Gov. Robert Ehrlich?s newly formed advisory board falls short of providing independent oversight of Maryland?s crime labs, criminal justice reform groups said Tuesday.
“You have clinical labs that are essentially completely self-regulating,” said Michele Nethercott, chief attorney for the Maryland Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that handles cases where post-conviction DNA testing of evidence can yield proof of innocence.
Nethercott was referring to labs that process forensic evidence such as DNA.
The public defender?s office, American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project took issue with Ehrlich?s executive order last week establishing the Maryland Forensic Science Advisory Board to represent the state?s main crime labs and review issues such as quality control and technology.
The board is not fully independent and is just reviewing recommendations made by another task force in 2000, Nethercott said.
“We don?t need more study,” she said. “We need increased resources and increased accountability.”
The groups called for Gov.-elect Martin O?Malley to “embrace a plan that actually reforms the system. …”
A lack of independent review could jeopardize roughly $200,000 in federal money for state and local labs, said Cindy Boersma, legislative director for the ACLU of Maryland.
“Federal funding requires independent oversight because of concerns with the quality of forensic science being performed by technicians in crime labs,” Boersma said.
O?Malley?s spokesman, Rick Abbruzzese, said a transition team is evaluating the crime labs and will make recommendations to O?Malley.
