San Francisco, CA. Another crime lab accused of producing misleading results.
A highly regarded prosecutor and DNA expert who was employed for three years at the San Francisco District Attorney's office authored a critique of work at the San Francisco Police Department crime lab earlier this year expressing significant misgivings about the performance of the lab's DNA section supervisor.
The critique, obtained by SF Weekly in response to multiple public-records requests filed with the DA's office, shows that Rockne Harmon -- a veteran of the O.J. Simpson case whom Harris has called "the guru of DNA evidence in the state" -- believed DNA lab unit supervisor Cherisse Boland had written a "misleading" forensic report on evidence found at the scene of a 2007 murder in Visitacion Valley.
The critique also challenges Boland's decision not to search for a match for the majority of the DNA found at the crime scene. The analyst chose instead to focus on trace amounts of DNA that she said linked two suspects arrested by police to the murder.
The release of Harmon's report could further call into question work performed at the crime lab's DNA unit, which is already under attack because of the recent disclosure of an unrelated DNA sample switch in a 2008 homicide case. Defense lawyers say the lab sought to cover up that mistake, and that the DA's office has been slow to share information about problems with DNA evidence with defendants, as it is constitutionally obligated to do.
Harmon has said he is "concerned" that his critique was not shared with defense attorneys through a mass disclosure -- as he suggested to the DA's office -- since it could potentially be used as exculpatory evidence in future cases that involve Boland. Defense lawyers could theoretically use the document to cast doubt on the quality of Boland's work and testimony, particularly in light of Harmon's stature within the criminal justice community.
Link:
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/12/kamala_harris_dna_crime_lab.php