ED Kain has an interesting post on crime labs, highlighting a study showing that Indiana’s toxicology lab’s results were awful:

IU hired Colorado-based auditor Forensic Consultants Inc. to examine the paper records for every positive test result from 2007 to 2009. Auditors found errors in 10 percent of marijuana cases and 32 percent of cocaine cases. They were working on the substance involved in the most cases — alcohol — when informed by email to “place a hold” on the audit.

The commission Mitch Daniels appointed stopped that audit because it was too expensive. ED also links to a Balko piece, where he highlights a good suggestion:

Under Koppl’s plan, a city or state would create a position of “evidence handler.” The evidence handler’s job would be to distribute the testable evidence in a case to the appropriate crime lab. Under a fully privatized system, the evidence handler would distribute it to one of a rotating series of private labs. Under a partially-privatized system, there would still be a state lab, but under both systems, in every third case or so, the evidence would be sumbitted to a second or third lab for verification. The original lab would not know when it was being checked by other labs. This system, which Koppl calls “rivalrous redundancy,” flips the incentive problem upside down. For the individual crime lab worker, the incentive is no longer to please prosecutors or police, but to do the most thorough, sound, objective analysis possible. For the private labs, the incentive is to catch the state labs — or another private lab — making a mistake. When there’s conflict over test results, a third or fourth lab could come into the mix.

Unlike the fantasyland CSI series, real-world crime labs are full of errors, and defendants in criminal cases (especially poor ones) have no way to challenge their findings. Indiana’s audit, and a public/private system that uses the possibility of a double-check to ensure higher quality results, are both steps in the right direction.

What’s missing from ED’s piece is recognition that Mitch Daniels, who is pretty good on prison reform, is probably not going to be good on this issue. Daniels is simply looking to save money. Prison reform can save money, so it’s on his to-do list. Auditing the toxicology lab costs money, so his commission shut it down. Daniels is no warrior for liberty, he’s just starving the beast. The plan that Balko advocates will not save money – it’s going to cost to make extra checks. Some taxes will have to be paid in order to get that done. Will libertarians advocate for those taxes in order to ensure more freedom for criminal defendants?