A manufacturer of DNA testing kits warned the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in August to stop using certain test kits that had proved prone to giving incomplete results. A civilian employee didn’t throw the kits out or send them back, reports the Los Angeles Times. Thee department kept using the faulty kits for another six months, testing thousands of samples criminal cases and investigations. It wasn’t until Monday that a supervisor discovered the testing-kit company’s notice. The department has opened an internal investigation into the incident as officials face the daunting task of retesting 4,000 samples to see how much the flawed kits may have affected criminal cases. In some cases, existing samples may be too small to retest.
“We take the integrity of our criminal investigations and the reliability of our forensic testing very seriously,” said Sheriff Robert Luna, adding that his agency "is working diligently to assess the impact and to prevent such situations from occurring again.” The department used the defective kits for eight months, from July 2024 through February 2025. Officials said the faulty kits were "not likely to have falsely identified any individual.” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said his office had begun working with the Sheriff’s Department to assess the scope of the problem and make sure those involved are kept informed. Brooke Longuevan, president of the public defenders union, called the situation “deeply concerning.” “This failure will undoubtedly delay criminal cases, leaving our clients in custody waiting even longer for their trials to move forward,” she said. “Serious oversights like this not only jeopardize the integrity of individual cases but also sow public distrust in the criminal legal system and call into question the efficacy and accuracy of criminal investigations.”
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