'Betrayed': Forensic science failures undermine justice as labs fail to adopt standards [View all]
Source: USA Today
Published 5:03 a.m. ET Nov. 18, 2024 | Updated 5:03 a.m. ET Nov. 18, 2024
Kathy Eppler had waited seven years to see the man who murdered her two brothers and sister-in-law be punished for his crimes. Garrett Coughlin was sentenced to life without parole in the triple murder, but failures in a forensic lab contributed to the derailment of her long-sought justice.
A forensic scientist with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation manipulated hundreds of DNA test results – including those in the 2017 killings of Eppler's family. So prosecutors offered Coughlin a deal allowing him parole after 24 years. "All of us feel betrayed," Eppler told USA TODAY.
Colorado's crime lab is one of manyacross (sic) the country that have come under fire in recent years as the ripple effects of misconduct and lab errors came to light. Colorado authorities have pledged to review DNA testing practices, but Eppler believes fixing the system will require a complete overhaul of the lab, greater transparency and more outside oversight. "Where the heck's the checks and balances for this? There's nobody regulating," she said.
It has been 15 years since a scathing report blasted scattershot practices at forensic labs across the country, including shoddy analysis of bite marks and blood splatter, and five years since federal researchers began issuing exacting new standards designed to make forensic science more reliable. But only half of the more than 400 largest crime labs across the country have publicly adopted the standards.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/11/18/forensic-science-crime-lab-police-dna-test/75823347007/
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