Media Watch: Anatomy of a Forensics Scandal

Was the New York Post's exclusive story earlier this week quality reporting or tabloid journalism?

According to the Post's scoop, "maybe thousands" of criminal convictions could be thrown into question by allegations of falsification of drug-test results by a technician in the NYPD's forensics laboratory.

Pretty hot stuff. Over the past few days, dozens of media outlets (examples here and here) have picked up the story, and the underlying plot has thickened. But now, a little criminal justice media criticism is in order.

In the original May 11 story, the Post cited unnamed sources stating that veteran NYPD forensics lab technician Mariem Megalla has been suspended, and that a Bronx drug trial was halted last week because she was supposed to testify. The NYPD apparently sent out an emergency e-mail last week to the city's district attorneys, warning them about the potential evidence disaster, and telling them to re-test all evidence in cases in which Megalla had done work. According to an anonymous source, this all prompted a "panicked meeting" on Monday between cops and DAs on how to deal with the "maybe thousands of cases that need to be looked at because of how long she's been in the department."

Sounds horrible, right? But having raised the specter of thousands of wrongful drug convictions, the story lost some of its raw sensationalism once the allegations against Megalla were actually detailed.

The first case concerns her testing 84 glassine bags of suspected cocaine. After 38 of the bags tested positive, the 39th bag tested negative. Rather than re-test, and "knowing that it would come back positive," Megalla simply labeled the 39th bag as cocaine. In the second case, Megalla is accused of labeling a crack pipe that had tested negative for drug residue as positive.

The Post's original story didn't go into the facts of the underlying criminal cases, or what happened to the defendants. Instead, the Post quotes an anonymous source calling Megalla's errors "either sloppiness or laziness." In the past few days, the New York Times has reported that re-testing of the infamous 39th bag confirmed that it was, in fact, cocaine. However, re-testing and confirmation of Megalla's results have not stopped the accused Bronx heroin dealer whose trial was halted because of the scandal from refusing a plea deal. He's hoping the scandal will explode, as the Post seemed to imply it should.

But I'm not convinced. While troubling, these allegations don't suggest anything close to an epidemic in which thousands of innocent people were framed. There's a crucial difference between sloppiness in re-testing and outright falsification of lab results. Right now, it seems unlikely that the Megalla scare will turn into a scandal on scale of those involving, say, West Virginia's Trooper Fred Zain or Tulia, Texas's Tom Coleman (both of which involved the outright fabrication of evidence). Neither does this event point toward police planting evidence, as occurred in the LA Rampart affair and Philly's 39th District scandal.

Of course, the story is still developing. The rubber won't truly hit the road until all evidence in her cases gets re-tested. Until then, the Post deserves some credit for breaking the news, even if the original article traded heavily on implications to generate waves. Just remember the counsel of Chuck D and Public Enemy: Don't Believe The Hype.

Photo Credit: ethermoon