Nassau County Crime Lab Woes

I doubt this is news to anyone living on Long Island over the last six months, but the Nassau County Crime Laboratory has been shut down due to shoddy practices and possible corruption. The problems came to light in December of 2010, when the lab was placed on probation by The American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board. The Board found the Nassau lab to have “15 failures to comply with nationally recognized standards for forensic labs,” including “failure to comply with procedures on maintaining equipment and instruments; failure to properly document procedures for record storage; and failure to properly provide the board with a report of the department’s internal yearly review.”

In February of this year, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and District Attorney Kathleen Rice shut the lab down, revealing that police officials “apparently knew examiners were producing inaccurate measurements in drug cases before December, when a national accreditation agency placed the lab on probation for a second time, citing shoddy work and cutting corners.”

Approximately 9000 defendants may have been wrongfully convicted as a result of these lab test results.

If you believe you may have been wrongfully convicted in Nassau County, you may want to call your lawyer to evaluate your options.