Owens had repeatedly complained, inside and outside the lab, about two criminal cases in 2008 in which a fellow chemist failed to detect benzylpiperazine, or BZP, a component of the drug Ecstasy.

Owens’ attorneys asserted the department retaliated because she aired its “dirty laundry.”

Lawyers for police insisted Owens was fired in October 2010 for altogether different reasons.

They said Owens disobeyed orders by working a fatal arson case in May 2010 when she was told drug cases should be her priority. At the time, the department had a 24-hour turnaround time on drug tests. They said Owens went outside her chain of command to protest, then lied about what happened.

One of her attorneys, Hugh Eastwood, insisted that was just a pretext for firing Owens.

“The question for us is, was this right, was this fair, and was this an evenhanded way to treat someone with concerns about incorrect lab reports?” he asked during closing arguments.

Eastwood said jurors needed only to find that Owens’ complaints contributed to her firing, not that they were the sole reason.