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Speaker 1: (00:00)
An audit of the San Diego Regional Crime Laboratory in recent years uncovered significant flaws in security and testing protocols, raising doubts about the credibility of evidence used in previous criminal trials. I’m joined by Greg Moran, who is responsible for the criminal justice and legal affairs of the San Diego Tribune. Greg, welcome back to the program. Thanks very much. Good
Speaker 2: (00:32)
Be here. What was
Speaker 1: (00:33)
The reason for this test at all?
Speaker 2: (00:36)
This was a pretty routine check that the Department of Justice, the Federal Department of Justice, is doing on crime labs across the country participating in a very large, uh, DNA database system called Kodesh, which is sort of a main store of information about people charged with crimes at large Land that various police and sheriff departments can tap into to see if a DNA profile they have matches someone who was previously convicted. So the FBI wants to make sure the crime labs operate to federal standards to participate in this program. And they regularly go to laboratories and do an audit. What are
Speaker 1: (01:16)
Some of the key red flags examiners have found?
Speaker 2: (01:19)
Well, that audit was done in 2018, and while the lab found a lot of compliance and good adherence to standards, they were mostly concerned about one thing, which was the safety aspect. Um, and in particular, they found that the San Diego crime lab really had no control over who had access to the lab itself and who couldn’t. Mostly in the form of some kind of electronic key card with which one goes in and out of the laboratory. There was no, apparently comprehensive versus systematic way of tracking who had these cards and who didn’t. And when people who ran out of business in the lab, either private contractors who did work every now and then, or employees who worked there and then left their key cards, stayed active for a very long time. And in one case, at 14 years of age, this raises questions about the safety of the laboratory, who is allowed in and who is not. And of course that’s a real problem when it comes to evidence in criminal cases. why
Speaker 1: (02:18)
Did this exam take long to complete?
Speaker 2: (02:21)
Most of it, but that question about the key carts in the security, just paused for a long time, the auditor said, look, we found you here, you don’t have, uh, really tight control over this access point, please, uh, let us know how you’re going to fix it and tell us. And either this information was not passed on to the auditors or they got it. And then informed the FBI and people not. But, uh, it was at least a year before, uh, the examiners who did this communicated with the county, with the crime lab again, saying, what did you do to rectify or fix this mistake? And then the county was able to get them the information they could. This is what we are doing now. This is kind of our new process and things like that, but it just took a long time for people to somehow fix that
Speaker 1: (03:09)
Laboratory officials denied the results at all
Speaker 2: (03:12)
These, uh, they admitted, and I think they’re kind of embarrassed. Uh, reading their formal response that they don’t have really good control over it now in their defense, they said, look, that test was done in the old building of the lab that was there for many years, the lab was in one small building on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard. And then, in late 2018, they moved into this brand new, hundred million dollar five-story building on the county campus. And part of their reaction has been that when we enter the new building we will have new security procedures, the old key cards will no longer work. You know we’re really going to pin it down, but yeah, they didn’t deny that with all these key cards they didn’t keep track of who could and who could get in very well
Speaker 1: (03:59)
What does this audit say about overall quality control at the San Diego crime lab? Does this indicate any other problems you may encounter?
Speaker 2: (04:09)
Well, they didn’t go that far. The artists did not go that far. This is a fairly narrowly focused review of procedures, but this review takes it in the context of other records and documents. Um, previous audits and evaluations done by other companies, some information that came out in legal proceedings, and so on, shows that this is not an outlier. If we say the lab has had problems with test results over the years with these kinds of access problems with staff and things like that. And it’s not widely known, you know, they’re a really important part of the criminal justice system, but a lot of what goes on in the lab and what comes out of there isn’t scrutinized. And this particular default uncertainty seemed, at least to me, to be part of a larger view of the laboratory that has had some gross stains over the years that it is not known whether it had any impact on cases, but it is certainly a cause for concern Concern, you know, I spoke to an expert who said there is no laboratory in the country.
Speaker 2: (05:11)
This is perfect that has no realizations or has no problems, but here the problem is, if these are the things they find, what are the things that they find? could you be missing?
Speaker 1: (05:21)
Do these issues pose problems for the laboratory’s inclusion in the larger FBI database?
Speaker 2: (05:27)
No. And that’s a great question. No, they were, they could still apply for their accreditation and consent to participate. I mean, by and large, I think the artists here from the federal government found that they generally met most of the requirements to enter and they certainly have not been suspended or taken off the system. You can still access Codas. So no, they are, they are still a part of it. Um, I just think it was kind of like you said, those were some kind of red flags that you wanted to send up and say, hey, you know, you really need to pin this down somehow.
Speaker 1: (05:58)
So is there a chance that some of the questions raised here could cast doubt on evidence that has been used in previous criminal cases?
Speaker 2: (06:06)
Well, that’s really the question, isn’t it? Uh, unfortunately I don’t have a great answer. So, uh, I mean, you know, a lot of the things, I mean, that exam was three years ago, I was reviewing and reading through other artists that were 15 or 20 years ago. Um, well, at this point I don’t know of any other case other than a pending case in, uh, uh, North County that exposed a lot of the problems with the labs. But at the moment I don’t know of a case in which someone has said, hey, you know, I want someone to look at my case because they could be affected by such omissions or mistakes or mistakes. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there, it’s, uh, kind of, uh, I don’t know of any of the defense attorneys pushing forward in the prosecutor’s office, don’t really go to, go and check a lot of cases, the either individual criminologists whose work may have been scrutinized or overall processes that influenced the laboratory, say, it was a long time ago.
Speaker 2: (07:09)
We don’t know which criminalist worked on our case, where something like that happened.
Speaker 1: (07:13)
I spoke to Greg Moran, who is responsible for the criminal justice and legal affairs of the San Diego Tribune. Gregor, thank you for joining us. You are welcome.
Speaker 3: (07:25)
Ah,
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