Management of Forensic Science Labs

In the book Actual Innocence by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld and Jim Dwyer, they describe cases in which people were sent to jail based on the forensic evidence provided by lab scientist. In many cases the scientist miss handled the evidence, or did not even look at. One scientist in particular would not even test the lab material; he would just make out the results to fulfill the police officers suspicions. Another scientist would take the evidence home and keep it in his home fridge with his food. These forensic scientists are just human and are prone to human error, but when that error puts a man in jail for life or on death row to be executed it is a serious error. When questioned and retested on their scientific ability in annual reviews their mistakes were characterized as "minor," saying that they transposed information on reports and missed. These might not seem serious but there implications are anything but minor. Forensic scientists working on police cases have a significant impact on the cases. Much weight is being put on DNA testing in modern times. It can be used to "fingerprint" the criminal, but if it is not being applied correctly than it is useless technology.