A Law Enforcement Icon Takes a Public Thrashing

Wisdom holds that reverential belief in an institution can be misplaced. When a well-earned reputation becomes a dangerously unquestioned assumption, decline can go unnoticed. The FBI’s crime laboratory is a case in point.

The lab and its work were considered state of the art in scientific examination of evidence. In big court cases, its forensic report was the final word. But now, after troubling allegations in recent months, the FBI’s own inspector general, Michael R. Bromwich, has confirmed a shocking decline in professionalism at the lab.

Bromwich and a staff of five prominent scientists have reported that FBI crime lab scientists and technicians used shoddy analysis and failed to follow established procedures in scores of cases. The team found significant errors in testimony, substandard analytical work and deficient practices in the lab’s chemistry and toxicology, explosives and materials analysis units.

There is some good news. Problems were not found in the vast majority of cases handled by the lab. Specific technicians and lab chiefs identified in most of the problem cases have been removed from the lab, and the normally insular FBI has owned up to the problem and vowed to embrace all of Bromwich’s many recommendations. Those include appointment of a new FBI lab director from outside the bureau and seeking accreditation for the lab from the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors.

Evidence is sparse that the errors have damaged criminal cases, but the fact that some were made in such prominent trials as the O.J. Simpson double-murder case and the World Trade Center terrorist bombing is troubling.

There can be no doubt that the attorneys defending Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing trial will make direct use of Bromwich’s charges. The inspector general’s report cited erroneous conclusions, inadequate reviews and the ominous finding that some errors were “tilted in such a way as to incriminate the defendants” in that case.

“We regret we got to this point in the FBI,” Deputy Director William Esposito said. More than apologies obviously will be demanded.

The crime lab was once the rock on which the FBI weathered tough times. Prosecutors across the nation sent evidence there even when their local labs were fully capable of performing the work, just to have FBI lab testimony to seal a guilty verdict.

The Clinton administration and Congress must provide the resources and oversight necessary to regain that status for the crime lab. Too much is riding on its abilities to settle for anything less.