Sun coverage: City crime lab problems -- baltimoresun.com

January 9, 2009

Baltimore police won't release crime lab analysis

Baltimore police have refused to release a report from an outside group detailing problems in the city's crime lab, arguing that revealing the findings would be "contrary to the public interest," according to a letter from the Police Department's chief attorney, Mark H. Grimes.

December 18, 2008

Group urges probe of city crime lab

A national legal group that works to reverse wrongful convictions called on state police yesterday to investigate possible "negligence" or "misconduct" in the city's crime lab after revelations that technicians had left their own DNA on evidence in at least 13 cases.

September 7, 2008

Dubious science

Forensic evidence - DNA on a victim, gunshot residue on a hand, fingerprints on a weapon - holds a special place in courtrooms, often treated as irrefutable proof that police have nabbed the bad guy. But the labs processing that prized evidence can sometimes become the suspects.

August 27, 2008

Accrediting agency to review city crime laboratory

The national accrediting agency for crime laboratories will visit Baltimore in the wake of revelations that city lab employees contaminated evidence with their own DNA.

August 22, 2008

Lab issues sure to arise in court

Relying on a hit from the state DNA database, Baltimore police arrested a suspect last year in the long-unsolved rape and killing of Lisa Barselou, a 26-year-old who was assaulted and then submerged in the bathtub of her Bolton Hill home in 1989.

August 21, 2008

City crime lab director fired

Baltimore crime analysts have been contaminating evidence with their own DNA - a revelation that led to the dismissal this week of the city Police Department's crime lab director and prompted questions yesterday from defense attorneys and forensic experts about the professionalism of the state's biggest and busiest crime lab.