WASHINGTON-Life-and-death questions shadow misconduct at the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory, where investigators discovered that a lab analyst cut corners and falsified reports: Were the innocent convicted, and did the guilty go free?
The answer is troubling: In many cases, the destruction of evidence and the passage of time make it impossible to know.
“How do you resolve the question when you have no way, when the original samples have been lost and there is no way to retest them?” attorney Frank Spinner asked lab official Michael Auvdel at a July 2008 court hearing.
“I cannot resolve it,” Auvdel replied, a trial transcript shows.
Also unclear: Are there court-martialed men and women who still don’t know about the discrediting of the analyst who contributed to their convictions?