In a time of trouble for some California crime labs, a state panel that oversees the scientific investigators who can make or break a court case convened this month and voted itself out of existence.
The June 3 decision to disband the California Crime Lab Task Force came as scandal and controversy dog the forensic side of the state's criminal justice system from one hot spot to the next.
Matters such as missing drugs and crooked criminalists have threatened thousands of cases in San Francisco and San Joaquin County. Shaky testimony from a purported DNA expert in Sacramento County, meanwhile, put its crime lab under scrutiny.
"I think this means that things will just continue the way they've been," said David Lynch, a Sacramento assistant public defender who was on the task force and opposed the decision to shut it down.
California lawmakers created the 17-member task force in 2007 on a combined 118-0 vote in the Assembly and state Senate. Made up of crime lab directors, defense lawyers, prosecutors, police and sheriff's officials, and academic experts, the panel was charged with reviewing the state of forensics in California and reporting back to the Legislature on how to improve the investigative world of the white coats.
