Judge Blasts DA's Office for Not Disclosing Issues with Crime Lab Tech's Work
A California judge blasted the San Francisco District Attorney’s office in an opinion today, saying that high-level officials there had repeatedly failed to provide defendants with constitutionally required exculpatory information that cast a negative light on the work of a San Francisco police crime lab technician.
Some 600 cases have been dismissed since questions about the work of technician Deborah Madden became public. While stopping short of granting a blanket dismissal of 40 more drug cases, as the defendants had requested, Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo provided ammunition for subsequent individual hearings on the dismissal issue.
She held that District Attorney Kamala Harris’ office erred by not disclosing either a 2008 misdemeanor domestic violence conviction of Madden or an internal memo by a lead drug prosecutor complaining that Madden was unreliable, among other information, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
And the judge also contended that Harris’ office had displayed “a level of indifference” to its duty to develop a procedure to gather and disclose adverse information about Madden.
Public Defender Jeff Adachi said the judge’s ruling “really hits the ball out of the park by setting forth multiple failures by the district attorney to disclose evidence.”
However, a spokeswoman for the district attorney also proclaimed victory, saying in a written statement that “the bottom line” was Massullo’s response to the request to dismiss all 40 cases. “She didn’t. Not one case.”
Earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Judge to Review 1,100 Crime Lab Docs; PD: ‘This Could Be Pandora’s Box’”
ABAJournal.com: “Judge Asks DA to Drop Hundreds of Drug Cases, Says Gov’t Didn’t Check for Witness Issues”
