North Carolinians' Concern About Crime Lab Continues

"Public Confidence … on the rocks after a string of embarrassing disclosures" says Raleigh newspaper
In recent weeks, more disturbing revelations regarding North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) have surfaced. In a "fox watching the hen house" scenario, it appears that the entity that accredits SBI and other states' crime labs has been missing such problems as the SBI's mishandling of evidence, and is skewing evidence review results to benefit prosecutors - practices that have been ongoing for years.

Then came the news that the individual hired to reform the SBI crime lab just quit - and North Carolina's Attorney General tried to keep it a secret. Given the impact of the mishandling and misreading of evidence on the state's death penalty cases, many North Carolinians, among them Frank R. Baumgartner, political science professor at the University of North Carolina, have urged the state to commute the sentences of the 159 death row prisoners. Meanwhile, since the SBI's crime lab work has been so thoroughly discredited, the bureau is considering having a private lab conduct its forensic investigations.