Have forensic examiners or crime labs in your city or county used unreliable forensics, that preventing them from solving crimes, or that led to wrongful convictions?  Perhaps the largest-scale reversal of criminal convictions in American history occurred due to rampant errors in what turned out to extend to not just one but two major Massachusetts drug testing labs. It took years for police to uncover the lab misconduct, and judges took action after still additional years passed, where prosecutors were not quick to disclose what had happened or to share records with the defense.  Tens of thousands of cases were reversed, others are being reexamined, and the cost of the audits have soared about thirty million dollars.  

            The large-scale fraud at the Massachusetts lab was of record size but it was no aberration. We have documented over 130 crime lab scandals, involving errors or audits of multiple cases, at labs across the country. These are situations in reviews occurred in response to problems; we may never know how often issues arose and did not result in any public response.  Failures to test evidence have also occurred on a massive scale.  In some jurisdictions, thousands or tens of thousands of rape kits have languished untested.  Flawed police priorities and flawed science have contributed to bias, wrongful convictions, and failures to press charges against serious culprits.