Posted by
KsReaganite on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 3:58:26 PM
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/supreme_court_rules_against_exonerated_inmates_quest_for_damages_against_da/
While the verdict is proper in law and unfortunate in fact,
it missed a major point: the lack of an arms-length relationship between
prosecution and crime labs. While theoretically separate entities in most
jurisdictions, forensic outfits are largely physically housed within the
premises of police or prosecution agencies, have chains of command that
ultimately end at the district attorney or chief of police, and are often
represented by various public employee unions. Such an incestuous relationship
is repugnant to the perception-if not reality always-of fairplay in the criminal justice
system. Given the fact that DNA evidence and advanced biochemical analysis is
fast becoming a surefire tool to separate the guilty from the innocent, the
independence of crime labs-both in matters of reality and perception-cannot be
overemphasized. An ideal situation would demand that such labs and their
personnel are entirely divorced from their inappropriate coziness with
prosecutors and police, and placed under the supervision of a state’s judicial
authorities. At the very least, the chain of command should go directly to the
state versions of the FBI (the KBI in my state, for example), the employees
shielded from the machinations of public employee unions, and the justice
system protected from the inappropriate personal and professional relationships
that can taint due process. That zealous prosecutors, shady policemen and unethical CSIs sleep together
is their sordid business; that such conduct compromises the dispensation of American justice
is ours.