The office of the Nassau County District Attorney woke up last week in the middle of a nightmare that might not be over for years.
District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced that the drug testing section of the county’s police lab, already under probation, may have produced false positives that were used in criminal prosecutions. Rice called this news “deeply disturbing.”
We agree.
Aggressive law enforcement, accompanied by education and treatment, is a critical tool in the battle against drug abuse in Nassau County. But the enforcement of the state’s drug laws has been compromised by bad laboratory work.
The cases in question involve drug arrests that occurred between 2007 and 2009 involving Ketamine, known as Special K, and MDMA, known as ecstasy.
Both are popular “club drugs” that in large doses can be deadly. Ketamine can produce a “near death” experience and has been used in date rapes.
Now all of the convictions in Nassau County for the possession or sale of these drugs may have to be reopened. Even cases that resulted in guilty pleas will be reexamined. Such pleas are often based to a large extent on lab results. Defense attorneys will counsel defendants to take a plea offer if the evidence against their client appears strong.
But the nightmare doesn’t end with ecstasy and Special K.
Although Rice did not release details about the questionable tests, it’s safe to assume that the testing for other illegal drugs will also be challenged.
In the wake of this revelation, Rice has ordered that the county’s drug testing lab be closed immediately. She reasoned correctly that the mistakes “make it impossible for our prosecutors to offer narcotics evidence to the court with the fairness and integrity that I believe are required of us.”
What about other testing done by this lab? How far might this nightmare extend? Were the false positives the result of sloppy procedures? Did technicians deliberately cut corners to produce expected results? Are the problems limited to drug testing or might all of this lab’s work come under question?
Marc Gann, the president of the Nassau County Bar Association reasoned that “The entire credibility of the lab is undermined.”
He warned that last week’s revelation is just “the tip of the iceberg.”
Beyond the expense of the mountain of litigation that this news will create, there are two frightening possibilities: The first is that there may be innocent people in the Nassau County jail or in state prison who were convicted by false evidence. The second is that dangerous drug dealers will be handed a “Get out of jail free” ticket.
This is a bad day for law enforcement in Nassau County.
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