There seems to be a DNA scandal brewing in Massachusetts. It broke in the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald over the weekend. The Herald names Robert Pino as an administrator at the State Police DNA lab who was suspended with pay for “botching” DNA tests. The Globe offers this hair raising tidbit in the second paragraph of its story:
The administrator, whom officials would not name, also told police and prosecutors that tests in an unspecified number of cases linked DNA recovered at crime scenes to suspects, when in fact they had not, Colonel Mark F. Delaney, superintendent of the State Police, said in a statement.
DNA Expert Theodore Kessis, who has reviewed the DNA evidence in the high profile case of Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Benjamin LaGuer, sees implications in these new developments for LaGuer’s claims that a botched DNA test falsely implicated him. The test in LaGuer’s case was done at a California lab, but the evidence was catalogued and vetted by the Massachusetts State Police DNA lab, where no attention was paid to obvious signs of contamination danger.
(Cross Posted at MyDD)
I also cross posted this to Daily Kos under the headline GLOBE: Mass. State Police Admits to False DNA Reports where it is starting to generate a lively discussion. A discussion is also taking place at the blog TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime. There the posts are part of the commentariat on the Duke Lacrosse case.
…this explains why it took MONTHS to get a DNA match in the Worthington murder, and the convicted suspect almost went free!