, complaining about the costs and burdens they now face in making forensic experts available for court. The ruling may already be in jeopardy; the Court will hear arguments next year in a Virginia case that could limit its reach.
Somewhat related: The woman who took Melendez-Diaz all the way to the Supreme Court, where she unsuccessfully argued against a right to cross-examine forensic specialists, was Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. Coakley is the Democratic nominee and heavy favorite in next month’s special election to replace Ted Kennedy in the U.S. Senate.
When the people behind the science cheat, then they forfeit the right not to show their work. Seems pretty basic to me.
You want objective, un-biased science in the courtroom? Are you daft man? We’ve got prisons to populate, drug-counseling centers to fill, and parole officers who need jobs! Won’t someone please think of the prison-industrial complex!!!
Hey, this can’t be true — I watched CSI and it never looked like this.
Thankfully, State Police superintendent, Harry J. Corbitt, is “satisfied that there were no wrongful convictions, nor any miscarriages of justice which resulted from these improper procedures.”
ROFLMAO!
It take a real special mentality to be a cop. “Well, shit. While it’s true we were caught with our pants down around our ankles, we’ll just declare that this complete ineptitude and utter laziness didn’t affect any convictions and everyone will just have to believe us, right?
George #3, that’s the NY City crime lab, this is the state lab. They need to get Mac over there pronto, he’ll have everything on the up and up before you can say boo.
I’m still reeling over this one:
“The analyst’s training was so substandard that at one point last year, investigators discovered he could not properly operate a microscope essential to performing his job, the report released on Thursday said. ”
I understand that these are sophisticated devices and not the ones with the little twisty knobs used in high school science class. But give me a few minutes with an experienced co-worker and I’m sure I could figure it out.
Off Topic Alert: This morning the Grand Jury said that the police were correct to kill Rev. Jonathan Ayers.
Don’t you just love the investigation? Blame everything on the dead guy and keep on with business as usual.
You have to be an evil, sick person. I watched the Witch Hunt documentary last night, and it blew me away at how the current DA and sheriff, who were in charge in the 80s during the Bakersfield witch hunt, could NOT apologize and admit they destroyed lives, and showed no remorse. I am shocked these bastards are still alive. How do you have no evidence, nothing to begin an investigation, go fishing for info to mate with a conclusion that has been reached, and live to tell about it?
There was literally no evidence, very little of the interviews with kids was taped, and people’s lives were destroyed because a kid said something, and it was coerced and taken out of context. What ever happened to real evidence? Jury of your peers — which means idiots, since they didn’t vote not guilty because of ZERO evidence.
Hell yeah! What BamBam said. A special mentality alright, that being one in the same as a sociopath.
Thankfully, State Police superintendent, Harry J. Corbitt, is “satisfied that there were no wrongful convictions, nor any miscarriages of justice which resulted from these improper procedures.”
From the actual Inspector General’s report (click through on the Times article)….
“All 322 cases handled by Veeder from 1993 to 2008, involving fiber and other types of trace evidence, subsequently were reviewed by a group of independent forensic experts retained by the State Police. The independent experts determined that 29 percent of Veeder’s cases were substantively deficient either in their conclusions or documentation, raising serious questions as to his competency. As a result of these findings, the State Police contacted the 44 district attorneys’ offices that had been provided evidence associated with Veeder and advised them of the experts’ conclusions.”
”As a result of these findings, the State Police contacted the 44 district attorneys’ offices that had been provided evidence associated with Veeder and advised them of the experts’ conclusions.”
The mental image of 44 DA’s trying to cover their proverbial asses would be halarious if, it weren’t so f-ing outrageous!
All 322 cases handled by Veeder from 1993 to 2008, involving fiber and other types of trace evidence, subsequently were reviewed by a group of independent forensic experts retained by the State Police.
I question how “independent” these forensic experts could be if they were being paid by the State Police, especially if they could expect future business from said agency.
“…the State Police contacted the 44 district attorneys’ offices that had been provided evidence associated with Veeder and advised them of the experts’ conclusions.”
Heaven forbid that they should actually contact the actual defendants that were prosecuted with that crooked evidence. And yes, crooked is precisely the word I meant to use.
The injured parties here are not the prosecutors.
@Dave K
“Heaven forbid that they should actually contact the actual defendants that were prosecuted with that crooked evidence. And yes, crooked is precisely the word I meant to use.”
Yup, I didn’t see any indication that any defendants were notified. So, it would also be interesting to map out how the “new findings” of those 29 percent impact the disposition of the (93 or 94) cases. I am not a statistics guy, but if this is general incompetence, I would expect to see close to a 50/50 mix of both inculpatory and exculpatory. But I wouldn’t put any money on that….
Report: New York State
Crime LabTainted by Incompetence, Corruption, Indifference