"A state police lab technician’s recent removal for improperly testing a
drug sample points to a breakdown in a critical review system and could
put the entire lab’s credibility in question, forensic experts and
defense attorneys said Friday. Some of them called for an independent
investigation of the Little Falls operation. Kamal Shah was suspended after he was observed writing test results for
a sample that he had not tested, according to the state Attorney
General’s Office. The breach was serious enough to prompt the office to
send a letter on Feb. 22 to all county prosecutors, notifying them of
Shah’s removal and instructing them to contact defense lawyers for cases
in which Shah’s lab reports may have been used. In the 10 years that he
worked at the lab, Shah handled more than 7,800 cases, the Attorney
General’s Office said. The letter, written by Elie Honig, director of the Division of Criminal
Justice at the Attorney General’s Office, stressed that the move was
made “in an abundance of caution.” But experts and defense attorneys say that a statewide decree from one
of New Jersey’s highest ranking law enforcement officials to identify
and review more than 7,800 narcotics cases reflects a systemic problem
at the lab that goes far beyond one technician. “We won’t know until it is investigated properly, but there was some
sort of a breakdown in the system,” said Richard Saferstein, a retired
state police chief forensic scientist who now works as a consultant. Saferstein said that when a lab technician conducts a test, the finding is always reviewed by other colleagues. “There was always a checker that signed off on it,” Saferstein said.
“Whatever system they had, it broke down.” Saferstein said that in such
cases, the best remedy is to bring in an outside investigator to review
what went wrong. Emile Lisboa, a Hackensack criminal defense lawyer, said that every lab
technician’s finding is peer-reviewed by another lab technician and is
signed off by a supervisor. He said Shah peer-reviewed the findings of
other lab technicians who were preparing reports in drug cases. It would
be impossible to question the validity of Shah’s cases without casting
doubt on the lab technicians and supervisors who signed off on his test
results, he said..........Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office,
declined to comment when asked whether questions surrounding cases Shah
handled would cast doubt on the other lab technicians who peer-reviewed
his tests. He also declined to comment on whether the office is concerned about
the integrity of drug tests that were conducted by other lab technicians
and peer-reviewed by Shah. Laura Sutnick, a criminal defense lawyer, said the state should conduct
an internal audit of the Little Falls lab where Shah worked for a
decade. “Are there random checks done? Are there any audits?” Sutnick said.
“What is going on in that lab to make sure that the integrity of the
criminal justice system remains?” Jean-Jacques Cabou, a member of the board of directors of the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said that revelations of
improper conduct at forensic labs often set off a chain of events that
could go on for years. Cabou has been involved in legal proceedings in Massachusetts in the
aftermath of the arrest of Annie Dookan, a chemist who admitted to
falsifying crime lab evidence that affected tens of thousands of
criminal cases. Dookan was sent to prison in 2013, while prosecutors,
defense lawyers, their clients and other groups sought legal remedies
for defendants affected by her misconduct. Those proceedings are likely
to continue for years, Cabou said. “In my view, that is an experience that will be coming to the courts of New Jersey,” he said."
http://www.northjersey.com/news/new-jersey-crime-lab-faces-doubts-after-technician-s-suspension-1.1522906
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