"There are over 20 different units in the lab, and the Inspector General was only able to look at three," said NACDL President Judy Clarke, a federal public defender in Spokane, WA. "The prevailing culture of the lab, which involves examiners not properly performing or documenting tests, and preparing inaccurate reports, and agents testifying about matters beyond their expertise, and much more, suggests that thousands of prosecutions may have been tainted.
"Questions of who, what, when, and how remain. Whose cases have been compromised? What has been ignored, covered up or covered over? When will these persons get a fair trial? How can possibly innocent Americans, wrongly convicted, identify their particular case from the limited scope of this review?"
There is more at stake here than the reputation of the FBI, Clarke said. "The lives and liberty of American citizens are on the line. If the FBI takes the report's recommendations to heart, future injustices may be avoided, but what about those condemned to prison who were cheated out of a fair trial? How will this report help them?"
NACDL sued the Justice Department in federal court in Washington, DC, Feb. 24 to force public release of the draft report. Attorneys for NACDL and the Justice Department will be back in court Wednesday (Apr. 16) before U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler, "to try to determine what further steps can be taken to ensure fairness and due process. This now-documented miscarriage of justice may impact literally thousands of pending and past prosecutions," said Clarke.
A copy of the report is available by clicking on the button below.
NACDL is the preeminent organization in the United States advancing the mission of the
nation's criminal defense lawyers to ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crime.
A professional bar association formed in 1958, NACDL's 9,000 direct members -- and 78 state and
local affiliates with another 25,000 members -- include private criminal defense lawyers, public
defenders, judges and law professors committed to preserving fairness within America's criminal
justice system.
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National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)