RALEIGH
A blistering report this week identifying how North Carolina's state crime laboratory workers misrepresented blood evidence in dozens of cases over 16 years covered only two of Roy Cooper's years as attorney general.
But it's all Cooper's task to clean up the problems at the State Bureau of Investigation lab and overcome questions about its work. Cooper, a Democrat, faces a long road back to restoring trust in the lab that helps state and local law enforcement.
The lab will need to regain faith from attorneys and the public, as well as the lawmakers who approve funding for the lab and its crime-fighting tools.
Cooper has been a popular state leader who won re-election handily in 2008 and whose name is often floated as a candidate for governor and U.S. Senate. He was praised for his handling of the Duke lacrosse case. His future in elections and working with the General Assembly may hang on whether he carries out reforms in the independent review, and even goes beyond them.
An independent review of blood testing performed in the lab from 1987 to 2003 found 190 cases in which suspects were charged but in which the final lab report omitted evidence that contradicted preliminary tests that indicated blood at a scene. Three of the 190 cases resulted in executions. Four other people convicted are on death row. The report doesn't conclude, however, that innocent people were convicted.
Cooper asked for the review in March after an SBI agent testified that the crime lab once had a policy of excluding complete blood-test results from reports offered to defense lawyers before trials. That testimony led to February's exoneration of Greg Taylor, who had served 17 years on a murder conviction.
The attorney general faced the criticism squarely Wednesday, listening in person to a former FBI leader and lab expert list omitted or misrepresented results that could have led to confessions or pleas because more favorable evidence may have been hidden.
Cooper said that all the report's recommendations would be implemented by new SBI director, Greg McLeod. His office also announced late last week that the lab director would be replaced.
Before the report came out, Cooper had already made changes. He replaced Robin Pendergraft, appointed SBI director in 2001, with McLeod, who was Cooper's legislative lobbyist.
Legislators said that the best way to restore confidence in the lab would be to make the crime lab an agency independent of the Department of Justice that Cooper runs.
"It appears from this report that it went just beyond human error," said Rep. Larry Hall, D-Durham, a lawyer and critic of Cooper's successful effort at the legislature last month to expand DNA testing to some crime suspects. Is this an independent, unbiased lab, or is it to be used as a tool for the prosecution?"
In the lab review, it's now Cooper who will be on the defensive.
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